Anyone Fishing Spinners w/Crawlers?

[Sportdog]

I almost always fish crank baits for early season eyes. I know that many guys fish a jig and minnow but does anyone fish spinner harnesses w/crawlers or minnows for that matter? Thanks for any input!

[Sunshine]

Yes,

I find myself going to the blades sooner and sooner each year.

[gibber13]

Ive never used them much in the past (relatively new to walleye fishing). One of the local lakes I fish is around 10 - 15 ft deep on average.

Im going to do some research on them and start going to them more this year.

[Blackmacs]

I use spinners and minnows quite often in the spring. I've used crawlers a few times but my early season spots are usually minnow bites.

[colt100]

I'm in N WI and use spinners all the time. As we can't be fishing for walleye until the first weekend in may every year, I find for about the first 2 weeks or so, jigs or cranks are the way to go. As soon as the walleye start going for deeper water, I pull out the spinners and run them basically for the rest of the year.

My home water is 18 to 19 ft deep and has that depth throughout most of the lake in the basin. I normally troll the brakes on the deep water line along the length of the lake and I pull walleyes fairly consistantly.

[alanb]

For the opener on LOTW in 2007, I had great success with a chartruse spinner and crawler using a bottom bouncer in 10' to 14' of water. This was the first year I used this rig, plus it was a warm May in 2007 with the fish definitely into their spring patterns.

Last year was very cold and had no luck with the spinner rig. Went back to a jig and minnow which worked very well.

For this year I expect the water temperature and conditions to be very similar to 2008. I will be trying the spinner rig again with a lighter bottom bouncer (1/2 oz to 3/4 oz) to target 10' and under depths and try a both the minnow and crawler.

I'll try to remember to post a response when I get back on what I learned this year.

Alanb

[bob oh]

usually go to crawlers when temp hits 50 degrees.

[Terroreyes]

Last few years, I've run spinners as soon as I start running cranks. For me, cranks will usually outproduce the spinners for a few weeks, then once the water temps get well into the 50's and the spinners outproduce cranks until fall.

[went522]

It'll the be the opening day presentation in my boat. Big colorado blades/crawler slow trolled behind bouncers.

BIRDDOG

[Guest]

I drift fished 2 hook harnesses/bouncers rigged with a big emerald and a 2nd smaller one during the 2nd and 3rd wk of March one yr around the island region on erie with excellent results on days when the water was clear but it was a little too bumpy to effectively "ice fish" out of the boat.

I've tried the same program during April against cranks and the crankbaits did better the few times I've tried harnesses with minnows & worms. I tend to stay with crankbaits during April because worms are messy but they definitely work well during the latter part of April & I used to fish worm harness/bouncers/3-ways/snap weights exclusively from May 1st until June.

Inland - I haven't sucessfully fished harnesses/bouncers for structure fish until the end of May. I think the fish in my local eye lake are focused on food with fins prior to that.

[The Old Mud]

I'd agree with the upper 50's post. Cranks and jigs early!