Thread: 1st Crankbait Limit of the Year for my boat!

I went to KY Lake late Saturday afternoon to try to find some crappie since the water has started dropping and there seems to be some current. I spent the first couple of hours on some of my usual haunts and found nothing but yellows and lake lice. I started working into a bay and started picking up one here, one there. I soon ran out of daylight but decided to try them Sunday morning.

My wife mulled the offer of a trolling trip over and at 10PM she decided to pass on the offer. By then I felt it was too late to call my usual suspects to see if they wanted to go so I decided to go solo again.

I got to the ramp just as it was peeking enough daylight to see to launch but not enough light to feel safe running the lake without running lights on the boat. I got out to where I wanted to start and soon had 8 cranks in the water at varying depths. The 1st several spots I checked came up empty and I started to worry if this was going to be another of the trips I have been experiencing. Trolling for miles without being interrupted is allowing me to mark a bunch of structure and replace several of the waypoints I lost when I deep-sixed my 788HD over Memorial weekend. I just wasn't finding the crappie I felt sure were still there. It was a really nice morning and other than the usual glitterboat bass army running wild, it was pretty much left to me. The lake lice came out to play after 9AM.

I finally start picking up a few keepers, just no big fish like I had hoped. I was having to run in areas I typically avoid like the plague due to all the potential to lose a days wages in lost cranks. Brush piles and stake beds are the scourge to a crankbait fisherman. I was steadily losing about as many baits as fish I was putting in the box.

As the morning wore on, the lake lice army didn't disappoint and came out in force. An 18 foot boat in 3 foot rollers tends to mess with ones equilibrium and I've never been accused of being a ballet dancer anyway. I got bounced around pretty good but kept on catching a few. I did have one pontoon boat absolutely loaded down with bikini-clad sweeties decide to see how close they could come to the nose of my boat at plane speed. Nice view or not, I wasn't really happy about that while I was trying to cast a crank on a 16 foot trolling rod. The bird's nest that I gained is a thing of beauty (crp4570 calls those Condor's Nests) that will have to be cut out with a knife, Thank goodness for spare rods and reels. Once I decided I had better keep a good count on the box, I found I was well on my way to a decent day.

I had to keep repeating the same passes that were producing. Thank goodness for GPS and Lakemaster mapcards.

I had what I thought was a hang-up but when I tried to break it off, I found out it was one upset flathead catfish about 20 pounds with a face full of crank. He/she was one unhappy camper. I have never had a catfish come to the top and shake its head like this one. The first time I thought it was a huge bass. I managed to get it about 2/3 of the way to the boat and tangled up with a couple more lines off the transom. The flathead made one more impressive head-shake then headed for parts unknown with a few feet of line and one crank. Then I realized it was still hooked on ANOTHER crank but tangled up badly in the line. As best I could try, I still couldn't get it to the boat and it broke the second line. First time I've ever had the same fish hooked on 2 different baits.

It took a while but I finally got to 20 on the clicker and headed for the house. Once I hit concrete, I realized just how much my head was still rocking to all that wave action. It was a nice day to be out, lake lice or not. It seems the fish may be heading to their what I would call "normal" patterns for late summer. I came home with several fewer cranks than I left with but that's why we buy more than we can ever possibly lose, even though it feels like I'm well on my way. Also came home with a few nice bags of fillets.

Nice catch. I tried for awhile this afternoon and only caught 3.