Rapala Clackin' Crank

[WT101]

Hey guys, been doing a lot of reading on here about trolling cranks. Never have done it before, and I want to try it. I fish mostly from a kayak. Made an investment in several Bandits a few nights ago. Tonight, I was at one of the big-name sporting goods stores and found some Rapala Clackin' Cranks for under $5 each. If you've ever seen them at regular price, you know that's a great deal. So, I picked up a few of them. Only catch is, Rapala says they only dive to about 5'. My thought, was, though, that looking at the depth charts for the Bandits, they go deeper than rated given enough line out, so why wouldn't these do the same thing? Only difference is the Clackin' Crank has a square bill. Anybody have any experience with trolling the Clackin' Cranks?

[Dutch552]

I haven't because of the high price but would be interested in seeing how they work out. If you have a depth finder on your kayak I'd let about 100 feet of line out and then track the botom while watching your rod tip to see when it starts to bump the bottom and then stop so it will float up and you won't lose your new lure in the pursuit of depth research. This should give you a good idea at how deep it's running and how I determined the actual trolling depth of a lure before I got my hands on dive curves for the more popular lures. Good luck and report back what you find out.

[Cray]

Most square bills will only run about 5 ft since they are designed for fishing in cover. If you have some pretty stiff poles you could push them by adding a 2 oz weight about 2ft in front of the bait. Another trick I have used to get a bait down is put a 1/6 or 1/8 oz bullet sinker on your line then a small bead tie on snap then attach crank bait. Weight will usually have no affect on wobble of bait.