Thread: Crankin' the Rez, 1st trip not so great 6/29

I finally decided to brave the heat and get my pontoon boat rigged up for trolling Wednesday morning. Gathered up nuts and bolts, drill, coolers, rods, and rod holders and headed to main harbor. After an hour or so I had my rod holders mounted and cranked up and headed out close to noon . Cruising out from the harbor I tried threading my braided line thru the reel guides in a pretty stiff wind. I never noticed how high the guide eye sits in a Shimano baitcaster but it took a while to do 8. I got all threaded and swivels tied on finally and noticed that the lock on my storage box was missing and all my new bandit trolling baits had been stolen, along with my cast net. All the cranks were brand new, had never seen the water. Had some good colors too, including Sardis gold, Mistake, Hotty Toddy, Hot pink, black, etc., in 200 and 300 sizes. about 25 in all. By this time I was out near the weather station so I turned around and headed back to the boat slip. 20 minutes or so later I'm in Academy Sports looking for a few Bandits to save the day. Academy is OK I guess, but the crankbait selection not so great. Now across the street to WalMart the selection was much worse. I ended up with 6 new cranks:2 deep lil' N chart/blue, and 4 300 bandits:spring craw/yellow, taco salad, chart/blue back, and sun perch. I know that these colors aren't so great, why else would they be on the shelves???
By 2:30 I'm headed back out and started dropping cranks in the water along the edge of the river channel between Lost Rabbit and the weather station, maybe 1/2 mile northwest of the weather station. I was working my way northeast following the river, zigzagging the river channel and trying to stay on the ledges as best I could. Pulled from 1.5 to 2.3 mph in water from 15 to 30 feet for 3 hours and all I managed to catch was one catfish. I know my bait colors weren't the best and my location was probably way off base, It was early afternoon rather than in the morning, but it's rather disheartening to not hook at least one crappie. Heck, I would have been thrilled with maybe a striper or even a gaspergoul at that point....
At least I have my boat rigged up and thinking about pulling it up to Enid this weekend to try it up there. At least I know where to troll there to catch fish. This Rez is really pissing me off
Happy Fishin', Fred

Hat's off! You stayed with it and got to fish. I'd still be trying to thread the reel out on the water.