New Tactic for me

Having worked a ton of hours both at my normal job and doing farming and other stuff, I was due for a break. Left work yesterday around 1:30. A buddy of mine told me that some decent perch had been caught on Sugarloaf lake in the Waterloo area.

I met him at 3:30 and we launched around 4pm with the intentions of another friend meeting us at the dock after he left work.

The game plan.... trolling crawler harnesses above weed beds.

I've trolled a lot of harnesses in my days but mostly bottom bouncing them for walleyes. We used the same setup but did not use any weights. We were not concerned with depth as we wanted them to run above the weeds. We used large and small blades and varied our speed between 1.1 and 1.6 SOG.

It was hard to keep the other fish off the lines (mainly bluegills and bass) but we did manage a couple of perch. To my surprise however was how well the tactic worked for crappies. Once I caught the first one, I switched to full on crappie mode.

Running a two hook setup I ran a 2 inch rubber minnow on boths hooks (that caught fish). I ran bobby garland's and that caught a couple. My best was a 5 inch purple flex berkley turtle worm.

In the end we didn't light the world on fire but, this lake is not known for crappies so 8 fish was way better than I have ever done on this lake. Most importantly, I have a new tactic to utilize and I know a couple of lakes I want to try it on.

I am getting more comfortable utilizing artificial baits. As a kid you want to catch fish, as an adult, you want to catch the fish you are targeting. To me, putting on baits that eliminate the non target species while catching what you are after is awesome. Before, I would put them on in the event of something not working (minnows/worms). Now I find myself going to them first.

My phone died so I did not manage many pictures. In fact, the ones I did take were from someone elses phone.

My buddies posing with a couple of crappies in front of the CDC sticker on my windshield
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Nice job. It's always great to discover a new tactic.

Nice

Nice job on trying something different that worked, I know once you get stuck fishing a certain way its hard to try different methods and i need to start ding that

I was out this morning and my method of fishing wasn't tearing them up so i stuck on so crank baits for fun and got a few crappie

I did end up catching by accident a 19" walleye on my small jig with plastic, might need to go back and give this lake another try

Nice post Rich. Getting stuck in a rut myself...work, work, work. Somebody help me!!!

Good work. I always use artificial baits, but never would have thought to try a 5" worm for crappie. What does SOG mean when you're measuring speed?

SOG: Speed over ground

You see it on some gps units. Basically the equivilant of MPH.

Once I saw those fish hit a full crawler, I switched to the 5 inch plastic.

I know what you mean Don. I worked all week, then planted 7 foodplots on Saturday and cut 7 facecords of firewood on Sunday. Oh, and the truck went in Friday for new brake lines. I said at Brower that it was only a matter of time!

Sorry, was on my phone last night so I couldn't type a very detailed account.

SOG (speed over ground) refers to the speed your boat is traveling in relation to the ground. We use it in offshore fishing applications with a ton of current and wind/waves.

Imagine trolling into the wind. Your MPH might not show very fast but your SOG will show you traveling at a different rate (due to wind or waves). You also have current involved and it plays a major issue when it comes to what is actually happeneing at the bait.

I see a ton of walleye fisherman that talk about speed and trolling. IF they actually knew the true speed at their bait they would be floored. They cannot understand how one day they troll at 1.0 and catch fish and the next day they travel at the same speed and catch nothing. They also tend to troll with the wind.

If some of them took a page from Salmon fishing, they would know that many charter captains (and weekend warriors) utilize a speed and tempuratur sensor at the bait. It is a probe that goes in the water and sends a signal of the actual speed and tempurate where the bait is located. There are days were the current is so strong, the boat is traveling at 4.0 yet the bait is actually traveling at 1.1.

You can travel at the same speed regardless as you watch the probe. It also tells you a great deal about fish strikes. On the turn, speeding up, slowing down. YOu can fish with the wind, into the wind, across the wind. It gives you a better picture of what the bait is doing.

SOG is a term used to tell other captains the speed in relation to the ground as every boat might show a different MPH but SOG is consistant. Some fishfinder models with show you SOG (you just have to look for the setting).

As for the probe I am refering to, if you want more infromation, I utilized a "fishhawk" on my greatlakes boat.

Thanks for the explanation. I can see how that would be useful, particularly when you're dealing with currents.