Cranking for Bass part 4

Summertime is the time that the balsa crankbaits really shine, this is the time when most of the bass are in the twelve to eighteen foot depth range. The perfect tool for fishing this depth range is the deep diving crank that runs inthe ten to fifteen foot range and my favorite is the Bagley's DB3 in chartreuse over white. I have fished this lure and color combo all over the U.S. and Mexico and have caught bass, crappie, catfish, white bass, stripers, wipers and many others on this one lure. I have caught fish in all calender periods, ( it would not work when the lake was frozen ).

In the cold water periods there are better lure choices, but you can almost always catch fish on it. In cold water periods I putit on a downrigger and slowly swim it just under shad schools sometimes sixty to eighty feet deep, and catch bass and some really big catfish on it. Speed of the lure is an important trigger in the summer, you can't reel too fast for a bass to catch it. If I need to fish the DB3 at a medium speed I opt for a conventional reel with a five to one or a six to one gear ratio and mate it with a six and a half to seven foot medium action fiberglass rod. This rod has a little more bend in it before it loads up and seems to hook more fish than its graphite
counterpart, and since its not as stiff as graphite it is more forgiving when the fish is near the boat and you will have less hooks pull out when the fish is thrashing near the boat.

When more speed is needed to trigger bass I go with a seven and a half foot medium action spinning rod and a medium saltwater spinning reel loaded with thirty pound spectra, a woven superline with a line diameter close to ten pound monofilament. This small line diameter with no memory like monofilament casts fifty percent farther than with a conventional reel with, TA DA, no backlashes! When you get a backlash with spectra on a baitcasting reel it usually turns out to be the" Mother of All Backlashes" and you might as well put that rod away until you get home because you and it are going to spend a good deal of time together getting that backlash out!

I will put spectra on a baitcasting reel that I intend to fish a dropshot rig on, then put a five foot leader of flourocarbon mono at the end. This is a rig meant to be fished straight down under the boat, and spectra excells at this. Also the spectra with its small diameter will let the DB3 dive four to five extra feet deep and if I need more depth I can KNEEL-N- REEL, put the rod tip straight down in the water almost to the reel and you can get it down another five feet, with
this method you can get the DB3 to hit twenty five foot depths, if I see bass on my depth finder at that depth. The spinning reel lets me take up twenty five percent more line with each turn of the reel handle which makes the lure go that much faster.

In clear water this is necessary so the bass does not have time to get a good look at the lure or the line as spectra is highly visible. The fish either eats the lure or it escapes. Sometimes you need even more speed than just reeling can give you, the solution here is to reel the lure down to its programed depth then with the rod tip almost to the water sweep the rod up to the twelve o-clock position as fast as you can, then reel as fast as you can while dropping the rod tip back to the water, then do it again until the lure is back to the boat, the slight pause while the rod is being lowered and the line is taken up allows the lure to stop and float up a bit then scream off again as if every bass in the lake is after it.

Bass are always competing with each other for food and when a prey gets away from one another is right there to gobble it up. This tactic has caught bass for me when nothing else worked. Another good tactic to do with a crank is bend the line tie a little to the right or left,
this causes the bait to run off to one side or the other, normally you want the bait to run straight, but by making it run to the side you can make it run under a pier or overhanging bush, this lets you fish the bait in places where bass do not usually see a crankbait. I have caught some really nice bass this way, when fishing cranks, I have two other rods rigged, one with a crank that runs right on the right side of the boat and one that runs left on the left side of the boat.

When fishing boat docks with cranks I drift by with the wind and make casts down both sides of the dock then circle around and cast the lures that go off to the side and let them run back under both sides of the dock, I usually catch more fish on the lures that run under the dock than the ones that go straight down the sides as that is the way 99% of the other fishermen fish them. Sometimes you just have to show the fish something a little different than what they are used to.