Although feather and hair crappie jigs are great, my personal favorites are soft plastic crappie baits. Whether that be the classic crappie tube, or some other variation of bait fish imitator, plastics are my preference. Let’s find out who makes the best plastic jigs for crappie.
- Bobby Garland
- Mr. Crappie (Strike King)
- Arkie
- Southern Pro
- Midsouth Tackle
- Panfish Assassin
- Big Bite Baits
- Basspro Squirmin Squirt
- Others
Bobby Garland Crappie Baits
Bobby Garland is probably the largest and best known manufacturer of crappie baits. From my experience, almost anything Bobby Garland puts out is good. When you pick up a Bobby Garland bait, and compare it side by side with many other brands, the quality is noticeable.
With Bobby Garland plastic jigs, you get amazing lifelike action. In fact, I can’t hold a Bobby Garland Baby Shad without the tail wiggling. I’ve tried to do so, and even if I hold my breath and really focus, the tail still jiggles about. Imagine what that tail is doing underwater. I believe at times this lifelike quality really helps entice more bites.
A Potential Negative For Some
As with most things, there are positives and negatives, and Bobby Garland baits are no exception. Because of the pliable nature of their baits, they may not hold up as well as some other brands. So, You’re likely going to go through more baits over time. This is certainly not unique to Bobby Garland, as this will nearly always be the case with any small soft bait.
If you’re more budget minded, maybe you could find some cheaper, more durable options. I don’t personally have a problem with wear and tear of a bait, as long as I’m catching fish. I want the best possible bait that gets me the most strikes, and I think that’s what you get with Bobby Garland crappie baits.
Bobby Garland Straight Tail Crappie Baits
In recent years, lots of crappie anglers seem to have moved over from hollow tube style baits to solid body straight tail crappie baits. The Bobby Garland Baby Shad is a sure fire winner in this genre of bait. The Baby Shad, and Slab Slay’r (pictured above) are my two favorite designs by Bobby Garland.
Bobby Garland Colors
Besides being one of the best quality baits out there, in my opinion, Bobby Garland also has the best colors on the market. I can’t seem to resist buying whatever they put out.
Their “Cajun Cricket” and “Outlaw Special” are good colors in stained water, and “Monkey Milk” and “Blue Ice” are great clear water options. There are tons of other awesome colors in their lineup, but these four will get you started.
For more about the best colors for crappie jigs, you can check out my article about that here: The Best Colors For Crappie Baits
Mr Crappie (Strike King) Baits
There are quite a few good crappie baits and other products put out under the Mr. Crappie name. Mr. Crappie is a line of Strike King baits designed by Wally Marshall.
I’ve used all sorts of Strike King baits over the years for both bass and crappie, and they always seem to be of high quality. The Mr. Crappie series is no different. In fact, when I lay them out side by side, they seem to be of similar quality to Bobby Garland and other quality brands
I’ve actually had the pleasure of sitting in on a Wally Marshall (Mr. Crappie) crappie fishing seminar at Bass Pro Shops years ago. He seemed like a real genuine guy, and I’m very impressed by the man.
With that said, I’m not a fanboy of everything he puts out. However, I’ll say that I sure do like more of it than I don’t.
Mr Crappie has quite a few body styles of plastics to choose from these days. Besides using lots of his hair jigs, I’ve also tried the Crappie Thunder and some other miscellaneous baits with good success.
Recently I picked up some Jokers, Shadpoles, and Slabalicious Mr Crappie baits to try out this spring. They look like awesome baits, and they have a great reputation from what I can tell. I’ll try to post a separate review of the Mr. Crappie lineup at a later date, once I’ve had more time with them.
Arkie Crappie Baits
Arkie seems to produce very high quality crappie baits. My experience with them has been fairly random. At different points I’ve pulled a pack off the Walmart shelf when they had a color that was otherwise sold out.
Arkie crappie baits have always caught fish for me, but for whatever reason I just never locked in on them. So, I can’t say I have a strong opinion one way or the other. They do seem to be a tad more expensive than Bobby Garland baits.
With Arkie baits, I noticed something very interesting recently. While I was in Walmart perusing the crappie baits, I picked up a couple packages of Bobby Garland. Then, I noticed some Arkie Sexeee Tail Shad baits that seemed to look identical. And I mean they appeared to be exactly the same as the Bobby Garlad Baby Shad.
So, I couldn’t resist. I purchased both baits to bring home for an up close comparison. When I pulled them out of the package I could hardly tell them apart. (see below)
Arkie Sexeee Tail Shad vs Bobby Garland Baby Shad
The Arkie is ever so slightly duller in color than the baby shad. It’s very subtle, but you can see this in the picture above. I can also see extremely tiny ridges on the surface of the baby shad (see below). If not for those almost imperceptible ridges, I would have thought the two baits possibly came from the exact same mold. Even the glitter inside the bait looks the same. I squished them both between my fingers and they seem to have the same consistency as well.
What’s my point here? Well, the point is that Arkie makes a great bait. Their Sexeee Tail Shad matches up admirably with one of the most popular crappie baits in America, the Bobby Garland Baby Shad. I’m not saying whether one is better than the other, just that you can’t go wrong with either brand.
The Sexeee Tail Shad is not the only good bait made by Arkie. I’ve used their crappie tubes a number of times in the past as well. They have good colors, and they are salt-impregnated to encourage fish to hold on longer. I also picked up a couple of their creature imitations to try out on spawning crappie this year.
I couldn’t really find any negative opinions of Arkie online. So, as far as I can tell, they seem to be legitimate baits by a legit Arkansas company.
Southern Pro Crappie Baits
Amidst the modern day fascination around solid body baits, I do still like to use old school crappie tubes. I really like tubes because they are cheap, and I can stuff the cavity with Berkley Powerbait Crappie Nibbles.
When it comes to quality tubes, or any soft plastic crappie jig, you can’t go wrong with Southern Pro. They make high quality, made in the USA crappie baits. Southern Pro crappie tubes are very popular within the crappie fishing community.
There is a mind boggling assortment of Southern Pro baits available from grizzlyjig.com or directly from the southernpro.com website. I usually purchase mine from Grizzly.
When I have a tube tied on, it’s likely either Southern Pro, or the Midsouth Tackle Super Jig (mentioned below). And, I’m going to have the inside of my crappie tubes stuffed with a couple Crappie Nibbles.
Midsouth Tackle
Midsouth Tackle is another quality crappie jig brand out of Arkansas. I use a lot of their Super Jigs.
Super Jigs come in a lot of great color selections, and their crappie tubes just simply work. Midsouth Crappie tubes seem to have a thicker nose that holds onto the hook better than many other tubes. Because of this, they are less prone to slide down on the hook as some other tubes on the market.
I’ve used Midsouth Tackle Super Jigs many times and caught lots of crappie on them. Definitely a go to manufacturer for quality crappie tubes.
Panfish Assassin
The Panfish Assassin, by Bass Assassin Lures, works well in the waters that I fish.
I’ve been packing these with me ever since an encounter I had years ago on my local lake. One evening a guy pulled up in his boat to a local hotspot to join me and 2 or 3 other boats that were already there. He asked “are they (crappie) in here today?” to which I responded “yeah, I’m catching some”. He followed that up by saying very matter of factly “If they in here, I’m going to tear their a** up”.
I’ll never forget that day, because for the next couple hours, while talking on his cell phone, he proceeded to do just that. He caught one after another by slowly trolling around the area. There had to eventually be 10 other boats fishing the exact same water, but he was out-catching all of us 3 to 1.
He told me exactly what he was using, which was a chartreuse Panfish Assassin tipped with a Berkley Powerbait Crappie Nibble. So, I tied one on and kept pace for a short while. We all caught fish that evening, but not like that guy.
Now I always carry chartreuse Panfish Assassins in the boat!
Big Bite Baits
Big Bite Baits is an Alabama based company out of Eufaula that seems to produce high quality baits. On the bass side, they have some legit pros that they sponsor. Overall, I really couldn’t find much about their company online. But, I do know that they are a family-owned business, that makes great USA made baits.
They claim that their baits are “fortified with bite juice”, whatever that is. I have to say, there are lots of very good opinions of this brand all over the web. I’ve used some of their bass baits with success, so I plan to give them a try for crappie in the coming year.
Basspro Squirmin Squirt
Another basic salt-impregnated crappie tube is the Squirmin Squirt by Basspro. Now days they are branded under the “Crappie Maxx” name, but they are still called Squirmin Squirts. Add some crappie nibbles to one of these, and you’re definitely in business. These are cheap, but they just work just fine. I’ve used them many times and caught tons of crappie on them over the years. It’s really hard to bypass this isle up in Basspro. The colors call to me.
Other Brands
Over the years, I’ve tried quite a few other random selections found hanging from store shelves. There is quite a long list of other brands that also work well. Zoom, Charlie Brewer Sliders, Mr Twister, and Creme Baits are just a few that come to mind.
Conclusion
Pretty much any brand of crappie jig will catch crappie when the bite is on. But, from personal experience, quality and attention to detail can matter when the bite is tough. I’ve experienced this enough times that these days I try to build most of my crappie arsenal around high quality baits. My time on the water is too precious to waste using inferior products.
If you found this article helpful, you might also like my article about The 3 Best Crappie Baits.
For more information specific to crappie fishing, check out the other articles on my site, or bounce over to crappie.com and peruse their forums. They are full of good info.
Good luck out there
Augustus Clay
