Crankin’ on the Pond…

I was lucky enough to spend 3 days over the weekend up on Mille Lacs with some great friends and my dad.

My gameplan was to leave the bait at home and start looking for schools of fish willing to take a crankbait. We started by hitting some of the deeper rock/gravel piles closer to shore in the 17-20′ range and within 5 minutes it was game on… 1st fish in the box was a 13+ perch. Over the next couple hours we boated another 5 tank perch and a half dozen Eyes with about an even mix of too big, too small, and just right.

Next we decided to work some deeper sand to mud transitions in the 25-30′ range… Again within 5 mins we had our first fish, a 25″ Eye, and again within 15 minutes we had 2 more with one box fish. This seemed to be the pattern everywhere we went… Find fish catch 2 or 3 active ones and then move on to the next school as a majority of the fish in deeper water were still not quite ready to turn on a faster moving bait.

Saturday we headed out and kept looking for new schools of fish in the deeper water with similar results and then moved out to the flats… We ended up boating 3 eyes in about hour with a healthy 27″ mixed in and also a perfect box fish.

Sunday we used what we had learned and went out just for a few hours to pick up enough fish for a 4th of July fish fry.

That’s a nice mess of fish there, Will. Good to hear the crankin’ bite is going. All of my leeches went teats up.

Will be up Fri for the long weekend. Stop over if you want to get out.

-J.

Nice fish!!!

Nice job Will! Those jumbos pictured above are making me hungry! We need to hook up one of these days!

Sounds like a great weekend! Nice looking mess of fish!

Where you pulling lead with shad raps or deep TD’s on long line? Eveyone talks about this in the summer but I need to try. Any open seats to learn the sacred deep eye dance.

nice job on the fishing

Quote:

---

nice job on the fishing

---

Just a little better than you and I did last year huh

Quote:

---

Where you pulling lead with shad raps or deep TD’s on long line? Eveyone talks about this in the summer but I need to try. Any open seats to learn the sacred deep eye dance.

---

We were pulling leadcore with smaller baits and I’d be happy to take you out sometime… I’ll PM you if I ever have an open seat

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

---

We were pulling leadcore with smaller baits and I’d be happy to take you out sometime… I’ll PM you if I ever have an open seat

---

Sounds good. When Tom and I went out on Sunday, he brought a couple lead core rods but we never got to use them because of the wind.

Quote:

---

Where you pulling lead with shad raps or deep TD’s on long line?

---

This is a very good question and I get asked it all the time. If I may, let me rephrase the question a bit.

When trolling DTT#11, why would you use leadcore to achieve a depth of 30′ when you can achieve that same depth by trolling with braided line?

There have been many days when I have long lines with braid and leadcore lines at the same depth but leadcore produces and braid does not. I believe the reasons why are this:

When trolling with leadcore, there is an “S” in your line. As your boat surges in waves it can affect the swimming action of your crankbait (even though you have soft rod tips). Braid has no strectch and when fishing in windy conditions, it may be creating a pull – pause effect on your crankbaits. The “S” in your leadcore stretches and thus your crankbait may not have as much pull – pause and it may be swimming more consistently versus using braid.

The second reason is that leadcore line corners better than braid or mono. This is important when trolling structure or a weed line.

Lastly, since leadcore line has an “S”, I believe the swimming angle of your crankbait may be a little bit different versus using mono or braid. This subtle angle difference may or may not entice a walleye to hit.

Brad, I am going to get a lead set up this weekend and start my learning curve. What is a good rod size? I seen Tom’s reels from Cabelas with a left hand crank and liked that because my spinning reels I put the crank on the left side also. So I am getting a Cabelas Gold reel I think they are called, but looking for a rod reccomendation.

The 9′ 6″ telescoping Gary Roach rods are very nice. I think they’re even called “leadcore rod”. They’re about 60 bucks and have (IMO) the perfect action for leadcore.

Quote:

---

The 9′ 6″ telescoping Gary Roach rods are very nice. I think they’re even called “leadcore rod”. They’re about 60 bucks and have (IMO) the perfect action for leadcore.

---

I agree 100%. The gold reels come in left handed models if that’s what you prefer. The depthmaster planer board rods will work for leadcore too. Whatever you do, don’t buy the depthmaster leadcore rod-too stiff.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

The 9′ 6″ telescoping Gary Roach rods are very nice. I think they’re even called “leadcore rod”. They’re about 60 bucks and have (IMO) the perfect action for leadcore.

---

I agree 100%. The gold reels come in left handed models if that’s what you prefer. The depthmaster planer board rods will work for leadcore too. Whatever you do, don’t buy the depthmaster leadcore rod-too stiff.

---

I would also vote for the 9’6″ Gary Roach Lead Core Rod. Soft tip and plenty of backbone, plus they telescope down to 8′. Reels for me are 47 Diawa Sealines… hold a full ten colors of LC line. 18 lb Sufix LC will handle most open water trolling applications….

Another option is the 8’6″ Limit Creek lead core rod… have not personally run them, but heard good things.

Quote:

---

Brad, I am going to get a lead set up this weekend and start my learning curve. What is a good rod size? I seen Tom’s reels from Cabelas with a left hand crank and liked that because my spinning reels I put the crank on the left side also. So I am getting a Cabelas Gold reel I think they are called, but looking for a rod reccomendation.

---

All the rods mentioned above are good and will certainly get the job done.

A leadcore rod should have a sensitive tip so you can see if your crankbait is swimming properly and so you can also detect debris on your line. It should also have a strong backbone due to the weight and the stress of the leadcore line.

I have a tendency to go with a little bit shorter rod then the ones listed above and prefer the 8′ St. Croix Trolling Rods (PGT80MM). They are long enough so I can get them away from the kicker when trolling but not so long where I’m crossing the other leadcore line when fighting another fish off a planer board. In other words, when I get a fish on a planer board/braid set up, all I have to do is position reposition my leadcore rod holder 90 degrees so it still points at a 45 degree angle and it runs parallel with my other leadcore line without crossing lines. If your leadcore rod is too long, you can’t do that as easily. It also depends what size boat you have and what type of rod holders you are using.

Some guys prefer the Jason Mitchell 5′ “shorty rods” (JMST5LC). They are worth checking out too.

I use an 8′ light action whuppin stick works great!!!