Thread: Crank Tolling Help

You'll wear out a zebco in about 3 trips of really catchin them... Get the best you can afford and make due.

Bandit 300's, and get an assortmen of colors.

Without a FF it's gonna make it harder, but not entirely imposible. I depend on mine a lot pullin cranks.

The Bee Ready holders might work if you plan to use it off the back with the poles standing up strait....otherwise look into something that's gonna secure the pole while it's being pulled from the side.

I went with driftmasters, but there are plenty of different brands that will work better.

1. yes, but one helps to find river and creek channels.
2. we have cabela's line counter reels, which are helpful by letting you know how much
line is out. also, we have 10, 11, and 12 foot poles to keep lines away from the boat.
and, different lengths reduce tangles.
3. all colors will work at certain times.
4. never seen them before.

sounds like ya'll got it covered - on the fishfinder, I think about that
sometimes, and have even fished a few times in the "old places" without
even turning it on and didn't miss it. But, I've trolled these places so many
times I know whats down there already. New water, I'd feel pretty lost.

Thanks guys...guess someone needs to teach me how to spell trolling while we're at it...

Any preference on rod action (med, med/heavy)?

That depends for me too.... I like medium if your gonna pull them strait out the back, and med/heavy if you plan to use planer boards...

Either of them will work just fine though......shoot I use my 14 ft pro staff BnM's sometimes....

I agree on the line counter reels, very usefull and not too expensive either. As far as rod length, we usually put the longest rods in the front and get shorter towards the back, mostly just to keep the lines separated-that's if not using planers. With planers, a6-7" MH does better. If not using planers, the long rods get the baits away from the boat a little further which seems to be important sometimes. Sonar is probably pretty important too unless you have a good idea of the water depths and contours already, you could probably get by with a good topo map instead just for depth but your sonar will mark fish and often give you the thermocline.

Med/Heavy on the rods. That way you have a couple of options for the best way to fish on a given day. You really need one line counter reel. It would be nice if you had an $85 hand held GPS as well so you can mark were you start catching fish. During the Summer these fish are scattered all over the place but seem to be in the same general area over and over week after week. If you haven't done this before I would start with two rods off the back and work my way up. Bee ready rod holders would scare me for trolling off the back. They look great for slow trolling off the front but I don't think they could handle the side stress when you hook into something larger like a catfish or a stripper at 2 mph. My concern is your rod could be pulled out of it's holder when pulled from the side then your nice rod and reel would fall overboard and Bee gone. I had this happen twice on the same day then went to Driftmasters and ended that little problem

I use 14' Wallies Tightlines and 14' B&M protrollers with bait casters on every pole. It makes it easier to get him in. Shakespeare makes a decent 4 bearing for about $32/piece at Wal-mart. Grizzly jig sales a decent Zebco Prostaff Baitcaster for about$21.95 that also works pretty good. Like Patrick says, get lots of bandit 300 in lots of colors as different days crappie catch different patterns. Another one that works fairly well is a SR5 Rapala Shad. Little smaller but lots of action. Speed needs to be about 1.2 to 1.7 to get best action and not run off and leave them.