I've been fishing this new pond.  I've fished a bunch of different lures.  The rattle trap has been the most sucessful.   The problem is, I lose a trap every 10 casts or so.  It's driving me insane!

I asked a guy the other day, who was on his float tube with a depth finder, "what kinds of cover and structure are you seeing down there?"  He said the over whelming thing he was seeing were sunken, fallen trees and timber.  I've been losing jigs and traps at record pace on these trees.

Does this mean I shouldn't be throwing traps and cranks anymore? Or am I just fishing them wrong?  I like to let my trap fall to the bottom, and wiggle it a little, then swim it for a second, and let it fall to the bottom where I make it act like an injured or dying bait fish.  The technique works, but it's costing me lots of cash in lost lures.  

I try to slam my cranks off the bottom and off the timber, but again, I keep getting hung up, same with jigs.  This kinda sucks as it's a great Colorado fishery and all I can do is throw weedless soft plastics it seems.  

What do you guys do when fishing tons of sunken, fallen trees like this?

I do what you do. Loose baits and buy more. Try changing you technique a little.

I've been fishing this new pond. I've fished a bunch of different lures. The rattle trap has been the most sucessful. The problem is, I lose a trap every 10 casts or so. It's driving me insane!

I asked a guy the other day, who was on his float tube with a depth finder, "what kinds of cover and structure are you seeing down there?" He said the over whelming thing he was seeing were sunken, fallen trees and timber. I've been losing jigs and traps at record pace on these trees.

Does this mean I shouldn't be throwing traps and cranks anymore? Or am I just fishing them wrong? I like to let my trap fall to the bottom, and wiggle it a little, then swim it for a second, and let it fall to the bottom where I make it act like an injured or dying bait fish. The technique works, but it's costing me lots of cash in lost lures.

I try to slam my cranks off the bottom and off the timber, but again, I keep getting hung up, same with jigs. This kinda sucks as it's a great Colorado fishery and all I can do is throw weedless soft plastics it seems.

What do you guys do when fishing tons of sunken, fallen trees like this?

Raul 's rules about crankbaiting:

1.- If you ain 't fishing them where they hang up you ain 't fishing them where the fish are.

2.- Crankbaiting is a contact sport, don 't wanna loose cranks where they hang up you ain 't fishing them where the fish are then crankbaits ain 't for you.

3.- A shure way to loose a lipless crankbait is doing exactly what you do, but ....... check rule #1.

4.- You don 't think I learned how to fish a crankbait through woody cover for free, do you ? I lost a good bunch of baits in the process of learning how to fish them through cover, it 's like walking through a land mine field, the only difference is that in a lind mined field you can loose your nutz while the worst that could happen is that you loose a lure. With time ( and lost lures ) you pretty much know when the lure is about to hang up as you retrieve it.

5.- Lure retrievers are like American Express cards .... never leave home without it.

Well, I don't mind losing a lure once in awhile, but every ten casts is a little much. If you had a boat on the water you could recover most of the Rat-L-Traps or any other bait, but it's almost impossible from the bank. I would fish soft plastics, weightless and weedless for the most part.

8-)

I have had minimal luck with lure retrievers from shore... If I were losing that many cranks, I'd invest in scuba gear.  

I'd try more spinnerbaits and texas rigged plastics.

As much as I love the rat-l-trap, it's a "tight-wiggling sinker", which are best suited for open water or weeds (grass plug).

Around wood & rocks I think you'd be much better off using a "wide-wobbling floater" like a Bandit series 100.

The wider footprint will create more wood-contact (what you want), the square-cornered lip should

get through the timber better than a rat-l-trap, and unlike the sinking rat-l-trap, every time you halt your retrieve

the Bandit will float upward  

Roger

Well, I don't mind losing a lure once in awhile, but every ten casts is a little much. If you had a boat on the water you could recover most of the Rat-L-Traps or any other bait, but it's almost impossible from the bank. I would fish soft plastics, weightless and weedless for the most part.

8-)

co-sign

I fish cranks in heavy wood cover quite a bit.  Like Raul said, throw them where the fish are.  I, like you, have lost many cranks to woody brush.  After a while you will develop a "feel" for woody crankin'.  When the line starts to tighten up a bit, I slow my retrieve down and can feel the crank deflecting off the brush and timber.  As the line becomes slack, I start cranking normal once again.  I just bought a good lure retriever, I haven't lost a crank since.  I highly recommend one.

ODDS ARE IFYOU ARE CATCHING EM ON A TRAP YOU COULD CATCH EM ON A FLUKE WITH A WEIGHTED HOOK, OR A SPINNER BAIT ALLOWING IT TO FLUTTER DOWN AND RIPPING IT BACK UP, THOSE TWO WOULD BE LESS PRONE TO HANG UP.

You try using a jig with a thick weedguard that goes beyond the hook point? Such as a Booyah Boo Jig? I would use jigs with this description in the sunken trees, they should be pretty weedless, don't trim the guards at all, heavy flipping jigs with strong weed guards should be pretty snag proof.

You might already know this, but incase you don't here it is, do not ram the jig upwards with great strength after a wiggle here and there to try and get it free, alot of the time this will only get the hook point jammed into the stick. Give it a good bunch of wiggles, keep letting the jig fall back down (you should feel it fall back down the timber), and then try and pull it back up again being very gentle with short hops. If your in a boat then this should be alot easier obviously. If you spend a good 3mins trying to get the jig free with gentle hops and wiggles, letting it fall and pulling it back up the branch without any luck of freeing it, then there is one thing left I do. Let the jig drop with slack line, and then with one great pull try and bust it out of there, as a last resort sometimes that works.

If a heavy flipping jig still gets caught up, then I'd go with either a pegged craw like a ragetail or paca craw, or a pegged creaturebait such as a baby brushhog or GYCB Kreature, but mainly I'd just focus the timber if thats where the bass are.

Wide Wobble fat jigs, and I bounce them off evry thing I can

Favorites; Rapala DT and Storm Big Bass, in Crawfish and Bluegill

In general it helps if you have a crank that floats up quickly at least.

Also I have no idea what kind of water depth your talkin about but one other suggestion would be to try the floating rattle trap or suspending red zone trap.These dont go nearly as deep.

If you're fishing from the banks, you are retrieving into the "crotches" of the tree if they are laydowns, instead of "with the direction of the limbs" like if you were in a boat throwing to shoreline. I'd stick to TW baits, plastics, and floating shallow cranks and feel the lure every time it ticked a limb and then let it float up briefley, then pull the lure gently through the maze. Or get a boat. Hope this helps save some money.

There is a lake near here that usually shows up on our club tournament schedule every year - it is full of brush piles and trees.  Most guys spend their time pitching T-rigs and jigs  in there.  I found some Pflueger Crank Baits at BPS for $1.99 and bought one of each color to use on a tournament there.  I didn't mind throwing a $2 CB into that stuff and losing it - guess what, never lost a bait from getting hung up on the cast for the whole tournament.  Did catch some fish though and had a couple break me off by getting wrapped up in the wood.

Spinnerbaits are a great bait in this type of structure, they rarely get hung up.  Toss it out and let it sink down, then slow roll it through the structure.  When you feel it come over something, stop your retrieve and let it flutter down.  Deadly.

Try cutting the front barb off each treble hook or replacing them with regular hooks rather than treble.