Thread: Eager to try trolling some crankbaits

Just a suggestion to those wanting to start out using crankbaits.
1. Start out with arkies or bandits or both
2. Crankbaits only, you can't go slow enough for longining jigs, just concentrate on the crankbaits.
3. Print out the depth charts for the Arkies and bandits and tape them to your tackle box so you can study them while cranking.
4. Do yourself a favor and learn from the guys that developed this technic of fishing through their constant experimentation,,, read http://www.crappie.com/crappie/missi...-cranks-101-a/
it will teach you everything and all about using trolling motors, boat speed, depths, you name it. Sure it's a long read, but it will answer all your questions as well as give you ideas how to set your boats up.

just my 2 cents

Got our "new" boat yesterday, and broke it in this evening!

We hit the local lake, and put my new trolling rods to work. We went to a shallow flats area my friend had told me about before, that I saw a few other boats on. Pulled 4 Bandit 200's for around 2 hours and wound up with 3 walleye and 10 crappie! 2 walleye were keepers @ 15.5" and 17", and about 7 of the crappie were over 10-11" we kept.

Couldn't be happier as a first timer at about everything. No tangles, no real issues. Super simple, my wife caught on quick and was catching fish and putting the rods back out at the set depths with no hassles.



absolutely LOVED the wireless minnkota riptide that came on the boat, although right as it got dark enough to leave the batteries were tanked. I feel they should last waay longer than the 2+- hours we got to fish, so I guess the batteries are crap. I have a couple other deep cycles I think I'll bring and try out after these die again.

The weather was bad, windy, pretty chilly and spotty rain, but surprisingly afterwards my wife already has plans for us to go back this morning and do it again!

Another day out, Was able to find about 10 crappie, but thats it :/

I tried Bandit 300's and kept the line short to be in the 8-10ft range, then after moving locations and still no hits we started dropping depth. Finally started catching a few crappie when we got the baits down to 12-13ft.


Batteries seem to be lasting better the last few trips, but still only about 3.5-4.5 hrs of pulling the boat at 1.7-1.9mph. Need to figure out a solution to up the runtime to 6-8hrs, if the batteries are just old I'll replace, but need to figure out how to tell for sure I guess.

I also want to find a pair of long trolling rods, so we can start running 6 rods instead of 4. Right now I have 4, 7' rods. I have 2 more holders setup, but it just seems like a mess waiting to happen running rods the same length there.

Your fishing a very high pressure system after 2 weeks of,rain and storms moving thru. Fish slow as yesterday my crappies hit on a speed of 1.5 to 1.6 and anything faster they would miss the bait as I would see the rod tips with light hits on them but missed setting hooks on cranks and even lost 3 fish as they were barely hooked. Stagger your rod sizes When fishing by myself I use 2 12' fters one on each side of the front and either a 8' or 10' on one side angled alittle back to have some room from the 12'. You can do 7' 6' 5' even med action to med lite works fine. Batteries-- I run 2 series 31 Deep cycle on trolling motor and get 8 plus hrs of trolling and mine are going on 2 yrs old now. Got them at Rural King for 120.OO each. Just make sure you have room for them as all series 31 deep cycle are mostly 13.5 inches long compared to series 29 or series 27. Any rod starting out will work for trolling cranks. You can get Wally marshal 12' or 14' for about 30 bucks each and jigging poles work for trolling cranks as I have caught cats on mine up to 20lbs and stripers up to 15 lbs and lg. Mouth bass at 6' and yet to break one but it takes time to land an unusual large fish. That is the craziness when trolling cranks. You can catch about anything feeding on a crankbait. Good luck and set your rig up to suit you.

Great info on the batteries thats what I wanted to hear, thank you. I had looked at Rural king, and saw the $119 deep cycles- but didn't want to spend the money unless I was for sure it would up my runtime dramatically. I had a look and mine are Napa 27 series, and the hatch opening is 13.25". More like 15" wide or better below the hatch rim, so I may have to "buy and try".

The winds we high today and my gps batteries died early, so I was periodically dipping a crank off the side of boat to check the "speed". I imagine with the winds, we were covering alot of speed ranges. A few times the rod tips were pulling pretty hard with heavy tail winds and a constant motor speed, I bet it was 3mph +-.

I think a pair of 10' rods would be perfect. The 4 7' rods work very well, and 2 10' rods in front of them would be plenty of room. I'll do some shopping.

I agree with mrdux.

Picked up a couple of the 31 series Rural king batteries and charged them up. Hit the lake by myself this morning, and went to a new spot. I had intentions of trying to pickup some walleye with crawlers, but I started with bandit 300's to see how the water was. Picked up a few crappie early on, and started marking spots on my gps (handheld garmin) that looked stacked with fish on sonar. Most of the fish I was seeing in a strech of about 16-18ft water seemed to be holding similar depths of about 10-13 ft, so I adjusted my cranks to (hopefully) run a foot or a few above that.

I made pass after pass into the areas that looked to be holding fish on my little pirhanamax 4, and would pick up a few fish about every pass. Early on I had fish on all colors I was running, but since I was solo (3 rods in Indiana) I had a spare trolling rod. I took the downtime between hits to swap out lures as more fish came on certain ones, They seemed to favor Taco salad and Mistake as the morning went on.

I started to worry a bit because I had not been counting fish, and couldn't really tell how many were packed in the livewell at this point. A good problem to have no doubt. About lunchtime I decided to pack up and try a different spot briefly before loading up, but my motor began running crappy again so I just called it and went to the ramp. Been having fuel issues since I got the boat.

I checked the trolling motor batteries via the LED display, and it showed 75% after 5+- hours of 1.5-2mph in stiff winds. A big improvement! Seems like I will have no issues running a full day on them.

Wound up with 23 crappie, I had lost 3-4 at the boat and missed hooking a few more. Also had 3 walleye that were too short to keep, biggest was 13.25".

They were all small fish, 9.5-11", but they all taste good. Not too bad for a beginner!

Now you're rockin !!! The crank bite should be good til the water temps drop below 70deg this Fall.