Harnesses Over Crankbaits Any Time of the Year

[reellivin]

Made our first stop of the day at the Happy Hooker Bait Shop near Port Clinton to pick up some extra Reef Runners. Then stopped at Hi-Way in Port Clinton because we realized we needed to pick up a Mister Twister Electric Fisherman fillet knife because we had a feeling we would need it by the end of the day.

We hit the water south of Rattlesnake Island trolling crank baits. Released 16 keepers in 4 hours. Decided to go with to the new Mepps Trolling Rigs and caught and released our next 16 keepers in just 2 hours. Just for fun, we kept going with the new Mepps Trolling Rigs and got caught and released our next limit of 16 fish in just one-and-a-half hours. These fish averaged 7 to 8 lbs., and our best fish was 32". We ran the Trolling rigs on 15# Power Pro Braid on the main line to a 1 oz keel weight with a 3-6 foot 10# fluorocarbon leader. We ran at 1 mph with our baits anywhere from 10 to 40 feet back. Water temps were 42 to 48 degrees.

If you haven’t seen the new Mepps Trolling Rig yet, it’s actually a lot more than a regular harness. It lets you to change blades quickly. It has a floating body and a stinger hook on stainless-steel braid that can also be changed easily. They have both buck tail and tinsel dressed models that really add to the mass and profile of the rig. I think that bulk really helped us to catch more and bigger fish. Plus, every color we tried worked awesome. If you want to see these rigs, I know they have them on their website. http://www.mepps.com

I also wanted to point out that hiring a professional captain will always be money well spent. A good guide will almost always improve your catch by the end of the day. Who doesn’t want to catch more fish?