Kids and Cranks

Everyone starts their fishing career modestly. Basic terminal tackle, some bait, and a smattering of rudimentary skills with a rod and reel round out much of the early years. Those tactics, simple as they may seem, catch fish, and when conditions call for it, catch them well….regardless of age or experience. Which is why it might surprise you that I’d recommend pulling crankbaits for walleyes to be as kid-friendly as the hook and worm business. Ol’ Marble-eyes? Our state fish? Known to be heartbreakingly elusive and at times, of a terribly intemperate disposition; why would anyone subject their children to hours of fish-less fishing? Throw all of that clear out the window. During much of the year, there’s a dynamite cranking bite going on no matter where you live. To make matters better, there are crank-bites that are pretty user-friendly, especially this time of year. Perfect for kids. Better for dad.

Payer et. al. in 1989 puts forth an interesting journal article titled “Hooking Mortality of Walleyes Caught on Live and Artificial Baits.” In this study, a few bodies of water over a few years are compared for catch rate, size, and mortality, amongst other factors. The major players you ask? Leeches vs. Shad Raps. Both venerable in their own way, there’s still something that sounds unfair about this matchup. Live bait vs. hard plastic. Really? While the study wasn’t designed to be a head-to-head competition between two of the favorite weapons in a walleye-fisherman’s arsenal, it did pit these icons of each category against one another. Not surprisingly to some, Shad Raps took top-billing in both catch rate and size. Works well then and now.

The Shad Rap these days comes in more colors and sizes than it ever did, and we made sure to take full advantage of these technical advancements that the decades have brought us. Today we pulled no less than four varieties of shad raps, in more than 6 colors, and 4 different sizes. One in particular was great, but perhaps more importantly, just about every one we put out was pretty darned good. Over the years, I’ve amassed a small wealth of JSR’s, GSR’s, SRRS’s and the like, in a good selection of the better colors and sizes for where I fish. And though todays catch was dominated by sauger, I can take this bait about anywhere and catch walleyes with it. Casting or trolling, burning or steady-cranking, long-lining or lead-core……again, the reason I’ve got my kids out there pulling them. This day was a trolling day, which at first disappointed them. They like to cast, and of course retrieve faster than they cast it. I like to keep my scalp intact, and them casting is a bad way to do it. What I have found however, is that they like putting out baits, clearing fouled hooks, netting fish, and checking for bottom just about as much. More importantly, they like reeling in fish.

The pattern was simple. Get the bait near bottom by any means necessary, and pull it around where you see fish on the graph. 16-18 FOW was the key today, but we caught fish in as shallow as 8 FOW. We threw in the towel early on some of the traditional “big-fish” spots, in favor of bending rods and big smiles. Patience is thin at that age, even with plenty to be doing in a trolling boat. The net result was a lot of netting. Quite a few small saugers, with some good ones and a handful of walleyes mixed in. Our best fish was a nearly-20” sauger, but when their grandpa asked how fishing was, their response was “We caught 30!” Bleeding Blue Shad, Firetiger, Blue Shad, and Red Craw were the best colors, in that order, primarly in Jointed Shad Raps size 4. Bigger baits were getting swatted at and missed, though they probably would’ve produced more quality fish had we stuck with them. Slower was better, but difficult in the wind. 2.0 mph was the ticket for our “numbers” bite. We fished the morning before getting blown off around 11AM, but I’m guessing the bite continued as long as you wanted to be out in it.

Right now there’s some good wingdam crankbait bites, some great shallow stickbait action up north, and all kinds of activity out there in terms of walleyes on the chew. Take advantage of it, and don’t forget to keep it simple. While there’s incredible nuance to trolling hard-baits to maximum effectiveness, the fish now are cooperating well-enough to please anyone. Especially kids more used to dunking worms for panfish.

Joel