Crankin at the Cat today.
Went back to Cataract today and started crankin at 8 am in 8 to 16 ft of water and for 3 hours picked up nothing but about 20 scattered out dinks working the points and sides of them and near the creek channel. I had been reading a new post on the Mississippi forum on how shallow water cranking 300 bandits and 350 Arkies and the posting was " what was the least line you could use trolling and Rees Guide from there, was using no more than 10' of line with only 5' of it in the water making your crank bait next to the boat and also no more than 4' deep so I thought I would experiment and see if it worked and tried it. Worked up to a shallow long point going in the main part of the Cat and 5' from the bank in less than 4' of water nailed a 13.75" crappie and by 2:30 had 10 in the boat from 10" to the size of the first one. I could only nail one here, one there, scattered and also picked up maybe another dozen 8 to almost 10". Sometimes was dragging my crank baits on the bottom and as soon as it had clean water right on the bottom get a hit here and there. Had 2 rods next to the bank, and another out the side with no more than 15' of line out trolling and even a few were caught on the outside rod. Boat and trolling motor didn't spook them that I could tell and the shallowest crankin I had ever done. I can really see this working right now on Monroe with it up and the buckbrush and bushes flooded and may try it again there. Last Friday's fishing was with rain moving east and west of me, today was fronts slowly moving in this evening but fishing at the Cat has been very slow and depth finder was showing fish suspended from 5'to 35' scattered everywhere. The fish,are there, but hardly cooperating as even the minnow fishermen have been giving up and leaving by noonish. At 2:30 there was only 4 vehicles at Cunnot when I pulled out. No pic as all fished were released.
Water temp got up to 73.5 and hot color that worked was chartreuse 300 bandits at 1.5 to 1.8 mph.
