All year except the peak of the spawn, then it's time for single poling. Find fish on the finder and drag the cranks through them.
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All year except the peak of the spawn, then it's time for single poling. Find fish on the finder and drag the cranks through them.
Haven't seen much talk on price. Grizzly has them 6 for $4.99 in most crappie colors. KS-10
I tried to get the trolling charts at the begining but they were dead. could someone please repost them Please. Also if your trolling in 30 ft of water do u add weight ahead of the lure to say get it to 20 ft or just keep letting more line out? any help many thanks. Dave
Dave, it's way too early to worry about trolling! You can get
Bandits down to around 19' without weight. Around here, the fish are rarely that deep though.
Thanks wilbur. Feelay i wanted it to laminize it for the tackelbox im setting up just for bandits. gona glue it to the top for permanant veiwing.
Oh I see your from Illinois, I thought you was Carls buddy at the firehouse. You firemen got it made for sure.
Wilbur where in ill are u located? Im in chicago
A little south of you in Chicago Heights. About 5 miles south of 80-294 off of Halsted ST.Quote:
Originally Posted by fireman58
[QUOTE=wilbur;2548337]Oh I see your from Illinois, I thought you was Carls buddy at the firehouse. You firemen got it made for sure.[/QUOTE
If you don't count that running into burning buildings part.
]
remember, the rats and the roaches are always exiting the building when we arrive and we are still goin in.go figure! its still a great job!!!! but I would rather go fishin any day of the week. looking forward to this spring.
I've been reading thru this thread and figured it was time I joined in. I started trolling for crappie way back in the late 60's at Grenada when I was just a kid with my dad . We pulled bombers and Arbogaster lures (the ones with the metal diving lip and plastic skirt) back then. We didn't have fishfinders or graphs so a lot of time was wasted and plenty of lures lost but we caught fish. Most of our trolling was done from a big old steel hull diesel powered cabin cruiser called "Big Momma" and back then she was the biggest boat on Grenada lake. A bad storm and flood that took away the boat slips and big piers at the Grenada landing claimed the life of Big Momma and ended a long saga of summer fun for us young crappie anglers.
We'd been hearing about big catches of crappie coming from Enid lake just a few miles north so My dad bought a new 15 ft. Duracraft and a 9 1/2 Johnson and we left Grenada lake for good in the summer of 71. The bait of choice on Enid was the old wooden dive bombers and boy did they catch fish. Four "loose and limber" spinning rods and four Zebco 33's and a box of Bombers was all you needed back then to catch a lot of big slab crappie. Dad installed a couple of big tractor umbrellas on that Duracraft to keep that July sun from cooking us and we rode many a mile in that little boat from Point Pleasant to Billy's creek and out from Water Valley landing.
In the spring of 75 I found a mid 60's Duracraft 28 foot pontoon that was in dire need of some tlc sitting in a pasture in Phillip, Ms. and from that day forward our trolling made a definite change for the better. Plenty of room to sit comfortably, a roof over our head, and now we could pull 5 rods instead of four. A BBQ grill added to the front of the deck turned outings into a family affair and some of my family's fondest memories ore of times spent together on that old pontoon boat with my dad and family.
I lost my dad to bone cancer back in 1992 and his last summer with us we made some ramps and wheeled his chair onto the deck of that old pontoon boat, knowing it would be his last few times to do what he loved most in life. For the next ten years I went back to Enid nearly every weekend either alone or with my son and we always put out one old spinning rod with a Zebco 33 and a christmas tree colored bomber on the back of the boat for "Papaw". It always happened that that old rod and reel combo out fished the other four in numbers and size.
Bomber Bait company stopped making the old wooden dive bombers and store shelves soon emptied of all the good ones only to be replaced by plastic look-a-likes with rattles under the Pradco label but these didn't seem to run true and the crappie just didn't seem to like them as much so we tried several other different style baits. I finally found that the Bill Norman deep lil' N's would catch crappie at Enid and I bought up a bunch of them. This was just about the time that Bandit was starting up just up the road from Enid, but I never bought into the Bandits but stuck with the "N's" and what few bombers I had left in my tackle box.
As life goes on and time changes everything my occupation moved me away from what I loved most in life, and my weekend trips to troll Enid are but a distant memory now. The old pontoon boat sits tornado damaged in a pasture in Vaiden, my tackle box of "N's" in Texas with my son. I have a few old bombers still in my possession, destined for a shadow box for my wall. I , at 60, now reside in Pearl, ms. My dad's old Duracraft boat is still with me and this past summer I restored it and have been out on Barnett in it a few times to try my hand at trolling without success. A limited income prevents me from purchasing all the latest gadgets that you fellas use and without GPS it seems that trolling here on the res. is practically impossible but that's not going to stop me from trying. I have managed to pick up a few Bandit lures in what seems to be the best colors and I will be out there as soon as the weather permits to give it a shot. If any of you guys see a black Duracraft with grey carpet wearing the registration MI-3905-AE out trolling on Barnett, stop by and say Hi.....
happy fishing, Fred
Great story Fred!!! Thank you for sharing
Awesome story! I hope you can continue to fish and can learn a few spots on your lake. Good luck!
Here's a short but true story with a tip that might help a few of my fellow trollers:
I took my son out on the old pontoon boat one day (he was maybe 13 at the time) for a day of trolling at Enid (back in '91 or '92). We launched from Cossar park and dropped the "N's" just off the point at Bean creek. Within minutes we hung a slab on rod #2. My son immediately claimed rod #2 as "his" for the day and he reeled in the first fish of this outing. I had a variety of colors tied on that morning, rod #2 pulling a chartreuse with blue back gelcoat deep lil' N. Maybe 5 minutes passed before rod #2 doubled over a second time with another "big-un". Well it didn't take me long to reel up the other four and get more chartreuse blue back "N's" tied onto the other rods. All baits looked identical to me, all swimming true, all tied to 10 lb. stren. Bam ! #2 hammered again, and again, and again. By noon I was rather aggravated and getting rather hungry. The morning tally: rod # 2 caught 13 nice perch (one of which won my son a free rod and reel for biggest crappie of the month at a local bait shop), the other four rods combined - 3.
We reeled them in and headed toward the swimming beach in Long Branch creek, parked there and my son hit the water for a cool down as I fired up the grill to cook a few hot dogs for our noonday "feast". He was swimming and playing with a couple of other kids and payed no attention to me as I slipped over and clipped the "N" from rod #2 and swapped it to rod # 4 (my rod). I chuckled to myself as I was tying them on that he wouldn't know what I'd done. Soon we were back out on the water and dropped the lines on the center of Long Branch creek and headed east toward Point Pleasant, just off the flats when rod #4 bent nearly double. By the time we got to the point I had boated 4 more on rod 4. He looked at me with the most serious stare one could get from a 13 year old and finally said "Dad, I KNOW what you did!"
We ended that day with a cooler of really nice fish all caught on the same color bait, most caught on the same lure. As we got back to the boat ramp that evening, before untying the lures from the rods I walked up to my truck and got a sharpie marker from the glove box and marked that special bait for future reference. When I got home I got a paint pen and numbered all my crankbaits on the bottom of the bill and dabbed a little clearcoat over the numbers. That special bait was given the honor of wearing old #2, and for the rest of the summer it continued to out catch all my other identical lures. I have no clue why ...they looked the same, I shook them and listened to the rattles.....all the same.....I weighed them ....all the same....but there was something different about #2. If only the fish could talk....
P.S. - old #2 was lost later that summer (hung on a snag off the treeline at Water Vally landing) so if anyone reading this happens to find an old chartreuse blue back "N" with a #2 painted under the bill I sure would love to have it back. I might even pay a reward..... happy fishin' , Fred
thanks, guys. I appreciate it. I'll write a few more as my memory allows. Should I keep them here or on a separate thread?
Here is a question for you guys. I have an old combo-selector from when I was a bass fisherman. Have any of you used one to help decide which color to start with on a given day? Did it seem to get it right? You know, now that I think about it... the temperature and PG gauge that this thing has might be a handy tool to have in the boat as well......Attachment 150118
I tried one years ago (probably still in the locker on the old pontoon boat) but it didn't really seem to help. I let the fish tell me what they want....
Great story Fred!!!
next story up: "Uncle Jack and the Goulish Ivory" coming soon
Quote:
Originally Posted by majflyboy
what rods are your running with that set up?
Fred you are a great writer with some good stories. You should send them in to a magizine or two. I have read alot of stories in Field and Stream that don't come close to yours in content or style.
Thanks for sharing.
Wow, thanks so much for the ego boost.....I sincerely appreciate it....happy fishin', Fred
Seriously, Slab is always looking for good stories to post on the home page. You should Pm some to him.
Been reading some on here and did a search on here. Got a question bout okuma line counters. I am respooling my reals I bought used last year. Was looking at the specs on them as well as on the reels themselves. Chart shows for 12 lb test line on a magda pro 15 to put 290 YARDS of line on them. That is 870' roughly. Y'all really put that much line on them?
I do for a couple of reasons.
1) The counters are more accurate when at capacity.
2) Probably the main reason.
Attachment 162313
Fill em up!!! They aint near accurate when they get down low. Its all relative anyways, if they are all spooled the same you can duplicate what you are doing.
I use cheaper line to fill the reel and then spool on the last 50 yards of the good line that I use for fishing. Yes, I am cheap. But I never let out over 300' of line while fishing.
That's what I do except I put on a little more of the good line.....enough that I can let out a 160 ft. and I use 10 lb. mono so it will be in compliance with the trolling depth chartsQuote:
Originally Posted by bdunn3
I feel like I owe y'all a thank you! Caught my first few crappie using cranks yesterday afternoon. A black 200 seemed to do the trick.
Any one have the depth chart on the bandit lures
Post 1329, this thread.
I'm wondering if you can troll with the small dipsy divers for crappie or is the leader need to be to long going to the lure. I made a eight foot trolling board with six rod holders and four more holders attached to the side walls of the boat,so with ten rod holders i need to get line away from the boat, Please post suggestions.
PS talk with wilbur
Thanks
I put about 180 ft of hi-viz 30/8 braid (suffix 832 now) on a reel then tie some bulk mono 20 on and fill the reel the rest of the way up. Then take another reel and spool the line onto it. Now the mono will be on the bottom, the braid on top and it will be filled to the right level. Before I never could put the right amount of mono on to get the right amount of braid. Now that last reel is the only on screwed up.
Brilliant Gomersnerd!
I never could get them to work well, especially when making turns or when windy. A better option is to use planner boards. I like running a mast, others just clip directly to line.Quote:
Originally Posted by pesce
I think it would be absolutely great if someone could consolidate this thread into an article that could be published on the Crappie.com home page. Someone that knows a little about the topic. I'd even offer that person a prize, maybe something on the order of one of our raffle prizes. Any takers? PM me if you are interested.
We've had good success using the Off Shore Tadpole diving weights behind the planer boards. They have a lot less pull and you can get a much wider spread and minimal tangles with the planer boards. We ran 6' leaders behind the tadpoles with #5 & 6 Flicker Shads. The OR-34 mini board pulled the #1 tadpoles pretty good.Quote:
Originally Posted by pesce
Slab - I am currently working on an article on an introduction to pulling cranks. Would that help?Quote:
Originally Posted by Slab
Very cool