Crankin on Tellico Lake 7/23/16
My uncle and I went to Tellico Lake this past Saturday for a little training session. My uncle is trying to learn side imaging and I am happy to help any angler out. When we arrived at the lake we decided to fish for a bit before starting the sonar 101. We put in at around 6:45 am and had 26 keeper fish in the boat by 9:00 am. We also had I think 5 or 6 shorts. This day was kind of odd for Tellico, those of you who fish Tellico know there is a lot of shorts lol. We were pulling cranks in 16 to 22 ft of water. We started the day with #5 Flicker shads, 350 Arkie's, and 220 Arkie's. We quickly found out that the Arkie Cranks were what they were looking for that morning. Color did not seem to matter much. I pull my cranks a little different, I like to pull them on a 3 way swivel with a 1 ½ oz bottom bouncer on the bottom and a 3 foot leader to the crank. This allows me to put any crank bait at any depth I see fish. I also don’t have to run as fast as most guys do. I was running between 1 and 1.2 mph which puts plenty of action on the cranks and does not kill your battery nearly as fast. The fish were suspended at about 10 feet and we were letting out 10 to 12 feet of line as the baits will drag slightly. We did not see but one other boat that was crappie fishing and he to was catching a fish here and there. At about 9 am we quit fishing and went to school on how to operate and read SI and DI an before we left the lake at 11:30 I believe my uncle was not only more skilled on how to find structure and fish with his new unit but he called me Saturday night and wanted to know where he could buy the bottom bouncers and the crank baits. HAHAHA. It was a good day on the water.
