Sharon Harris 25JUN17

Out to Shearon Harris today with the wife and we wanted to try something new so last night we bought six arkie crank baits and some 3oz weights, we both agreed we thought pushing crank baits for summer crappie would be fun and it was, kind of. We only caught six crappie with the largest being 14 1/2 inches and the smallest came in at 11, with that being said we slayed the white bass. This was my first real experience with these fish and from my opinion I thought we were getting some nice ones, 19 total ranging from 8"-13". This lasted until about noon when my patience ended with the constant waves from boats, well I hope this helps someone who is looking to chase some fish with crank baits. Good luck guys.

Sounds like fun. Try long-lining some shallow running crank baits and you will enjoy it as well. One morning three or four years ago I caught lots of white perch and had a great time. I didn't catch many crappie, but Harris has some monster perch and they hit those crank baits with lots of power. They are good to eat as well.

Ok well I have been corrected, I'm gonna blame this on my lack of experience. But yes they were white perch, thanks for the help hockey.

Jordanlimit you mention shallow running crank baits what do you recommend? I was using 3-8 foot divers but with my 3oz weight lowers about twelve feet down and a three foot leader I was running about ten feet deep. Any suggestions would be great, like I said earlier this was my very first time thank you.

I like to long line shad raps. I have had lots of success on a number of different lakes catching crappie, white perch and even an occassional bass that way. Actually, the biggest bass I ever caught was landed with this technique. 8 pounds, 8 ounces. Talk about a shocker:) With a standard, a # 5 or #7 shad rap will usually dive 8-10 feet depending on how much line is out and how fast you are trolling.

It depends upon your depth and I was running in 8'-12' water, so I used the short-bill shallow running cranks. I was trying to run about 4'-6' deep. If you go to a little deeper water, the mid-depth cranks will work.

Here is the best source of information available in America: http://www.crappie.com/crappie/missi...-cranks-101-a/

There are 157 pages to this thread, so get ready for a lot of reading. It will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about pulling cranks. They work best on white crappie and Jordan/Harris are mostly black, but the perch sure love them.

I usually run both bandit 200s and 300s this time of the year. Like everyone said, can't keep the perch off them at times. You don't catch huge numbers of crappie on crankbaits especially on Tillery, but the ones you catch are usually nice. The thing I love is you never know what you are going to catch. May be crappie, perch, catfish, bass or even the ever shy mr. striper. Good thing is everything that hits them eats pretty good.

Thanks guys I appreciate the help, I think I am gonna stick with the arkie's though they are cheaper and won't break the bank when I break off like I did this past weekend. On the other hand I did find a couple of trees in 15 feet of water that come up to about six feet deep. Needless to say I will be back to jig for crappie. Also lake tillery is about two hours away from where I am, if I do make that drive where do you recommend I start at, just a general cardinal direction will suffice.

Shoot me a pm if you ever head to tillery and I will give you as up todate info as I have. I use some arkies as well. Just started with bandits and still using them. Get you a nice rig to get them unhung. I make my own for umbrella rigs when striper fishing using size 12 or 14 weighted treble hooks. I put a huge swivel on the eye and cut the points off the hook so I can hook it to the line and run it down to pull the plug loose. Saves a bunch of money.

I troll Shad Raps and Berkley Flicker Shads & do pretty well with 'em. I caught a 16 pound striper on U/L tackle trolling a #5 Shad Rap for crappie on Kerr. I was pulling the creek channel near the dog leg into Steele Creek Marina and saw a wad of shad on the depth finder by some stumps along the channel edge. Drag started buzzing & I cussed, cause I figured I was hung. I bumped the big motor into reverse & noticed that I was going backwards, but the drag was still burning. I threw the trolling motor down on 24 high & chased him down. It took 15 minutes to get a net under him on 6 pound test. Great fight and good fish to add to a mess of crappie.

Good luck & have fun next time you go!

Jim

Sometimes you get surprised. I caught a 32 lb flathead on 12 foot crappie rod, 6 lb line, gold crappie hook and minnow in about 3 foot of water once on Kerr. I pulled my boat out to the center of the cove and we just went round and round for about 20 minutes. I have also had stripers hit in Kerr that I never turned or slowed down on my crappie outfits. Makes it interesting.

Now I am not sure of where this Kerr lake is located but it is suddenly sounding very interesting, does everyone beef their line up in the summer because I am still using the good ole 4# Cajun red line.

All you have to do is google Kerr and you will get plenty of info on it. I was up there last summer in June. I was actually trolling for stripers with Rapala's and caught a 14 pound blue cat. Never know what might hit up there. I would definitely go with some heavier line though!

I was able to fish Harris for the first time while I was in the area for work this week. I trolled a medium depth and shallow depth crank bait from my kayak and was surprised about the quality of fish I caught. Nice healthy crappie and HUGE white perch. I usually fish lake Wylie and those Harris perch could eat those Wylie perch.

They were some brutes for perch, at least what I am used to. Up north we have yellow perch and these white perch dwarf them easily, trolling arkie's around ten feet with the sexy shad color worked best for me.