Trolling Cranks for Crappie - what exactly are you targeting?
I trolled one bay for a few hours on Friday and then again on Monday. I'm still learning what to look for when it comes to trolling for crappie.
I trolled around the main creek channel that went from the back of the bay to the mouth. I stayed in the 18 to 20 ft range, and ran the cranks at various depths throughout the day from 8 to 14 ft. I'd make laps in the bay from the back to the mouth.
I would mostly stay along the creek channel edges, and sometimes try up on the adjacent flats that were about 12 to 14 ft deep, and then sometimes go over some humps that came up to about 10 to 12 ft.
What puzzled me was that the crappie I caught were just random catches. When I'd go over a hump, there would be bait, fish on the screen, and I just knew I was going to get bit, but nothing....it's like the crappie I caught were just scattered in random places out in the creek channel, no schools or multiple hookups. Is this normal? The ones I did catch were pretty dang nice, like 13" or 14" in size.
The best colors were the PICO Grenada Green, PICO Mr. Goodtime, and all three of the Jenko Midnight colors.
I will say that the humps I came across with bait on them had a lot of bass on them as well, I did stop trolling and hit those with a jig and caught some nice 3, 4, and 5 lb bass.
Fishing was good this weekend, just trying to figure out how to be more productive on my trolling routes and what I should be looking for. Is getting into a school of crappie with multiple hookups rare with this method?