I normally use a 3 oz and run my baits around 8 to 10 ft deep. For going deeper, I'd use a 4 oz weight. It gives you a couple more crankbaits in the water without adding more long lines to tangle.
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I normally use a 3 oz and run my baits around 8 to 10 ft deep. For going deeper, I'd use a 4 oz weight. It gives you a couple more crankbaits in the water without adding more long lines to tangle.
I like 3 oz too. Some days I just push 4 or 6 and don't pull. I can usually see the baits on the Humminbird and helps me adjust to stay above the schools. Use the same 14' PST I spiderrig with. Don't always use line counters when push. Can count pulls of line to get close since I am not running a lot of line out.
An advantage to pushing crankbaits is that you can maneuver around cover or brush tops where you couldn't if pulling 75 ft behind the boat.
Do you place some type of barrell swivel with a liter of some sort maybe couple feet up and couple feet back of the bait
This may be the wrong place for the question, but on the topic of pushing cranks, how long has the practice has been around?
One windy summer afternoon in 91 (last summer I fished MS before moving to AL) I was pulling up to the boat ramp near the beach below the Sardis spillway and noticed and older gentleman trying to rope lead his jon boat up on to the trailer and was having some trouble. I ran up and helped him trailer his rig and before he pulled up if asked if I could give him a hand pulling his ice chest out of his boat.
He was walking around the truck to give me a hand and I told him I had it as I reached in the boat and grabbed the ice chest, or should I say it grabbed me. Back them I was a healthy-ish 6' 230 lb 27 year old but it took a little work to lug this thing out of the 14 footer and ease it up on the tailgate. He thanked me and asked if I had any luck. After unloading his chest I sheepishly said, yes sir, it was slow trolling "for me" but I picked up a few. He reached over, opened the lid to the box and asked if I wanted a few of his? To this day I've seen only one box of fish that matched the size of the pigs this man had in that ice chest. I'm not sure how big the average was but the top 6 or 7 I could see in the box were 2 pound plus fish and they didn't appear to get smaller going down in the box.
I noticed pulling his boat up on the trailer that he had a bunch of cain poles with makeshift wire guides that looked like paper clips taped to the cain and they all had B&M reels. When I saw the box of fish I couldn't help but ask if he was trolling with jigs or minnows. If i remember correctly he just smiled and walked over to his tackle box in the back of his truck and popped the lib open for me to take a look. I guess he figured if he told me his secret I wouldn't have believed it, which I probably wouldn't have. Anyway, the box was nothing special, just your average bass fishing mixture of big giant Chartreuse Bagley Crank Baits. Nothing else, maybe a few big football sinkers and swivels.
I moved AL for a better job before I got a chance to give this new found tactic a try but it stuck in my memory and I've told the story to crappie fishermen for year before anyone ever mentioned knowing anything about cranking for crappie. A few years back I noticed an article about pulling crank baits but I'd never heard of pushing until I found Crappie.com.
This has happened to me twice and both times I thought I had a good day under the circumstances and was humbled by the fishing ability of gentlemen easily old enough to be my great grandfathers. Both times the men that awed me with their kill were using cain poles a both were in their 80's. I'll add the preacher in the buckbrush story before spring.
Great story thx for sharing
The weight's I sell have a barrel swivel molded to the front of it. Then a 3 ft leader and a duo-lock snap to snap on your crankbait. http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/07/08/8y5erety.jpg
I was planning on going this morning but the rain chances changed our minds. I'll be going Wed morning unless something changes.
Need to go Friday morning, Ms Tammy and I will be there unless something changes.