Anyone still fishing pannies?

I haven’t been fishing much lately still waiting on the boat to get done. Last time out we hit a lake just north west of me a bit and had no problem putting a nice limit together. Not as nice as your batch BC but they were still nice.

John Rasmussen wrote:

I haven’t been fishing much lately still waiting on the boat to get done. Last time out we hit a lake just north west of me a bit and had no problem putting a nice limit together. Not as nice as your batch BC but they were still nice.

Mine were a complete accident. Stumbled upon them looking for something else. Stayed for the fun, went home happy. Never did find that other species. But there was a few extra bonus eyes in that net if you look hard

If trolling curl tails, what jig weight? Straight-tails, I assume, don’t cut it trolled.

Will trolling catch fish in shallow 4-5 FOW with or without weeds?

What is the deepest water you catch fish on the troll?

When trolling, which do crappie prefer: soft plastics or crankbaits (like the RipnRap)?

Have you caught fish trolling spinners like Mepps?

Please give examples of the best lures/ rigs you do well trolling.

I haven’t trolled lures in decades and vaguely remember catching river smallies on trolled crankbaits. Last week I saw fish schooled in 5′-6′ on the screen in a few areas, stopped the boat and cast small soft plastics to them. Not a bite!

5-6′ is bobber territory in my book, water is still warm so dont be afraid to zip the lure along even under a bobber. !0′ or more is trolling territory, I like staight or split tails, you could get them trolling cranks, think their is more to ‘dial in’ with that one, probably people who troll them with great success, jig though is more versitile. Lots of people troll to locate fish and then vertical jig or use a slip bobber, some troll spinner rigs, this time of year people slow troll jigs with parts of crawlers or worms for ‘gills great way to get bigguns. If you fish after the spawn trolling is often the only way to go, sometimes for instance they are 15′ down over 18’ and they want a light jig floating around, if you were to cast you would spend most of your time waiting for the jig to get in the zone, trolling you stay in the zone. Good luck!

Thanks Tim. A lot of good info to take with me next time I fish. What jig weight do you recommend?

I really don’t keep track of weight, speed, depth and position of the fish, even the size of the plastic makes a difference-I was using 3” plastics a few weeks ago, think I needed a 3/8th just to balance it out-if the bite is off i will go lighter to give it that float, might even do a hair jig for that reason, the hair changes the equation too. I play around with weights, weight is really under-rated as a factor, so is speed. Good Luck!

weight is really under-rated as a factor, so is speed.

I fished a lake I hadn’t fished in months and it was after +2″ of rain fill the previous night. The 40 fish I caught were in water less than 3′ deep and would only nip at a curl tail on a 1/24 oz jig. I went to a 1/32 oz and got more hits but few committed bites. I finally went to a 1/64 oz and started hooking fish – many on the second cast.

Later in the afternoon fish started turning on due to a coming storm and I was able to go up in size to a 1/32 oz.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_0264.jpg
   

2. 

   IMG_0284.jpg
   

3. 

   IMG_0276.jpg
   

4. 

   IMG_0272.jpg
   

Nice fish, send us that rain. Btw I use very fine diameter braid with no leader, if you are drifting a light jig over deep water you can have a bunch of line out so it can be hard to feel bites and set the hook with mono.I’m still in bass mode but I’ll be switching soon-Good Luck

Totally agree about braid vs mono or f/c. I removed my 10# KastKing line and replaced with 8# KK for its 4# diameter which allows the best finesse lure action at any depth and the least line bow. Strong suff!! I can pull the row boat to a snag and it won’t break!

BTW we had another 1.5″ last night and more is expected for the next four days!

We are expecting .10 today, & nothing else is in the 7 day.

suzuki wrote:

I just saw this post. <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>Crappies better than DEER?!?!?! OMG

I’d have to agree. Having to get those scales and spines out from between my teeth tilts the needle toward venison……..says the guy whose freezer is full of both.