Not a good day cranking

I would post this in the kayak section but I don't think there are any crankers there. I went out and bought me some 200 and 300 bandits to try crankin in my kayak. Everything was going ok, I was crankin in about 15 to 20 foot in open water and all of a sudden I saw something on my ff and it was big. Then at once all 4 poles were hung up in this sunken tree. I was pushing cranks so I had a heavy weight in front of each bandit. I had bought me a lead bait knocker but it would only slide down and hit the weight and stop. To top it all of when I let the knocker down it wasn't tied on good and as I jigged it up and down a few times it came off the string and of course when I broke the string of to the bait I lost it too. At $5 a pop there has to be a better way to do this. HELP!!!! By the way, the kayak worked pretty well for pushing cranks.

I think you found a new piece of structure to jig.

Pushing from a kayak works, but you might want to try pulling too. A small depthfinder will let you see any "big" fish/structure before you get there while pulling.

That is tough to lose cranks but it happens and is a part of the game. It's best to know the water you plan to crank and avoid structure.

Has anyone tried the bait knockers that have the chains on them for getting your bandits back?

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Originally Posted by mb4850

Has anyone tried the bait knockers that have the chains on them for getting your bandits back?

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My "plug knocker" has chains, but in all the times I've used it to retrieve a snagged crankbait ... the chains never seemed to be all that much help. I can't rightly say that I ever pulled a crank up by nothing but the chains. I understand the concept, that the chains "may" get around the trebles & help force/pull the bait free ... I just never witnessed it happen. In fact, the chains "may" have been a factor in the cases where the bait was lost, anyway, even after an attempt at knocking it free .... since I do remember a time or two where the chains got tangled in the line.
If I remember correctly, the most successful retrieval attempts came when the chains had been removed.

But, let me be clear ..... these cranks were being cast or trolled, with no obstructions on the line between the rod & bait. No sinkers, swivels, dropper lines, tandem setups, etc ..... just the crankbait tied on the end of the main line. And while I was successful at freeing my cranks, on most occasions, I was not successful on all of them (even though I only had just the one crankbait tied on the main line, and nothing else).

... cp

ah the painful part of trolling cranks.......part of the game I guess....

We'll it probably want be a part if my fishing. I try to fish as inexpensive as possible. 15 to 20 bucks an outing would just ruin my day. I'll work five minutes to get a 50 cent jig loose. I think I'll stick to pushing jigs, spider rigging and just jigging.

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Originally Posted by bfish

I think you found a new piece of structure to jig.

Pushing from a kayak works, but you might want to try pulling too. A small depthfinder will let you see any "big" fish/structure before you get there while pulling.

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x2, if you were pulling you would have had a chance at reeling up to avoid hanging