Depth Control when cranking

[Cane Pole]

I remain skeptical of some of this line out stuff. At 75 feet out, 3 feet ain't much in play. Hypotenuse says so.

[wicklundrh]

You are very correct on certain baits. Once they begin to plane out, it takes much more line out in order to get them to dive another foot. Eventually, they hit terminal depth.

There is a big difference on a Size 9 Flicker minnow running 40 back vice 50 back. There is not a big difference on the same bait running 80 back vice 90 back.

Just fished a tournament in a clean water situation in which the average human could see the bottom in 30 feet of water. Bait depth (setback) didn't matter near as much as bait selection.

That said, other dirty water situation call for much better depth control.

If one is utilizing dive curve charts, again, the key is ensuring your have your reel calibrated. Everyone always tells me they know there stuff is right until they actually measure it out. They Put a mark on the ground at 25, 50, 75, and 100 feet and begin to let out line. They get to 25 and look at their counter and it shows 32. They get to 50 and it shows 65, they get to 75 and the counter shows 96 and when they get to 100 their counter shows 128. They are losing roughly 7 feet of line for every 25 out. In other words, they have to let out 128 feet of line in order to actually hit the hundred mark.

Other baits, such as reef runners, bandit deep diving walleye baits, smithwick perfect 10's and 20's. 5 feet can be the difference of being in the strike zone or out of it at 75 feet.

[nccater]

all good points guys. To sum it all up, I guess the best course of action is to get the rod tips as close to the water as I can, set my TM on high (which will pull me at 1.5 mph), and keep adjusting my length in/out until I get bites. Then adjust other rods accordingly. And take the dive charts with a grain of salt. Thanks again, this turned out to be a pretty good discussion.

[Crankin Crappie]

Yeah same here with depth charts we get a base line going on which ever blank we are pulling on a 10 foot flat determine how much line out it takes to hit 10 foot and go from there.....fish mostly planer boards.... Fished with the Deshanos a while back they actually hire a diver with a deep measuring pole in the water pull the cranks buy the pole and film at what depth and line out to develope depth charts.....here as muddy as it is the big flats work well for us....... We never rely much on the Okumas for acuratly telling us how much actual line is out.....our favorite bait takes 30ft to catch fish marking 10ft deep... From that point 25ft on one 30ft, 35ft 40, 45 etc until a pattern emerges....at that point we can zero in on the magic number...whatever it happens to be that day... Run almost exclusively 20lb 30lb spider wire has been successful for us ....