Eager to try trolling some crankbaits

My wife and I are going to have some time to fish this weekend, and I've been gearing up with trolling gear the past few weeks. I'm basically new to fishing "bigger" lakes in a boat but am doing my best to figure out how to bring fish home on our outings.

The crappie, to the best of my knowledge, should be close to spawning and in shallows here ( SE Indiana). Atleast thats where I have been looking for them. Should I not even bother trying to pull crankbaits until after they spawn? I really want to try out our new gear, sort of a practice run. But we also would like to catch a few fish of course!

Crank away now, as time now is prime. Check Indiana,s postings as I have been cranking and catching limits. :cheers2

Oddly enough .... the lake we had our Spring Fling Crappie Camp on, had stable water levels & water temps in the high 60's to low 70's .... and pulling cranks netted the bigger fish & greater numbers of fish ... running ~15ft deep over 30fow. Now, there were quite a few that pushed jigs in shallower water, up in the river end of the lake, that also did quite well in size & numbers.

So, had we all gone by the conditions being "prime" for shallow water spawning and let that dictate our fishing methods ... we wouldn't have had near as many fish brought in.

I'm not set up to push/pull cranks ... but, I did push jigs @ ~15ft deep for a few hours on the day after the event, and caught 7 nice Crappie before the wind made it impossible to fish.

Why the females were out in such deep water, with the conditions being what they were ... :dono But, they were there, and they showed up as little groups on the depth finder. One other little thing that also seemed a little odd, was that most bites came when running in one direction ... even though I went thru the same area in both directions, over and over. Having heard that in the seminar at the event, the day before, I had to try it out ... and sure enough, it happened.

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Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

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One other little thing that also seemed a little odd, was that most bites came when running in one direction ... even though I went thru the same area in both directions, over and over. Having heard that in the seminar at the event, the day before, I had to try it out ... and sure enough, it happened.

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I wouldn't lie to you Pappy (or any of the others at the seminar).

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Originally Posted by mrdux

I wouldn't lie to you Pappy (or any of the others at the seminar).

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I know that ... and that's why I passed it on to these fellers !!

In fact, I didn't attend your seminar (too busy) and only caught that one piece where you made that observation. I didn't really think about it, until I noticed the pattern on Sunday ... since I was trolling that same curve where I saw you and Rickie on Saturday. I even noticed that the pods of fish seemed to be directly in line with the blowdown trees on the bank (where everyone else was fishing in that area) ... just about 50yds out from them.

What determines the direction that you troll. I would like more information on this if you can. I normally just troll toward the wind mostly so I can control the boat better.

So being that I'm a complete noob,


Whats my best plan of attack to catch a few fish trolling a small (200 acre) lake. Should I stagger depths? We've got 4 linecounter rods to run crankbaits on, Should I run all 4 the same depths, and if no hits, backtrack the same routes a few feet shallower or deeper?

I just have simple 2D sonar, so its basically for tracking the depth. I do have a ton of brand new bandit 200-300's, Berkley flicker shads and Arkie crappie cranks, and I'm willing to donate some to snags if it means catching a few fish!


The weather is looking pretty crappy for this weekend unfortunately. Lots of rain, cooler temps. Most likely high winds as well, my luck.

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Originally Posted by scrat

What determines the direction that you troll. I would like more information on this if you can. I normally just troll toward the wind mostly so I can control the boat better.

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If there is noticeable current or wind, I will start out going with the flow. I never leave an area where I either see fish on my electronics, catch fish, or have confidence in without trolling the same track in the opposite direction. I will also come at a hot spot from all different directions. Lots of times my chart will look like an Etch-a-sketch.

I run baits of different depth ranges (200 & 300) as well as different wobble in my initial spread. I also use different colors until the fish show me what color is working best then I'll put several of similar color out. I always stagger the amounts of line I have out on each bait so I don't have baits running the same depth side-by-side. My stagger may be 10 feet or 40 feet, it is just depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

:hesaid

Mrdux has it down pat, agree on this

Just a suggestion to those wanting to start out using crankbaits.
1. Start out with arkies or bandits or both
2. Crankbaits only, you can't go slow enough for longining jigs, just concentrate on the crankbaits.
3. Print out the depth charts for the Arkies and bandits and tape them to your tackle box so you can study them while cranking.
4. Do yourself a favor and learn from the guys that developed this technic of fishing through their constant experimentation,,, read http://www.crappie.com/crappie/missi...-cranks-101-a/
it will teach you everything and all about using trolling motors, boat speed, depths, you name it. Sure it's a long read, but it will answer all your questions as well as give you ideas how to set your boats up.

just my 2 cents

Got our "new" boat yesterday, and broke it in this evening!

We hit the local lake, and put my new trolling rods to work. We went to a shallow flats area my friend had told me about before, that I saw a few other boats on. Pulled 4 Bandit 200's for around 2 hours and wound up with 3 walleye and 10 crappie! 2 walleye were keepers @ 15.5" and 17", and about 7 of the crappie were over 10-11" we kept.

Couldn't be happier as a first timer at about everything. No tangles, no real issues. Super simple, my wife caught on quick and was catching fish and putting the rods back out at the set depths with no hassles.



absolutely LOVED the wireless minnkota riptide that came on the boat, although right as it got dark enough to leave the batteries were tanked. I feel they should last waay longer than the 2+- hours we got to fish, so I guess the batteries are crap. I have a couple other deep cycles I think I'll bring and try out after these die again.

The weather was bad, windy, pretty chilly and spotty rain, but surprisingly afterwards my wife already has plans for us to go back this morning and do it again!

Another day out, Was able to find about 10 crappie, but thats it :/

I tried Bandit 300's and kept the line short to be in the 8-10ft range, then after moving locations and still no hits we started dropping depth. Finally started catching a few crappie when we got the baits down to 12-13ft.


Batteries seem to be lasting better the last few trips, but still only about 3.5-4.5 hrs of pulling the boat at 1.7-1.9mph. Need to figure out a solution to up the runtime to 6-8hrs, if the batteries are just old I'll replace, but need to figure out how to tell for sure I guess.

I also want to find a pair of long trolling rods, so we can start running 6 rods instead of 4. Right now I have 4, 7' rods. I have 2 more holders setup, but it just seems like a mess waiting to happen running rods the same length there.

Your fishing a very high pressure system after 2 weeks of,rain and storms moving thru. Fish slow as yesterday my crappies hit on a speed of 1.5 to 1.6 and anything faster they would miss the bait as I would see the rod tips with light hits on them but missed setting hooks on cranks and even lost 3 fish as they were barely hooked. Stagger your rod sizes When fishing by myself I use 2 12' fters one on each side of the front and either a 8' or 10' on one side angled alittle back to have some room from the 12'. You can do 7' 6' 5' even med action to med lite works fine. Batteries-- I run 2 series 31 Deep cycle on trolling motor and get 8 plus hrs of trolling and mine are going on 2 yrs old now. Got them at Rural King for 120.OO each. Just make sure you have room for them as all series 31 deep cycle are mostly 13.5 inches long compared to series 29 or series 27. Any rod starting out will work for trolling cranks. You can get Wally marshal 12' or 14' for about 30 bucks each and jigging poles work for trolling cranks as I have caught cats on mine up to 20lbs and stripers up to 15 lbs and lg. Mouth bass at 6' and yet to break one but it takes time to land an unusual large fish. That is the craziness when trolling cranks. You can catch about anything feeding on a crankbait. Good luck and set your rig up to suit you.

Great info on the batteries thats what I wanted to hear, thank you. I had looked at Rural king, and saw the $119 deep cycles- but didn't want to spend the money unless I was for sure it would up my runtime dramatically. I had a look and mine are Napa 27 series, and the hatch opening is 13.25". More like 15" wide or better below the hatch rim, so I may have to "buy and try".

The winds we high today and my gps batteries died early, so I was periodically dipping a crank off the side of boat to check the "speed". I imagine with the winds, we were covering alot of speed ranges. A few times the rod tips were pulling pretty hard with heavy tail winds and a constant motor speed, I bet it was 3mph +-.

I think a pair of 10' rods would be perfect. The 4 7' rods work very well, and 2 10' rods in front of them would be plenty of room. I'll do some shopping.

I agree with mrdux.

Picked up a couple of the 31 series Rural king batteries and charged them up. Hit the lake by myself this morning, and went to a new spot. I had intentions of trying to pickup some walleye with crawlers, but I started with bandit 300's to see how the water was. Picked up a few crappie early on, and started marking spots on my gps (handheld garmin) that looked stacked with fish on sonar. Most of the fish I was seeing in a strech of about 16-18ft water seemed to be holding similar depths of about 10-13 ft, so I adjusted my cranks to (hopefully) run a foot or a few above that.

I made pass after pass into the areas that looked to be holding fish on my little pirhanamax 4, and would pick up a few fish about every pass. Early on I had fish on all colors I was running, but since I was solo (3 rods in Indiana) I had a spare trolling rod. I took the downtime between hits to swap out lures as more fish came on certain ones, They seemed to favor Taco salad and Mistake as the morning went on.

I started to worry a bit because I had not been counting fish, and couldn't really tell how many were packed in the livewell at this point. A good problem to have no doubt. About lunchtime I decided to pack up and try a different spot briefly before loading up, but my motor began running crappy again so I just called it and went to the ramp. Been having fuel issues since I got the boat.

I checked the trolling motor batteries via the LED display, and it showed 75% after 5+- hours of 1.5-2mph in stiff winds. A big improvement! Seems like I will have no issues running a full day on them.

Wound up with 23 crappie, I had lost 3-4 at the boat and missed hooking a few more. Also had 3 walleye that were too short to keep, biggest was 13.25".

They were all small fish, 9.5-11", but they all taste good. Not too bad for a beginner!

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Now you're rockin !!! The crank bite should be good til the water temps drop below 70deg this Fall.

Woo! Another day on the lake with cranks

My wife and I headed out after work this morning and tried our luck again. Weather turned to rain after lunchtime, and then more rain, and then wind and rain.

It was a tad slow at times, but I imagine alot of that was me not getting the boat over the fish. There were alot of boats on the area we caught almost all the crappie, I believe most all were looking for walleye. We left for a bit and trolled along the bank in 12-15ft water, picked up a few more crappie and a small channel cat. Water got shallow, too much for the 300's, so we cruised a bit to check out the new fuel pump. I went to a big cove, and was considering actually CASTING some rods, as I've STILL yet to really cast from our new boat lol. 99.95% of the fishing so far has been dropping bandits off the back and watching line counters. I think the only cast's I've made have been from 2 extra rods we've started using to get our legal limit of 6 poles in the water for us ( I only have 4 line counter/trolling rods so far)

I was ready to call it as I had been up for 24+hr's, but my wife seemed eager to try for more, so we hit the same spot we started at and threw the cranks back in. The weather was turning, and we got into fish pretty good for a bit, hauling in another 10 or so in a short period. A guy close by in a boat told us- after watching us pass him several times and land fish after fish 150ft from him, "I don't know what your doing but your sure killing the rest of us guys here!"

That was probably the highlight of my day :)

We eagerly continued to fish in pouring rain and wind, trying to follow break lines and stick the cranks over fish. We picked up a few more fish here and there, including 2 walleye that were just barely keepers. We did have a couple of good sized crappie this time, one measured right at 13", I think 2 or maybe 3 others were a solid 12. We threw back a half dozen 9"ers.

The new 31 series batteries for the Riptide 80lb did excellent. We trolled basically all day, from about 8am to 4-4:30pm, and they show 75% on the LED display still :yikes LOVE the riptide, It will be a close battle for my next purchase between a good gps/sonar unit or a I-pilot upgrade. I feel boat control might win out over the sonar/gps. My little $100 Piranha max 4+ handheld garmin seems to be helping me get/stay on fish, somewhat anyway. I have a soft spot for shiny things like fancy sonar, but the idea of pointing the boat and not touching anything again is sounding pretty great.


We did have a few tangles today, mainly because of distractions due to the weather and also just plain because we were busy with fish at times. Using 6 rods- all about 7', seems pretty cluttered. I really really want to find some 9-11ft rods, just dont want to pay $50+ a piece really. But most tangles were simple fixes, no real frustrating messes.








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There you go !! couple more trips like that and you'll be moved out of the "beginners" forum ... :biggrin