Question on other crank baits

[ebijack]

I don't put much into what is on the radio, way to much BS. For me, I run baits that produce for me. I've sold a few hundred baits and colors that never produced for me. I guess that comes from the many years of fishing tourney's. I want to be the first to know what is working, not the last if that makes sense. Also once you get a few fish, you need to dial in what the fish want once you get those few. With all the factors that are involved with speed, depth and lastly color. You then also have the bait size and what triggers bites. For me, I will absolutely state bait size does matter on each day. Which also points to the shape of the bait. You can get any bait to what ever depth you want fairly easily. I've run tot's for a lot of years, and find they do not produce like they used to when the water was much dirtier before zebra's. On average, the minnow shape baits produce a whole lot better in the colder water times. Warmer temps they still produce. For me I won't buy any perfect 10's as they are similar to Smithwicks and I sold boxes of those as I never caught a fish on them, just like thundersticks. I am not saying they don't work, they do for some of my friends. They just never produced for me. So I won't waste my time anymore running them. But shape and size do matter. I've had a few years where the Rapala tail dancers deep divers were better than any other RR or husky for our catch rate. Haven't had a good day with them in over 3 yrs. But I still try them, as I know in the right conditions they will produce. I don't go out and only put out a spread of one lure type/size, I cover the water column with different baits. Then dial in from there. There are a lot of days where the size of DDHJ's greatly matters. Not the color.
But that is my experience.

[Madd Matt]

Ebijack,

I agree with everything you said... except the part about the radio. While I don't enjoy even having it turned on, it is invaluable if you know who is talking. If Skipper9 or one of the Eyehunter Charters, or Spoonfeeder or Pooh Bear, BudMan, Sarah J, etc.... says something then it's worth listening to. I can't tell you the number of times that one of the great walleye fishermen on here has saved my day by talking on the radio... But I agree, there is a lot of junk talk on there too.

The other thing that I would point out is that you are absolutely correct... However, not everyone has the ability to go out and run 16 rods and have 4 different variations of 4 different baits & Lures running in different water columns at the same time. You can go out and run 32 presentation variations in an hour. Us guys that are solo with 2 rods at a time, and maybe 4 if we have a buddy on board don't have that luxury. Many guys don't have the setup to run 16 rods either. I don't know if you actually run 16 rods or not, but many guys do. Even if it's 10-12 rods then you can go out and get something dialed in. It is a LOT more difficult with 2 rods.

I also agree that shape and size matter. But I also can tell you that there are way too many times that we throw some strange lure on to see what happens and something that we would usually use as a Bass bait, and we catch just as many fish on it as the "Hot" lures we are running and sometimes more.

I also don't own a single P10, mainly because I don't think it matters. This year when everyone was catching on P10's, we went out a limited in 3 hours with 5 guys running RR. A lot of the people that had boxes full of RR went out and bought P10s. I also don't have any interest in running P10's because I don't like messing with the line as it comes in and unsnapping weights.

My point was not to say that if you drag a bare hook through the water, or simply a piece of Styrofoam then you will catch fish, no, not at all... My point was that for someone that is coming up for a weekend by themselves or a couple buddies that have 2-3 guys and can only fish for a few days, then it may be worth while to grab whatever anyone else is using so you can dial it in the first hour on the Lake and not have a 2 day learning curve.

When I am running the common lure that everyone else is doing, I can drive up to the Lake and get on the water at 9:00 am... Get on the radio and simply say, "Does anyone have a good lead length?" and I'll get several responses like, "60 Back" and I'm catching fish within the first hour I'm out there... Sure we run different depths too, and check different water columns (though we would NEVER run anymore than 2 rods a person!) the entire time we are fishing... As much as I love going out and figuring out my own program, and finding fish all on my own without any help or numbers... I love having the ability to go out and start catching right away and I don't really care that I got a program from someone else... I would assume that most people reading this forum for information on how and where to catch walleye are worried about being able to go home and say that they got to spend the first 2 days of a 3 day trip "dialing it in."

Does size, shape, color matter? Absolutely! Does it matter as much as a lot of guys think it does?? I don't think so.

-Matt

[Humbled & Blessed]

Thanks for all the great replies guys as always! This really helps someone like me who can only make it up a couple times a month. I'm coming up on Sunday and since I'm on limited time will stick with the P10's, RR and DHJ I pulled a couple weeks ago since I'll only have 4 rods out. I will experiment with the H-n-T at some point though.

Please don't let this stop the thread though. This is really great information and if anyone else has thoughts on running cranks please add on.