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The majority of my fishing is done at Green or Cumberland either jigging or spider rigging. I never see anybody pulling cranks at Green but seems like it would be a decent lake to learn due to the various bottom structure. I have a small collection, maybe 15 or so, but I've never done it. I've read plenty and get the idea. Just wondering if anybody successfully catches fish, what seasons, and what structure. Just an open discussion, I'm not looking for all your secrets. Thanks in advance.
It's done all the time at Green. I think most of the people I know "Push" cranks, rather than actually "pull" them. By "Pushing cranks" I'm referring to using lead trolling weights ahead of the crank ... as opposed to "pulling" them without weights (longline trolling style).Quote:
Originally Posted by JLSandusky
I've tried it a few times, with others & by myself ... and caught fish. It seems to be one of the better methods to use when the lake water temps are over 70deg and pushing 80deg and the Crappie are on the flats and suspended around the Shad schools. When the Thermocline sets up, that will determine the maximum depth your cranks need to reach.
Then again ... last year, at the Spring Fling (early May), there were people catching Crappie on cranks ... out in 30fow !!
I use 3 oz weights on down rods and alternate, one down, and beside it, longline. 4 rods across the stern, four off the bow using my 14' rods furtherest out and long line so I hopefully won't get tangles
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I would be more comfortable to push than pull because I normally spider rig and it would feel more natural. I only have 4 rods that would handle the weight to push though. I do have a couple of line counter reels I bought last year but never used them. I guess I could try a mix of both. I have a XI5 so I can run the TM from anywhere in the boat. I guess I'll just have to try later in the spring and summer and see what happens. If I could catch some with cranks it should boost my confidence enough to put more money into the right equipment. I've been wanting to head down west to the big lakes to learn from "the pro". Maybe I'll just have to give him a call.
Be careful what you wish for. Pulling cranks can get expensive in a hurry when you find the snaggy stuff. I was with "the pro" one day when we lost $50 worth of cranks in about 0.2 seconds. :yikes
This happened to me and my buddy. We ran across a stump field that rose out of fifteen feet to eight real quick. Lost all six cranks at one time. Was using eight dollar shad raps. Do the math.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quackrstackr
That would take the fun out of it in a hurry!Quote:
Originally Posted by chaunc
Yeah that would suck. I would likely only try in areas where I know the structure. I don't know why, but I just really want to see a big crankbait deep in a crappie's mouth.
You must never get out of the river or fish pass April. Everybody and there brother are using cranks anymore...
Last April, 3 of us KY Lake boys headed east to attend the Green River Spring Fling. We brought 2 boats. Adam (Dutch552) had fished Green. Rickie and I had never seen it. Some inside info we got on the lake said it wasn't the place to be pulling cranks in April. Being the hard-headed redneck that I am, I loaded my boat with nothing but crank gear (it was already being used down here) and decided to swing for the fences! All or nothing!!
Rickie and I started out reasonably shallow and found found some brush piles that gave up a few fish. Adam started out deeper and got on better fish. We all started concentrating even deeper around cover and started doing well. It was one here, 2 there but we were putting 10+ inch fish in the box. At the end of the afternoon we had a respectable catch in both boats with the largest being a 14 incher Adam caught. We had traveled quite a ways and seen lots of the beautiful scenery on the lake. Our best areas were close to where we launched.
The next morning we went right back to the area that produced best from the day before. We got on decent keepers right away. As the morning moved on, we had to move with the crappie and ended up catching them 15 feet deep in 40 feet of water. No cover and not a lot of bait. We had a hard time getting away from the channel catfish that were suspended right amongst the crappie. We tried a lot of different baits and colors. Funny thing is we were doing best on the same baits and colors we had been doing well on KY Lake on.
I think between the 2 boats and 3 fishermen on Friday afternoon and 4 on Saturday morning, we ended up cleaning over 100 keepers plus several channels. Since we have become accustomed to 10 inch size limits here, we just weren't interested in keeping very many fish below 10 inches.
We just took what we were comfortable with and applied it to a lake we had never seen.
Anybody we know?Quote:
Originally Posted by Quackrstackr
I can't remember his name but you two sure favor a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrdux
I started trolling crankbaits on Green in 2008 when I lived in Magnolia and it was my home lake. At that point the only other guys I saw pulling cranks were the tight-lipped walleye chasing crew and they weren’t giving out any pointers. Fast forward to today and there are a whole lot of guys that pull or push them in the warmer months. Doug, Rickie and I were very fortunate last spring to narrow down a pattern very quickly on some of my old areas and we easily boated a couple hundred fish in two days of fishing between our two boats using the same general tactics that are working for us on KY Lake. On Green, the fish in open water are pretty migratory-often times they will even move pretty good distances during the course of a single day. Once you start connecting with fish, take note of the pattern and stay with them. Sometimes you just have to grind it out to keep up with the school.
It’s a great lake and I still jump at any chance I can get to get back and troll my old stomping grounds. Looking forward to seeing everyone at another great Spring Fling this year.
The bottom of Blood River has to be colorful from all the cranks the 2 of us have left there. Blood forced me to go from Navionics to LakeMaster cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quackrstackr
Just curious mrdux, whats the difference between the 2 that made you change? I'm currently using navionics.
The accuracy of the Navionics I ran then stinks on Blood and other areas of the mid-lake. Several of the ledges I ran would show 16-20 fow when my 2D would be showing 6-8 feet. Dragging 10 cranks across shallow areas covered with stake beds and brush piles was costing me the price of a new LakeMaster card every few trips. One of them was the trip quackrstackr was mentioning. We lost all the cranks we had tied on when we hit a shallow area with what we think was a submerged tree top.The map showed us to be in 20 feet of water. There were several mystery points and humps that must have disappeared before I got to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by JLSandusky
The LakeMaster cards allow me to set depth highlights, level off-set, and other features I don't use but are available. Of course the LakeMasters are Humminbird specific. I trust their accuracy with my life.
That would probably cause me to say a few bad words! Level offset would be nice. Some lakes I fish can be 30 feet lower at winter pool vs summer. Seems that the eater depths on the maps are mostly done at summer pool. I'll have to keep an eye on the accuracy in the future.
Lakemaster has much more current info than Navionics does, at least on KY. I don't know when Navionics got their data or where they got it but it has been within the last 5 years or so for Lakemaster. I was friends on FB with one of the guys that went lake to lake doing scans for them at one time.
Like Doug said, Navionics shows stuff that silted in long ago and also doesn't show stuff that is definitely not silt (like the 20 ft contour actually only being 5-6 ft deep). Navionics seems to be relying on crowd sourcing new data instead of paying for it. At one time they were asking people to log and upload their sctructure scans for map updates.
Well that stinks. I guess I'll need to be careful if I ever make a trip down there. I would also like a map card that covered the entire S.E. US as mine stops at Tennessee. I'm also wanting to get down to fish with our southern brothers.
We prefer to push them on GRL with 2 or 3 oz. Well the people I fish with anyways. Some nice slabs are caught that way when nothing else is working well.
I go over to Mississippi page there is a ton of information about crankbait pulling and pushing. Im not sure where you from. We start pulling when it get hotter
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