Crankbaits and spider rigging

[cwright]

I know you are supposed to spider rig slow around .5. I am going to pull some crankbaits tomorrow and usually try to pull between 1.2 and 1.5 mph. Has anybody ever put out a few rods in the front with heavier weights and a couple of jigs when trolling crankbaits off the rear? Is that too fast for the jigs to be effective at all? I usually let the wife sit in the rear and catch all the fish, but thought I might pick up a few for myself in the front if I did this. Anyone try?

[bfish]

3+ oz and push cranks off the front, same speed as off the back.

[cwright]

thought about that as well. how do you rig it up. weight and then leader and crank bait almost like a carolina rig or do you run the weight at the bottom?

["G"]

Weight three ft. in front of crank bait

[cwright]

Thanks G. I will try it tomorrow.

[CrappiePappy]

Around here, most of the crank pushers/pullers are using 2oz torpedo shaped trolling weights & 5ft leaders (6lb test mono) and run around 1.8mph (main line is usually 30lb braid on Okuma Linecounter reels)

I've pushed jigs in and amongst the crank guys, and caught Crappie ... running 1/2oz weight & 2ft leader at around 0.8mph. If I was going to push at 1.2mph-1.5mph, I'd probably up my weight to 3/4oz to 1oz ... or whatever weight it would take to keep my lines at about a 45deg slant. That way I would know how deep I was fishing ... considering that with 20ft of line out at a 45deg angle, my jig would be at around 12ft deep (multiply length of line out by 0.6 if line angle is at 45deg). Or in other words ... every 10ft of line out = 6ft of depth for the jig. And don't count the length of line that's between the rod tip and water's surface as part of your "length of line out". I run 14' rods, but only count 14' of line out as 12ft of line out, since there's usually around 2ft of line out of the water between rod tip & surface when I'm pushing at around 0.8mph.

And I'm sure you are already aware of the fact that if you're pushing/pulling cranks with weight on the line ... if one of them snags, you CAN'T STOP moving forward without taking the chance of hanging ALL OF THEM up.
I've only trolled with cranks three times ... and lost as many cranks (3) ... but, all of mine were lost to fish (likely large Catfish). I'm not equipped to troll cranks for any length of time, so I'm generally pushing jigs among the crank pushers.

... cp

[cwright]

thanks. I tried pulling cranks last weekend and really liked it.

[monkscrappie]

I have weights and heavy action poles for pushing crank baits.

Monk

[cwright]

Tried pushing 4 and pulling 4 this Sat. Hickory was very high and muddy. Only caught a nice 4 lb largemouth. Could not get a crappie to even look at them. Left and went to Kerr Scott to see if it was any better, but it was the same with same results.

[skeetbum]

I'll just tell you the how and why I rig like I do to push cranks. 3 way swivel. Braid to one leg and a 3' leader with duo lock snaps on each end on another leg.For weight I use a trolling sinker with a split ring and duo lock snap on it. This clips onto the third leg and makes removal for storage much easier than having the heavy weight floppin around. I use a 10lb mono leader and have lost very few baits. The snaps make putting things together on the water much easier and faster. Adding rods while under way is mostly done after just connecting here and there. I use hi vis braid and use a magic marker to mark every 2 feet starting at 8'. Making about 10 marks you just count how many go out of the reel, or rod tip, whichever suits you, to be able to return to the previous depth. Stout rods do well for the 3oz weights and I used 2oz with good success also.
Sam and I fished together a lot. I would push 4 out front with a smaller crank and he would pull 4 or 6 out the back with Bandit 300's or my handpainted cranks. We had a few banner days that always brought us back for more.