Light biting fish on crankbaits

Hi, tried fishing on one of our shallow lakes max 7 feet, had many hits, surley had to be walleye as we did get a few.
Question is we had alot of short strikes or when they were on the SSR 5 they would come undone part way to the boat does anyone have a remedy or some help.
We tried setting the drag very loose on the line counter to the point of just the clicker holding the line from going out and also tried tightening the drag pretty firm to no line going out, using power pro.
We tried sot tip rods and stiff rods, hooks were sharp but original.
Any help would be appreciated, we should have had a boat load of fish if we could have kept them on the crankbait.
Thanks for your help. Mike

That’s just part of fishing unfortunately.
I like a soft rod when above 2mph.
Even at 2mph, soft lips RIP.
Caught close to 100 sauger/walleye this weekend and i bet we also had 20 come undone. Many of these were small, and almost all of them i didn’t have to pry the hook out as their lips were torn enought from the initial hit.

Could be a less harty species too like crappies which have “Paper lips”

Michael Michelau wrote:

using power pro.

Short strikes and braid don’t mix well. No stretch in the braid. I would have switched to mono for some line stretch. Just a thought. Or at least throw on a mono lead.

Did you try different speeds? A slight speed reduction may also work to your advantage.

Did you switch profiles or color? I cover this a lot in crank’n seminars and the best solution I find the majority of time is to make a change. Most likely the eyes were just making a curiosity swipe at the bait. Most often shown by just barely be4ing hooked by the last treb. When I encounter this, I switch colors – either darker or lighter in the same profile. If I’m ge4tting the samer results, then I change profile within the original color scheme and go from there. I like baits getting eaten, not bumped. So if I’m not seeing front treb hook-ups, I change.
Those subtle changes will make the difference between neutral fish hitting soft to eating it.
On an other note with that, weather and timing with major/minor times can influence the bite. Sometimes getting negative fish to swipe a bait is the best you can do, In those cases, I like the Gamakatsu EWG trebs on the back and a softer rod/or mono. Those hooks are super sticky and doesn’t take much effort in having them driven home.

Cal and Mike are right on in their advice Mike. Keeping an eye on whether they are getting hooked on the front hooks versus just hanging onto the back hook is very important. Also, while on the surface since you’re not relying on “feel” as much while trolling it might seem that just about any rod will work it is very important to have just the right amount backbone to get hooks buried when fish hit but also enough give to keep them from throwing the hooks… The best combo I’ve found is a 7’6″ Shimano Compre trolling rod (CPCTR76MC). Cal’s advice about braid vs mono is also spot on… I typically start by running braid because I appreciate the increased ability to feel the action of my crankbait so I can make sure it’s running properly; however as soon as I lose a couple fish how you described I will add a 25′ length of 10# fluorocarbon to act as shock absorption if they’re biting light.

Will

On other quick thought is that once you are hooked up slowing the boat troll to reduce speed will allow you to reduce the extra pressure needed to fight both the fish and induced current caused by trolling at 2 mph.

Will

Cal and Will covered it: Switch to #10 mono and put it in N when you get a fish on. I’ve had enough nights like that on Mille Lacs that I seldom use a hard line trolling any more. Too many come unbuttoned, at least for me.