1. Use floating jigs for fooling suspended crappie. Employed with a Carolina rig, a floating jig head will hover well above logs, brush, weeds or rocks to nail crappie holding over structure. Most such floating jig heads are designed for walleye fishing, and are available in a number of sizes, shapes and colors. They're most effective when used with a minnow.

  2. Because many boats have low transoms, some backtrollers equip their skiffs with special "backtrolling boards" that help prevent waves from washing over the stern. Most are made of heavy plastic or rubber, and form a kind of seal above the boat stern to the sides of motors. They're not needed on all boats, but when backtrolling into rough water or bumpy river current, they make sense and are a good safety precaution. They can be made in a home workshop, but they're available commercially from mail-order houses such as Cabela's.

  3. Rods a bit longer than usual (6 1/2 to 7 feet are good) make sense for backtrolling, as they give an angler lots of control over line angling toward the bow when the boat is in reverse. A long rod makes it easy to keep fine crappie line well away from boat sides that may nick or damage mono. Also, when two or more anglers are backtrolling from the same boat, long rods help in maneuvering lines and fish around other people during fishing.

    Because backtrolling is a precision structure fishing method, using floating marker buoys is an important part of the technique. When a small finger, hump, bar or weed bed is located on a key structure, or even when tightly schooled fish are pinpointed, use of floating markers is the mark of a skilled, experienced angler. Crappie structure fishermen work too hard at locating fish to lose a hot spot or a fish school simply because a marker buoy wasn't employed.

  4. Stern-mount electric motors are made to push a boat forward, which is the wrong direction for backtrolling. You can run the electric motor in reverse, but that isn't efficient.

    The answer to this backtrolling dilemma is to turn the head of a transom-mount electric motor 180 degrees. The head of most electric motors is attached to the shaft with a simple screw or bolt. Simply loosen the screw or nut, spin the motor head 180 degrees on the shaft, tighten the nut and screw, and the motor will pull a backtrolling boat efficiently in reverse.