Bass Fishing Crane Prairie Res

[Fishing Maniac]

Hello to all!

I've been lurking for a while and finally decided it was about time I joined the board. I understand it's customary to post a story first so here it goes.

Since I've been fishing for salmon and steelhead most of my life I had not had a chance to fish for bass. When my best friend called from Spokane and invited me to fish for the weekend I took him up on the offer. He had been having fantastic fishing all summer long on Sprague, Silver, and Long lakes with bass up to 7 pounds. Needless to say I was very excited to get over there. I flew over the evening before and our plan was to fish Sprague in the morning then hit the docks over at Silver. The weather had been very warm 90's the previous week but this morning there was a heck of a cold front that had moved in. The temperature was in the low 40's. When we got to the ramp my buddy said he was not real confident of having good success based on the change in weather. We started off fishing plastic worms which is what he had been using for several weeks with good success and for the most part were not getting many bites except a couple of dinks. I decided to switch to a jig n pig with a pork trailer and almost immediately got bit by a nice 2 1/2 pounder. The next cast I hit another about the same size. By that time my buddy realized I was on a pattern of some kind and he immediately switched to a jig & pig as well. Over the course of about 2 hours we proceeded to land about a dozen fish. We caught a 5 1/2 pounder, two 4 pounders, a couple of 3s and the rest around 2 or so. I caught the 5 1/2 and was ectatic since it was my biggest bass to date and still is. The sun eventually came out and the fishing shut down so we headed over to silver. We proceeded to catch a dozen or so over there fishing the docks which was a lot of fun. These fish ranged up to about 4 pounds with most in the 2 to 3 pound range. All in all a awesome day of bass fishing and one I'll never forget.

Now for my question, I'm fishing Crane Prairie over the weekend and was hoping to get some helpful tips on locations, lures and techniques. Any info would be helpful. Thanks very much!!!

[Rauly]

Wecome Fishing Maniac. Nice first post story, but you forgot the GPS cordinates. :whazzup: So after you post the cordinates we will be more than happy to give you the generalities for Crane Prarie. :grin:

Fish jigs and tubes around the log rafts and reed piles. Good Luck.

Rauly

[Fishing Maniac]

Rauly,

I have a hard enough time figuring out how to use my depth finder let alone the GPS(ha ha). Thanks for the info. I'll let you know how we do.

[Hagen]

Fishing Maniac, welcome aboard. As for fishing Crane, you can use just about any plastics in the timber and find fish. Cranks will work on rock piles. http://www.ifish.net/ubb/ultimatebb....;f=13;t=000602 This might help also.
Tight lines.
Hagen

[Fishing Maniac]

Hagen,

Thanks for the tips. Between my buddy and I we must have 20 bags of senkos and that's probably what we'll be fishing most of the time. That seems to be the universal lure these days. Just out of curiousity have you heard of a top water bite over there yet? If so, any particulars on lures etc.? I assume your standard spooks would work. I'm actually taking my fly rod with some deer hair poppers to see if they'll respond to something a little different.

[Hagen]

FM, when we fished our tourney there was no topwater bite at all. A few guys managed some on blades but they were dinks. If it is bright and sunny think of something in green with red flake.
Knock em dead.
Hagen

[Fishing Maniac]

Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is the fishing was pretty good at Crane. Between my buddy and I we hooked 40 or 50 bass over the week end. Most of them were the typical 3 or 4 pounders with a couple in the 4 1/2 pound range. My buddy broke off several that may have been slightly larger. Most were caught on black 3/16 oz jigs with a yum craw trailer. We also had a decent bite on heavy(3/4 oz) all white spinner baits cranked in relatively fast along lay downs. We also had 4 or 5 on topwater. My buddy broke his only superspook off on a very large(5 pounds +) fish on topwater the first night.

Now the bad news...I had an old scratched Cornea injury that resufaced it's ugly face Saturday morning and I was not able to fish either Saturday or Sunday and was forced to stay at the hotel in pain both days. My buddy proceeded to put the hurt on them anyways. That is an awesome fishery up there. A couple of words of wisdom:

1. Use 20 pound line, no exceptions!
2. Take a good supply of your favorite lures. If you find a pattern and only have one of those lures and then break it off you'll be kicking yourself as it will ultimately cost you many fish over a full weekend of fishing.
3. Although there are hotels in Lapine, it's about a 35 minute drive from the lake. If your are going to be there for 3 or 4 days you lose a lot of time going back and forth. You're probably better off camping in my opinion.

I can't wait til next year!!!

[Fishing Maniac]

Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is the fishing was pretty good at Crane. Between my buddy and I we hooked 40 or 50 bass over the week end. Most of them were the typical 3 or 4 pounders with a couple in the 4 1/2 pound range. My buddy broke off several that may have been slightly larger. Most were caught on black 3/16 oz jigs with a yum craw trailer. We also had a decent bite on heavy(3/4 oz) all white spinner baits cranked in relatively fast along lay downs. We also had 4 or 5 on topwater. My buddy broke his only superspook off on a very large(5 pounds +) on topwater the first night.

Now the bad news...I had an old scratched Cornea injury that resufaced it's ugly face Saturday morning and I was not able to fish either Saturday or Sunday and was forced to stay at the hotel in pain both days. My buddy proceeded to put the hurt on them anyways. That is an awesome fishery up there. A couple of words of wisdom

I can't wait til next year!!!