Crawler harnesses

[Jig Master]

I'm going to start making my own crawler harnesses, and was wondering what pound test everyone uses when making them? Also what size hooks do you use? Thanks.

[s.f]

i use ten or twelve pound silverthread line. (made by pradco)
this is strong enough to prevent breaking between the hooks as you land a fish and it gets tangled in the net. (common problem if the line is less than ten pount test) i don't go over twelve pound as i also am aware of the line becoming too visible and 'stiff'.
size #4 hook is most common. on the great lakes i use #2's and where the fish are kinda fussy, i use #6's.
#49

[mudcat]

Jigmaster,

I see by your helmet that you're a smart guy. Probably do a lot of fishing at pymy and lake erie. Are you from the Pittsburgh area?

I'll give you my recipies for success on these waters, since I am an avid harness fisherman.

Pymy: 2 #6 hooks. 6 pound sensithin. #2 colorado blade. Chartruese or silver. small beads...chartruese, white and always some red. If drifting with a bottom bouncer, keep the snell around a foot...add a float if you like, and subtract some beads. If you're trolling(in-line boards work great) lengthen the snell to about 4 or 5 feet.

Erie: My line on my harnesses is 20lb/8lb diameter fireline. I use two #2 gamatzu treble hooks. Blades are Baitrigs #5 colorado...or the big willow leafs...purple is primary color...black and purple...and pink and white. Large beads. I match beads to the color of my blades...but always red somewhere. I run these off of dispys.

Any questions, just e-mail me a dpiazza@adelphia.net.

GO STEELERS...We'll get'em next year!! Good luck fishing

[perchjerker]

Good tips.

For more, do a search of the archives, we ran a few pretty good threads on this subject a few weeks ago. I learned a lot from them!

[RANGER]

This should help:

http://www.walleyecentral.com/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=14100&forum=generaldiscussion

This one too:

http://www.walleyecentral.com/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=12614&forum=generaldiscussion

[perchjerker]

Ranger is the man!

Hey, I got the Bass and Walleye boats you told me about yesterday. Decent article, the rest of the mag is a lot better than I saw when I bought a copy awhile back. Maybe there is hope for it yet???

[RANGER]

Yeah, for the most part I enjoy it too. I get really bored with the tweaking articles to squeeze another 1 mph out of boats/motors. I have one he11 of a time keeping worms on the harness at 52 mph!! To say nothing of trying to run cranks.......................! But, it does have some very informative articles for repairing and such.

Later.