Question about crankbaits?

[otely757]

I've been reading all the posts the last month since our first/only trip to lake erie on my own boat. We trolled bandits and did really well. From what I'm gathering from my little internet knowledge is the walleye are moving deeper, and allot of people switched to crawler harnesses and spoons. I'm just curious why? I was just wondering if bandits still work by adding a 2 oz snap weight to get them to go deeper this time of year. We are planning a trip for next weekend and heading out of turtle creek. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again to everyone that posts updates on here.

[FishSarge]

For me the change from crankbaits comes when the average fish size around the islands decreases and their activity increases. The smaller active fish seem to prefer spoons/harnesses with meat trolled at faster speeds than we run cranks. Just my experience but I am sure some still run cranks with good results.

[itsbob]

Yes, you can run cranks during the summer months and catch walleye. We often run a bandit off our inline board with a 2oz sinker. Put out bandit 50ft then place a 2oz weight and rest of lead than put on board. That 2oz adds about 8ft of depth. One of our go to summer setup was a blue chrome bandit with 50/2oz /100 more for a total lead of 150 running at 2.5mph.That caught a lot of fish for us.But,as always, let the fish tell you what they want.

[rexles]

We just recently switched to worm harnesses after trolling crankbaits since April. Cranks slowed down for us so we switched to harnesses and started getting them again. Best colors, tiger stripe willow spinner, and hammered copper tomahawk spinner for us.