Thread: Crank' in on Woods 4th weekend and Priest this past weekend

I was originally going to Priest after church Sunday, got to the ramp at 12:00 and the lot was full with two ski boats unloading. I knew it would be busy but this was too much so I trailered the boat to Woods from there (another 45 minute drive). When I got there I was pleasantly surprised, there were only a dozen or so trailers parked in the lot. I unloaded and eased over to the bridge to get the cranks in the water, I let four lines out the back, 60' on two and 80' on the other two. My other four lines I was going to try something I had read quite a bit about, I rigged the those lines to push my cranks out to the side. I put the same color cranks on those as well so my pilot test was accurate and started moving at 1.4 mph. After the first hour I had three keepers, two from pushing and one from long lining. I swapped some colors out to what the crappie preferred. The next two keepers came off my pushing rods so I went to all pushing. I spread the rods out with a 14' - 12' and 10' off each side on the front and I put my remaining two 12' rods off the back. I pushed till 4:30 then packed it in with 11 keepers in the well. Top colors were PICO Pink spatter and Arkie Sexy shad. Top takeaways "for pushing" are 1) you can follow bottom contours much closer 2) you can turn around almost on a dime to return to a school that you picked up fish from 3) more precise depth control 4) less tangle ups due to turns or tying into a hybrid or cat. Disadvantage is when you come up on a brush pile, your cranks are pretty much into it, long lining you can rabbit left or right with the baits 60 plus feet back and avoid the hang up. I honestly would have thought the long lines would have outdone the pushing because they are further from the boat, that was not the case. The other thing that surprised me was I caught as many fish on the 10' rod as I did on the 14' rod.
This past Saturday I ran my experiment on Priest, with the in rain in the forecast there were not many boats on the water. I duplicated what I did on Woods, for my beginning runs. Again the pushing rods outdid the long lines, except when it came to catfish. The crappie preferred Pico's Gezzer clown and the Arkie's Sexy Shad, I quit at noon to get home to get some things done at the house, brought home eight keepers.

Most all fish both lakes were caught in 16' to 20' fow, best speed was 1.4 - 1.6 mph.

Good luck to all,

Ray

I fan my rods from the side as if I was spider rigging off the front, (three per side) I made mounts to put my spider rig rod holders behind my chairs (on the front). I used a 2 oz. weight and dropped my lines to 14' deep so at 1.4 mph they are running about 10' down. I watch my finder to figure out my target depth, usually a foot or two above the depth I'm marking most fish. I have line counter reels so I can be pretty precise with my depths. Since I'm running off the front I've found that I can go to my finder at the steering wheel and the back transducer is showing my cranks running depth, I notice that when I put a fish in the well. Hope this helps, I'll try to post a picture next time I have a report.

Good luck,
Ray