Does anyone else do troll crankbaits or anything for that matter for bass? It seems to work for me, I can get deep cranks down 25+ feet and always seems to catch fish under tough conditions. What are your thoughts on this?

What cranks are you using to get that deep?

I do a good bit of trolling for walleye and I always catch bass along the way. I'm usually fishing 10-18 feet of water though.

What cranks are you using to get that deep?

 

Spro Little John DD's and SK 6xd's

Plan on doing some trolling from the yak next year. Kinda different for me, so hopefully it causes some exiting action. There is a great article about trolling from a kayak along the lines of "The Backcountry Downrigger"

Try a site search, lots of prior threads on this topic.

Tom

Trolling with crankbaits = guys who camp all day with sniper rifles in call of duty. 

I know that bass can be caught this way because I have both seen and done it. I have no interest in doing it though. I do not enjoy the process. If I did, trolling deep cranks on shelves off deep channels during the summer would be an option.

I do it sometimes as a search tactic.  I dont have sonar so if i cannot find the fish its a process i use to cut down water.  I use paddle power in my yak to go so moving a lot its just easier.

No I would never ever troll a crankbait.

Depending on the body of water and the structure & cover in it, trolling for bass can be very effective.

 

The rise & popularity of tournament angling (where trolling is prohibited) has by and large made the method almost obsolete.  This hasn't changed the fact that both good numbers & size of bass still can and do take trolled lures readily.

 

One thing that's interesting is every bass boat on the planet comes with a trolling motor but no ones trolling with it . . . .

 

A-Jay

I believe it was Bill Dance who made the use of  bow mounted trolling motors popular. In his early days of tournament fishing he took his transom mounted motor, reversed the head and figured a way to mount it on the bow. Prior to that, they were used strictly for trolling and I  had both a transom and bow mounted trolling motors on my last boat as did many walleye anglers. 

Trolling a crank is one way to get them to run deeper. It's similar to long lining as a technique for both covering expanses of water and getting your crank to run deeper.

I did it for a good while, I liked the Bagleys dredge, I would run my big motor though, running that bait right up & down the river channels, really effective at night in summer. Lots of structure discovered as well.

I troll minnow type hard baits for trout and walleye, never bass. Mostly because the old man wears out pretty fast chucking and winding. I've caught smallmouth in water Temps as low as 37 degrees dragging a Rapala deep tail dancer.

I used to troll a lot when I fished out of a 2 man, mainly for crappie but I caught a lot of bass along the way. My first bass over 5 pounds was taken while trolling a Yo-Zuri crankbait in fact. 

When you cast and retrieve a crank bait, it's only in the strike zone for a portion of the retrieve.  When you troll one, it stays in the strike zone.  I used to do a lot of crank bait trolling for smallmouths years ago, covering a lot of water and locating concentrations of fish on big mid-lake shoals.

 

It's effective, and I don't understand the stigma attached to it.  I caught my PB Lake George NY smallmouth while trolling a Rebel FasTrac minnow for lake trout and salmon in the fall.

 

Tight lines,

Bob

I just 'discovered' trolling last weekend while testing some new electronics.  As I was idling with the big motor I threw out a vibrating jigging spoon called a Binsky.  Caught largemouth, peacock and sunshine (hybrids) around shad schools.  The strange thing is that the Binsky outfished cranks and traps by at least 6 to 1.  I did it again yesterday with similar results.  

 

We have some little kids visiting for Thanksgiving so I'll bring them out to reel in some of those bass.

Guess y'all aint never heard of Elwood "Buck" Perry?

Spoon Plugs are crank baits

I've trolled spoon plugs, crank baits,spinner baits, T-rigs & C- rigs with great results.

Guess y'all aint never heard of Elwood "Buck" Perry?

Spoon Plugs are crank baits

I've trolled spoon plugs, crank baits,spinner baits, T-rigs & C- rigs with great results.

never heard of the dude.