BY COREY HANSON
Being prepared and ready to fish is easy when you have Off Shore Tackle products in your boat. My “go to” trolling board is the OR12 set up with the OR12TEFK Tattle Flag® HD Economy Upgrade Kit and the OR18 Snapper Release. For me, this set up makes it quick and easy to get the board off the line when I’m reeling in a fish. I typically run three lines per side of the boat and stagger my leads to reach different depths. I prefer to run my deepest lure on the outside board line and progressively shallower lures on the middle and inside board lines.
I also like to run different lure colors to start with and keep track of what board gets hit and what color lure is producing best. After a few fish you can see a clear pattern emerging.
If I find fish are super shallow, I’ll switch over to lighter line, smaller lures and the OR38 Awesome Crappie Board (aka Mini Board). I consider the OR38 my secret weapon because these boards are stealthy and ideal for fishing spooky fish. Despite the name, the Awesome Crappie Board isn’t just useful for catching crappie.
Ever wonder why some crankbaits catch fish and others not so much? Crankbaits produce best when they run straight and true in the water, but not all crankbaits run properly straight out of the package. Learning how to tune crankbaits by making small adjustments to the “pull point” of the lure is an important fishing skill.
Begin by pulling a bait with a few feet of line out to determine if the lure is running straight or if the lure is running left or perhaps right of center. If the bait is running left of center or right of center, the pull point on the lure much be bent slightly in the opposite direction to make a correction. This a trial and error process that requires making an adjustment to the pull point and then checking the bait again. Sometimes it takes several adjustments to eventually get the pull point properly adjusted and the bait running straight and true.
This process is known as “tuning” a crankbait. Most anglers use a pair of needle nose pliers for this process, but the OR40 EZ Crankbait Tuner is a better tool for the job. The slip-jaw design and adjustable tension setting of the OR40 makes it possible to achieve very small, precise and repeatable adjustments to the crankbait pull point. The OR40 EZ Crankbait Tuner works on small crappie and panfish baits, all the way up to magnum muskie and saltwater lures.
No matter your favorite species of fish, Off Shore Tackle has you covered with quality products designed to help you catch more and bigger fish.
