Crankbait Tactics for Bass

A crankbait is just that, a bait you cast out and crank it in. Cranks have a different size and shape to the diving bill to make it do different things.

A long bill at a forty five degree angle to the body of the bait will cause it to dive to a medium depth, ( eight to twelve feet ) and have a wide wobble, hence a strong viabration that calls bass in from afar, a long bill that runs parallel to the lure body will dive the deepest of all, ( twelve to eighteen feet ) and a lure with a short stubby bill will stay shallow and wobble and wiggle and send out lots of vibrations to alert all nearby bass here is an easy meal.

But just because cranks have a built in action and a maximum depth they can dive to, does that mean there is only one way to fish them? Not at all, you can reel them fast or slow, you can quickly reel them down to their programed depth then twitch them along with quick short pulls of the rod tip. You can sweep the rod tip quickly from the seven to the twelve o-clock position and the lure will really scoot, this is a great triggering action as predators are programmed to catch fleeing prey.

You can use a stop and go retrieve, reel the lure down to its programmed depth, stop let the lure float up for a second or two, then crank it for three or four turns of the handle, stop, let the lure float up a bit, then resume cranking. Always pay attention to the line where it comes off the rod tip, if it twitches or goes slack, a bass has grabbed it, set the hook hard!!!! Always pay attention to the line and what it is doing right now, soon you will know when a bass has grabbed it even if you did not feel it, sometimes all you feel is the vibrations stop for a second, then resume. This is probably because a bass sucked it in his mouth then spit it out because he discovered it was not real food. In this situation you have maybe one half of a second to react or the bass is gone. But all is not lost, if the day is a slow one with few bites I will wait a few minutes, then cast a jig-n-pig ( a jig with a pork rind as a trailer ) back to the area where I know there is at least one fish that wants to bite.

If the day is one where I am getting lots of bites, I will immediately cast the jig and if the fish does not hit I will continue down the bank casting the crankbait. Cranks are usually best, here in Southern California, when fished parallel to the banks. We have very little offshore structure, so unless you encounter bass busting shad on the surface out towards the middle of the lake stick to the shores for cranks if they are the deep diving type. I mostly fish the Bagley DB3 in chartreuse and white, in warm clear water I fish it as fast as I can crank, in stained water I slow down a little and in muddy water I fish much slower as bass zero in on the lures vibrations as they can't see very good in the muddy waters.

I have caught some of my biggest bass on giant cranks in muddy water. These work best in waters stocked with trout, they are usually eight to twelve inches long and giant bass will eat them when they refuse any other lure. Remember BIG BAIT, BIG FISH!! These large bass are used to eating stocker trout as they have never seen a predator before and bass just swim up and eat them.

The Castiac Soft Trout is the most realistic looking of all the trout lures and many large bass have fallen to them. These work best in the first few days after the trout have been stocked as the bass are competing for the easy prey. Although you can catch the bass of a lifetime on one of these giant crankbaits giant bass are few and far between, even after a trout stock. The DB3 targets the size bass most fishermen want to catch, and tournament fishermen need to upgrade their limits.

When I fished the pro circuit, I started out fishing spinnerbaits if the water was over sixty two degrees because I could cover lots of water, but when the spinner bite slowed down I got out my trusty DB3 and covered lots of water. I had usually put together a pattern during prefish and knew where to fish the crank for best results. Bagley also makes a DB2 that runs about four to six feet deep, but for fish in this depth range a spinnerbait is the pros bait of choice, you can cover more water and hang up much less, the time you spend retrieving a hung up lure is fishing time lost. The more casts you can make and the more water you can cover, usually translates to more fish at the end of the day.

Even one more keeper in most tournaments could mean the difference between tenth and first place, a difference of many thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. In one U.S. Open I fished, the difference between first and second place was two hundredths of a pound, one shad that one fish ate meant the difference of forty thousand dollars. Most of the fishermen reading these articles will never be in these situations, but it never hurts to manage your time and maybe catch a few more fish in a day.