About lipless cranks

[keithdog]

I have several lipless cranks and use them from ice out to near spawn time. But once the spawn is over, they rarely see any use until the following spring. I'm wondering if I am making a mistake. I guess the reasoning for this is it seems the only time you read about them being used in magazines and on line is during spring time. I never see anything about their use once the spawn is on. You see the pros using them a lot during early to mid spring, but I never see them use them after that.

This morning I was thinking about my area lakes. The fishing this year has been far less than stellar, and I blame it on the extremely heavy weed kill the Conservancy Districts performed on all the area lakes, which has made it hard to find any healthy live weed beds anywhere, and the decaying matter is still clouding up the water something awful. My lakes are generally fairly clear, but this year, visibility is about 18 inches or so. Maybe a little more depending on what part of the lake you are fishing. Finding fish under these conditions is pretty darn tough. They are smaller natural lakes which are not stream fed. There are no old road beds, rock piles, river channels, etc that you would see on man made impoundments. Therefore, weed beds are the main structures that hold the fish. Without the weed beds, knowing where to start is more guess work than anything else. The bass I have found are few and far between. Find a lay down and you'll only find one or two bass at best. So this morning, I was thinking about what would make a good search bait for these conditions. So far crank baits and spinner baits have been the best producers. But then I had a thought.

Why not throw a brightly colored lipless crank. Maybe chrome/black back for example. With the flash and vibration of all those noisy bb's, maybe that would be the ticket. Then I started thinking, maybe lipless cranks are not a one season and done lure. Maybe I am dropping the ball by not using them more often throughout the year. The only time I have used them in the summer is when I see bass chasing schools of shad or bait fish at the surface. Am I missing out on some thing, or do you put your lipless cranks away after the spring fling?