Pulling Cranks 101

Now I have so many crappies in the freezer,,that I am gong to have to go to a 12" size limit here in Indiana pulling cranks,,as I have caught so many 11 to 14 inchers,,this style of fishing absolutely rocks,,other than the fact I have spent about 300 on crankbaits so far,,lol,,and reels,,and rods,,,then burnt a trolling motor up last week so bought a bigger one of those too,,Thanks guys for all the wonderful info,,cause it sure works here in Indiana too as I am having a blast,,takes me about 4 hrs to limit out on 25 keepers. Now I know after the spawn,,it will get alittle tougher or should,,just have to go deeper and search alittle. Thanks again.

I live and fish mainly in NC. My home lake has a very good poulation of black crappie and a few white crappie. I have been reading a lot on trolling crankbaits. My question is, is this a good summertime tatic for trolling for crappie with a population of mainly black crappie?

Black or white it still works.

Thank you for your reply. I have been long lineing jigs from feb to June for about ten years with great results. Got bored with fishing over brush piles in the summer. Trolling got me spoiled.

Robert, summertime is the BEST time for pulling cranks.

Thanks for the reply. Never pulled cranks before. Theres a lot of good information on this site. I mainly see white crappie being caught on cranks. We have a few white crappie in my home lake mainly black crappie. My younger sister did catch a white crappie a few years back that was 3lbs and 11 oz. Thanks for your help.

New to the game and read this post up and down. Lots of good stuff. Now onto my question. From what i gather you are long lining off the sides of the boat with various length rods for separation (4 ft being the preference). My boat is not set up well to fish off the sides so I have two t-bars on the rear set at 30% angles. with 4 rods on each. I get the 4 ft separation by angeling the rods at 30 degree increments. My poles are 11,9, 6.5, & 5.5. I like this set up because I get 8 lines in the water and I can convert to spider rigging with little effort. I have not gotten any tangles yet :-). Does anyone else run this type of set up? What am I missing since I can't run lines off the side?

Thanks in advance.

You'll be ok, lots of guys pull off the back of their boat. It's really dictated by your boat set-up. You really will need an i-pilot if you fish alone.

I-Pilot ... CHECK. Never fish again without one.

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Originally Posted by Robert

I live and fish mainly in NC. My home lake has a very good poulation of black crappie and a few white crappie. I have been reading a lot on trolling crankbaits. My question is, is this a good summertime tatic for trolling for crappie with a population of mainly black crappie?

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As Sat said it works on either...Works so well on White Crappie because its easy to troll the flats where they follow the shad schools..You might have to pulll over the brushtops to get those Black Crappie..They are a more structure oriented fish