Help - bone in chicken thighs

I need some help with bone-in chicken thighs, I'm trying to replicate what I do in the oven. For oven cooking I coat them in olive oil and seasoning, put them skin side up on a cookie sheet and bake at 375degF for 45-50 minutes. They come out with a deliciously crispy skin. I've figured out how to make smoked thighs on the pellet grill but the lady still misses the crispy skin. Any pointers on what to do to get thighs with crispy skin on the pellet grill? This weekend I bought a bunch and ran 3 trials but still no success on the crispy skin, here's what I tried, all trials were rubbed with olive oil and cajun seasoning:
Trial 1
45 minutes at 150, remove from grill, place grill grates on and increase heat to 425, skin side down on grates for 15 minutes, skin side up for 15 minutes for final temp of 175. Good smokey flavor, skin not rubbery but definitely not up to her crispy standards
Trial 2
Grill grates on and preheat to 450. Skin side down for 20 minutes, rotating after 10, skin side up for 20 minutes rotating after 10, gave final temp of 180. Not much smokey flavor, skin closer but still not crispy
Trial 3
No grill grates, smoker at 375, skin side up for 55 minutes then increase temp to 500 for 10 minutes and final temp of 180. Gave results very similar to trial #2.

From here I'm not sure where to go to get the oven-like crispy skin, I'm thinking of retrying 2 or 3 but leaving the skin side down for the entire time, thoughts?

Thanks
Jake

You'll never get smoked chicken on a pellet grill with a substantial amount of smoke flavor and crispy skin at the same time. The best you can hope for is to get bite through skin if you slather the skin with mayo then apply your rub and then smoke it. Even then the smoke flavor is light. You can add more smoke with a Smoke Daddy or other smoke generator. If you don't want to use mayo you can smoke the chicken then when it's near done fire up a charcoal grill and put the chicken on skin down facing the fire for 10-15 mins to crisp up a bit.
Otherwise, what I do is cook my chicken on the upper rack at 350F (~375F on upper rack). I get edible skin and almost undetectable smoke flavor but I don't mind as the flavor on the pellet cooker hot roasted chicken is divine!
If you want crispy chic skin and a solid smoke profile look at purchasing a BPS drum!

As an alternate: have you considered using a grill with a smoking tube of pellets instead?. I do beer-can chicken that way and it comes out pretty good.

Thanks guys, in this instance I'm willing to sacrifice smoke flavor for crispy skin to avoid using the oven during the summer. I got rid of the charcoal grill, propane grill and electric smoker in exchange so all I've got now is a pellet grill and more porch space. On a side note I googled "smoking tube" and got some seriously disturbing results, "smoking tube for bbq" turned out much better

Smoke your thighs as you normally would and just before done place them under your house oven broiler for a few minutes to crisp up the skin. Another alternative would be to simply use a torch to crisp the skin just as they are finishing up on your smoker.

I like the torch idea, thanks, I'll give it a try

Be careful with the torch. It will burn the skin in a heartbeat if you're not careful.

Larry, have you used a torch to crisp up chicken skin before?

No Scott, I have not done it personally but have seen it done on more than one occasion. You are correct about being careful with the torch. It needs to be held back from the skin and move it quickly. if it were me I would opt for putting it under the broiler but there's more than one way to smoke uh I mean skin a cat.