Cranking for Bass part 3

As I stated before I now use very few lures for most of my fishing for bass. Most of the articles you read are written by pros or other fishermen that have ties to or are sponsored by lure companies and their agenda is to make you think you need every lure made by their sponsor and in all the colors of the rainbow.

I have no ties to any tackle manufactures or lure makers. When I fished the pro bass circuit, I had the good fortune to have fished with some of the best bass fishermen in the world. Most of them had their rods rigged with just a few lures, and they spent all day fishing without changing them very often. The most seen combos were, 1 rod with a plastic worm, one with a crankbait, one with a spinnerbait, one with a topwater lure and a flipping stick with a jig and trailer or a plastic bait. None of them spent all day changing colors to see what the fish wanted, they may of had favorite colors but mostly they all caught fish no matter what color they fished.

What I learned from this was that color was maybe 5% of the equation, lure type was 10% of the equation, lure speed was 10% and fishing where the fish were was 75% of the equation. A lure is only a tool to help you catch bass in the most efficient way possible once you have found them. Say it is during the spring spawning period and the bass are shallow in brush, what would you fish? A crank would not be too good because It would get hung up too often and you would scare all the bass in an area when you got close to unhook it from the brush, a plastic worm or jig would be too slow for you to cover the maximum amount of water and show the lure to the most fish.

The perfect lure for this situation is the spinnerbait. It can be buzzed on the surface, it can be fished just a little bit slower and run a few inches under the surface causing it to make a little wake on the surface, or it may be reeled slowly by the roots of the brush and right through the beds, even if the bass don't want to eat it, they will want to kill the intruder to keep it away from the nest where the eggs they are guarding are. And it is very weedless, it doesn't get hung up very often. I always have several rods rigged with the same spinnerbait on them, that way if I do get hung I can just pick up one of the other rods and continue fishing until I have fished the area efficiently, then I go retrieve the hung lure and go to my next area.

A spinnerbait is also a crankbait that gives you so many options on how to fish it. It can be fished topwater, or one to thirty or more feet down. It can be cast out and let it settle to the bottom ( always have the reel in gear and the rod in the seven o-clock position as its sinking, as bass love to hit this lure on the sink and the rod needs to be in the best position for a good hookset.) I cast it out and let it sink to the bottom and count it down, one thousand and one, one thousand and two, until it hits the bottom. If it hits the bottom at one thousand fifteen, the water is approximately fifteen feet deep, now if on my next cast into the same depth, my line goes slack at one thousand and ten, I know a fish has probably hit it and I set the hook hard, maybe it wasn't a fish, but the lure stopped on the top of a bush in ten feet of water, when I set on nothing the lure really jumps off that bush at warp two, by the time my rod is at the twelve o-clock I know there is no fish there so I continue to let it keep sinking on a tight line and follow it down with the rod tip, dropping the rod tip just fast enough so there is no slack in the line and I can feel the spinner vibrating as it sinks, if the spinner stops vibrating or the line jumps or goes slack, I presume a bass has hit it and set the hook, anytime something feels different set the hook!!!

I have caught a lot of bass after I set the hook on nothing and quickly jumped the lure from where it was to six or more feet away in one second, this quick escape move by the lure got the bass's attention, and when it stopped and slowly made its way back to the bottom, it became on easy meal for the bass and he ate it. This is much the same way a crawdad tries to escape, a quick charge to the rear and a slow sink to the bottom watching out for danger as it sinks, but another predator behind and below the escaping crawdad is not seen and easily captures the hapless prey.

If I could only fish one lure for the rest of my life it would be a spinnerbait!