Hot N Tots

Never got a chance to use the bandits today.One of the rare weekend fishing days for me.After church, hooked up the boat and went to Dale hollow.Figuring to stay away from the nuts with the skis and tubes I fished a NO TOW area.Caught 7 crappie, 4 keepers, at least 10 spotted bass, twice two of them were attached to the same lure, yes they were small, but did get one keeper. 3 drums, one a 6or 7 pounder. The fish were busting shad and were aroung 10 ft deep in 18 to 24 ft of water.Many strikes got off beforwe I could even get the rod out of the holder.These lures run about 9 ft deep, and I was trolling about 3 miles per hour. My 5HP Nissan 4 strke did the job, trolled just over 3 hours anf burned about a gallon of gas.Since the water here had some color stayed with bright green and silver, tried the old stand by blue ladder back, just one hit.HMMM wonder if they will be there tommorow morning?

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Originally Posted by kygorski

Never got a chance to use the bandits today.One of the rare weekend fishing days for me.After church, hooked up the boat and went to Dale hollow.Figuring to stay away from the nuts with the skis and tubes I fished a NO TOW area.Caught 7 crappie, 4 keepers, at least 10 spotted bass, twice two of them were attached to the same lure, yes they were small, but did get one keeper. 3 drums, one a 6or 7 pounder. The fish were busting shad and were aroung 10 ft deep in 18 to 24 ft of water.Many strikes got off beforwe I could even get the rod out of the holder.These lures run about 9 ft deep, and I was trolling about 3 miles per hour. My 5HP Nissan 4 strke did the job, trolled just over 3 hours anf burned about a gallon of gas.Since the water here had some color stayed with bright green and silver, tried the old stand by blue ladder back, just one hit.HMMM wonder if they will be there tommorow morning?

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you ever try tying a 2ft leader line (of slightly smaller lb test line) to the front treble hook eye .... and putting a 1/32-1/16oz marabou jig on the other end ?? I use this setup to troll for Hybrid Stripers & White Bass .... and catch a fair amount of Crappie on the jig. I am, however, using the larger HnT ... and do occasionally drag bottom at around 12ft. Just depends on how much line I have out. Have also been known to catch a few Crappie, trolling a Flat A Bomber, in the Firetiger and brown Craw colors. ... cp :cool:

The thing with the small jig attached to a diving lure, works for a lot of different fish.We used to use the smaller "hell bender" baits modified the way you said.Have a friend who does that and trolls for trout on the cumberland river. YES, the fish were back, got 5 keepers[we have a 10inch size limit', several kkkkkkky bass, one small mouth about 18 inches[too short], one drum, and there was another gar and another lost bait.But did make one discovery, or should say the light came back on,these gars fight like crazy, and they wrap thmselves around the line, this causes much abrassion, and thus, lost baits.Instead of 10/2 spider wire, may switch to 20/6 .

If your using the hot n tots that are made by Storm you should slow down your trolling speed, the fish are slashing at the lure. We use them exclusively for crappies and walleyes in the lakes around here. I've found that anything over 2.5 mph pulls the lures towards the surface. Try slowing down to around 2.3 mph or 1/10th mph up or down and you'll get better action of the tots.

With 10lb Trilene big game line I can get the 3/8 oz. tot to dive around 17 feet, with the larger ones they can dive to 20+ feet. IfI'm trolling open water I drop down to 8 lb and get about 2 foot deeper on each lure.

What colors of the hot n tots do you fellows find work best for crappie? Never used them myself, but I might give them a try.

I'm using the smaller 3/16 lures at the present location, the water is less than 30 ft deep.With the temps in the low 80s at the surface, slowing down, may have more hook ups, but fewer strikes.I believe the speed is a trigger strike, more than a feeding strike. I am fishing this area, because it is a restricted tow area, after school starts and the lake traffic thins out, I'll move to the main lake bluffs, and troll deeper and slower.But I wont troll for crappie any deeper than 20 ft at the max. From experience, when they are down that deep, its hard to trigger them into hitting.For walleye, i use the larger size, and move to another lake, free of weeds, and troll down to 30 ft. Colors, at present on this lake, blue and chartreuse herringbone patterns work best for me, on crappie.Dale Hollow has a good walleye population, but I have still to catch one from that lake, cumberland lake has decent walleye, and are a little easier to find, but no piece of cake either.