The poles without reels are used usually for live bait under a bobber, favored more by bream fisherman over here in America. However, one of my tournament partners is originally from Britain, and while they sometimes have small spinning reels (and 6 pound line is considered heavy line over there), they usually have 40 foot cane poles. He was telling me that he won a tourney with, I believe 32 pounds. Of course, he weighed in 138 fish. :shock: Lets just say that he refers to that as sitting on a box holding a pole, as opposed to bass or striper fishing over here, which he does refer to as fishing.
Now, as far as crappie rods go (poles don't have reels, rods do), there are different methods. Short ones, say 5'6" or so are often used for casting 1/8 and lighter jigs. Longer ones are used for spider rigging. Often, people will have as many as 10 rods out at once. They will put rods as long as 14 feet arranged around the bow deck, to cover as much as 32 feet of water, as they cover a stump field or something. Or, there will be long rods out the sides, and short ones out the front, and back, provided there is a second person on board.
I don't see many people vertical jigging on cane poles. They usually use 8 or so foot rods. There are couple guys on here who know better than I. Try PMing deputydawg, and papasage, or visit the crappie.com forum and read for yourself.
