CRANKING DOCKS WITH STRADER
The Key: Reel Setup
M
ore likely than not, your dock-
fishing arsenal looks remark-
ably similar to every other
angler’s – except maybe Wesley
Strader’s.
Sure, he uses jigs, soft plastics
and spinnerbaits like everyone else,
but he also incorporates a crankbait
for a key reason.
“It’s different,” says Strader.
“When they’re seeing that other stuff
repeatedly, and you throw in a
crankbait with its different vibration,
it gets them to perk up. Plus, you
can get the reaction bite. I’m almost
always trying to hit it off posts.”
Still, getting a crankbait beneath
a dock, particularly one that’s low to
the water, can be daunting. Strader
has two ways of doing it.
The first is to have two different
rods with the same crankbait. His
favorites are Wesley’s Secret or
Strader’s Pooh crankbaits by PH
Custom Lures.
He tunes them to run slightly out
of tune in opposite directions
(Strader marks his rod with either
yellow or red tape to indicate the
direction each is tuned). Doing this
allows him to make a cast alongside
a dock and still get it to run beneath
the structure, particularly to hit cor-
ner posts.
From there, it all comes down to
the reel and setting it up properly to
sling a roll-cast tight to the water
and under the dock.
“You need to take all the brakes
off your reel so there’s no tension on
the spool,” says Strader, who uses a
Team Lew’s Pro TI Speed Spool reel
with a Powell Endurance 6104 CB
Glass rod. “That’s the only way to
keep the crankbait low to the water
when making roll-casts.
“You’re going to backlash, espe-
cially when you first start trying it. I
probably would get 20 a day when I
first started, and I still get some if I’m
not paying attention, clanging it off a
dock. But like anything else, you
need to commit to it and not cut it
off because you hit a dock on your
third cast.”
Practice often, because if you can
master it, you’ll have a tool few oth-
ers are using.
APRIL-MAY 2020 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | FLWFISHING.COM
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