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Tried pulling cranks today in the Riverside area of Logan Martin for a couple of hours. Water temp was 86 degrees and plenty of pleasure cruisers. Tried fishing the ledges of the river channel. Landed 1 cat, 1 bass and a drum. Lost a massive drum at the boat - almost as big as my leg. All in all had a great day. So far two trips - a couple of cats and bass but no crappie as of yet. Pulling 300's and flicker shad 7's. Any suggestions for targeting the crappie?
Welcome to the sight from Odenville and let me know if I can be of any help to you. I have found through personal experience and talking with others who have tried it that the Coosa River lakes are not good for crank trolling. The reason I was told is that the crappie population in the river is a majority of black crappie. The black crappie will not hit cranks as well as white crappie do. Black crappie will hit cranks sometimes but not like the white crappie do. I do not know if this is the only reason that its hard to catch them trolling cranks or there are other factors too. With this being a holiday weekend I know the boating traffic on the lake also has a negative effect on the fishing. Let us know how things work out for you.
If there is an area on the lake that you find white crappie try there. I only catch blacks by mistake when trolling cranks. The whites seem to be more the target than blacks. Because blacks tend to relate to structure more and whites seem to roam open water more, I believe the whites are more likely to take the crank because they are used to chasing bait like that where as the blacks are in an ambush mode around some structure. Just my observations over the few summers I've been pulling cranks.
The white crappie tend to be in open water this time of year chaseing and eating shad. On the lakes in MS that I fish I look for shad on my fish finder....when I find the shad the crappie are there...I use a trolling chart and set my crank baits a foot or two above them as they will come up a little to hit a bait but seldom go down.