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Has anybody here ever pulled cranks on the chick lake or river.any pointers would be greatly appreciated.what kinds and colors are yall favorites??? ive fished everything there but cranks.gonna take a wack at it all next week.on vac and gomna take advantage of the fishing time:fish:fish
I cast far as I can from the boat, I use 6 ft rod preferably something light old Fiberglass rods work well because you can see the action of the bait on the tip of the rod very well. Also when the fish hits the soft tip absorbs some of the stress and doesn't pull the hooks out of the Papery mouth... I like Norman's crappie cranks blue or black back with silver belly or Arkansas shad I believe it's a Green gold glittery color they all run 7-9 ft deep... I use a GPS to stay within 1-1.4mph but you can tell by the tip if you need to speed up or slow down usually 2nd speed on tm works well or 30-35% on variable speed depending on wind conditions. Also Berkeley flicker shads work well. I don't use bandits they seem alittle too fat and wide wobbled but that's just my opinion...
I believe that Bandits are the #1 crank bait pulled by crappie fishermen. I started to collect them like match box cars and have somewhere around 100 of them. I also know that most pull them around 1.5-2.0 mph. This allows you to cover a lot more water than going slow like when you are long lining jigs.
You can google trolling crank baits for crappie and get a lot of information including this link.
I caught two 15"ers in the same day trolling them at Buggs but as for the Chick, I have never pulled them there.
Two 15s in a day!!! Better listen to tap on this one... Maybe that fat profile catches those fat slabs!
Does anyone ever just cast the crankbaits over brush instead of trolling?
You can get them deeper trolling as you can let out as much line as you want. I have thrown one occasionally but never caught a crappie doing so.
I've accidently caught a few over the years while bassin. Even caught one last year on a floating rogue. Nothing consistent though. Was just wondering. Never tried pulling or fishing over tops with cranks, usually just jigs. Thanks.
I have caught some wile tight lining by casting bridge edges.
I've pulled Bandit 100s and Strike King 4S's in Chick Lake with fair results. Haven't tried any that run deeper than these. SK has a tighter wobble than Bandit, both in white/chartreuse color have been productive. Keep hearing good things about Norman, need to try them.
Chick Lake is famous for loading up with grass in the summer. By now, the upper section will be out of the question for cranks. If a storm has broken up some of the grass, it will drift all over the lake and make it difficult to pull any kind of bait.
In the summer a wide wobble is usually better than a tight wobble,in cold weather it is the opposite way,but of coarse when you think you got them figue out ,they change the rules,that's why we call it fishing
My biggest crappie out of lake Gaston was on a crank bait. I was bass fishing over a beaver hutch. I have caught crappie casting c/b but that was at a pvt lake in Goochland and this lake don't count
I have been wanting to try trolling cranks in the Chick River for crappie for quite some time. Long line trolling has always been good to me here and crankbaits are a good imitation of one of the dominant forage types. I've been equipping for the venture for a while. I have been tied up since April on home repairs and am coming to the end of that saga. There is a 15' Tidecraft stick boat in the back yard awaiting a complete redo. Before I get knee deep into that, I thought I would give it a shot, thanks to prodding by this thread. I can't say that I tried too hard or too long, but this is how it went:
I went out behind the house (the big bend with all of the piers on the New Kent side just below Walkers.) I rigged a 10' B&M trolling rod with a small silver shad colored model A (I think it's the smallest one they make). I also rigged a 6' ultralight with a tiny rapala model deep diver.- So I had one wide wobble and one tight wobble, both would run down about 10' with enough line out. WIth one rod on each side of the boat, I trolled the bend 3 times up and down on a falling tide. I got bit a bunch of times. The hookups proved a bit disappointing- all were White Perch which were feeding in the channel on the moving tide. On the depth finder, I marked what might have been crappie off the large tan boat house, but no strikes there.
I talked to an electrofishing team from the State some years back. They told me that the crappie seem to hold along the lily pad lines in the summer months, usually on the shallow drop side (ie: the long flat edge across the river from Riverside camp). They said that the crappie seem to switch sides in the fall, moving to the side with the sharper drop.
So, that's my two cents for now. I intend to pursue this much more intensively this fall. For the summer months, I think the crankbait trolling for crappie in the river might not be the best technique.:twocents