Tried planer boards on cypress this morning

I got on the water around 930, anxious to try pulling cranks with the OR38 planer boards that I just bought, the water temperature was 74 degrees and a slight constant breeze, I started out with 3 boards on each side and lost the first fish right at the boat, then I caught a really nice one that was 14.5 inches long, so i was getting excited, then all of a sudden. One of the crankbaits got hung on something, and I ended up having to stop and reel everything in, so I could go back and get my board and crankbait that was hung up, I almost said to hell with planer boards. But I tried again and caught some nice fish over a 4 hour period. Right at the end I got tired of pulling cranks, and went to a dock that's always produced a few fish, and caught 2 decent ones there. And left around 1:45. I'll definitely be using the planer boards again, but the ones I have don't seem to handle speed real well. The fastest I could run with them, was 1.5 mph without them wanting to come right up beside the boat, but I caught fish at speeds around 1.2 mph. Also I couldn't tell any certain patterns with them. I caught fish from 12 feet of water to 18 feet. But I don't have line counter reels, so I'm sure that would help a lot Attachment 385604Attachment 385605Attachment 385606Attachment 385607Attachment 385608Attachment 385609Attachment 385610Attachment 385613Attachment 385614

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Nice catch


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Those are some Excellant Crappie, especially when you have one 14.5"s. Don't get discouraged. The more time you spend on the water the better your results. Crankbait fishing is totally different than any other crappie fishing.

You could replace the hooks with KVD triple grip hooks. They are expensive, but if you hook up the fish will not come off. I see from your pictures most of the time they are inhaling the bait and it wouldn't matter anyway.

I often wondered about using them to spread out my baits some but never tried. Thoes are some nice fish you caught today.

I often wondered about them too Chip. But I eventually decided against them. Most of the waters that we fish around here are what I would call small to medium lakes.
My concern would be turning. I make a lot of turns when I'm cranking. With that in mind, and I'm not having any trouble with the spread I run now still catching fish, I
figured it wasn't worth the trouble. They probably have their place in deep lakes with ultra clear water, but most of our lakes are what I would call stained. Nice catch!