New at trolling question

[coony278]

Well I went out trolling today for my first time. I didnt catch a single crappie! Caught 2 large mouth bass though .

I had alot of crappie on the sonar.

Here is a couple of questions , how do you know what speed to troll at, the slowest my trolling motor will troll at is .07 mph by my GPS. The lines seem to bend back at about a 30 deg. at this speed. I tried more wieght on the poles but didnt seem to matter.

How long do you usually troll for before you try something else? I trolled for 3 hours and caught notihing. I gave up and decieded to try and learn more about this tolling. I had 4 rods with minows on, and 4 with variuos color jigs and all at differnt depths ( kinda going by sonar at the depths it said the fish was at) .

I have read alot about this but I must be missing something because I really thought I should have had some success today!

I'am new to this so any help would be much apreciated.

Coony

[mini moe]

What area are you trolling? What state,lake? The crappie may be spawing in on the banks and trolling isn't as effective then as it is when they are staging. Here in NC it works better in early spring before they spawn. That speed should work if you think it's too fast try trolling into the wind. Cove mouths off the main channel works well when they are staging.

mini moe

[dogboy]

Man having your lines slanted back may be whats killin' ya. Really I just don't feel good about what I'm doing unless my lines are vertical. If you are in fairly shallow water 8' or less a 30 deg. slant may put your bait pretty close to under your boat. I'm no expert but for me keeping my line vertical is huge.
Kurt

[coony278]

I'am in Mississippi , on enid lake. The water temp here is 82 deg. , and by the sonar the cappie are schooled up and suspened around 10 feet of water. I just cant catch them and everyone says that trolling is the way to catch them this time of year.


Coony

[Corinth Fraz]

Cooney
I do a lot of trolling. I put a 1/4 oz jig on the bottom & another 1/4 jig about 15 to 18 inches about the bottom one. I tip the jigs with minnows. I side troll at around 1 mph. I watch my depth finder & pull line out at about 1 ft per pull until I get to the desired depht. If I don't get a hit within 2 or 3 min. I pull out another ft or so until I hit the right depth. I hope this helps you... good luck

[TapOut64]

I prefer to troll around the same speed you did. Unfortunately there are those day when the crappie just won't bite, I'm thinking you had one of those days. I had been spider rigging a lot but now I'm playing around with pulling crankbaits and maybe some long lining. If no luck spider rigging just switch to something else, maybe just casting a jig will work, who knows, crappie are fickled.