Newbi with question about trolling cranks

I live on Neely Henry reservoir in N. Alabama which is the Coosa river with stained water and avg depth of 30'. I am trying to learn how to troll. On the Alabama forum there is not much info. I went yesterday and trolled along the river ledge running with about a 2 mph current with wind at my back as well. I put my trolling motor on about 30 % which was just enough speed to get my crank bait down. Nothing!!
Along the ledges there are many trees and stumps so I was staying in about 12' of depth and keeping my bait just above that. I trolled about 2 miles. Am I doing something wrong? Thank in advance.

Just keep trolling till you find them. Sounds like you we're under them. They feed up. Run in all depths. You will find them on flats and points as well as river ledges.

I use a gps, to troll around 1.7 - 2.0 mph. The fish may have been in a little deeper water, you should try anywhere from the 12 ft. depth all the way to 30 ft....the fish may be suspended anywhere along these depths. The fish may have not been in that area at the time, or, as in the case here, this cool front has really slowed them down. It's really trial and error to find what works on a particular lake. look at Ms off topic, and in one of the threads, you will see a bandit depth chart.....that will help you out also.

I pull my crank baits at 1.8 mph gps and I see where the fish are on my fish finder.....I try to run the baits a foot or two above them. They will come up a little ti hit a bait but they wont go down.

Also you need to be moving around 2 mph. You said you went 2 miles. That's only a hour of trolling. I cover an average of 12 miles a trip some days less some days more.

sorry, MS forum.....here's the link:


http://www.crappie.com/crappie/missi...th-charts.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hotrod1

Also you need to be moving around 2 mph. You said you went 2 miles. That's only a hour of trolling. I cover an average of 12 miles a trip some days less some days more.

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LOL, hotrod is right......I've trolled 8-10 miles before without a bite.....then happen to find them......sometimes I don't.....it's all part of it. But, as he stated 2 miles is no distance at all really, for this type of fishing.

Geno you didn't say if you have a GPS, if not going to be hard to calculate your speed. Most everyone pulls between 1.5 to 2.0 . Running with a current of 2.0 you need to be running 3.5+ to get your baits at 1.5 and like the others you going to have to spend some hrs pulling to figure it out.

all the answers are in here somewhere http://www.crappie.com/crappie/missi...nks-101-a.html

Depth chart Attachment 134476

Lot of white crappie there? Reason I ask is, if it's a primarily black crappie fishery, trolling cranks is going to be tough. You can catch blacks this way, but they don't generally suspend in open water as much as the white's.

"liking" one of feelays posts is kinda like being a yankee fan or pulling for jimmy Johnson. Of course you like them. Why not??

You may want to look inside the major creeks if the main river has that much current. I know they don't like swift water on my lake here and when I have fished on Logan Martin in AL. Some current is ok but fast muddy water is going to send them behind some structure or in the river bend eddys. Just find some slower water and try again.

Neely Henry is also my home lake. I have tried pulling cranks a couple of times with only a little success. I think the main problem on this lake is what Feelay said, we have more black than white crappie. I know that Scott from Hi-Tek also pulls cranks here at times and catches fish so if that's what a fellow wanted to do I would suggest he just keep trying and try different depths and different places.

I very much appreciate the replies and the help. I do have a bird 898cihd. I think next time out I am going to Canoe creek and try there. The main problem is that I am not sure the images on the down scan are crappie or stripe...

I posted about speed took soon, you guys covered it

My first advise is try to find some "more"still water. A crappie is not a moving water fish. They will look for eddys or some sorta still water. Hard to pull cranks in an area with little still water. IMO.