Cranks......?

[Raul]

Joe I HATE SOFT PLASTICS ! ---->I LOVE CRANKBAITS , I enjoy crankbaiting, I like to cast and reel in all day long, I hate to stay and painstakingly walk a worm at arthritic snail pace for minutes at a time, cranking is a beautiful way to catch bass. Catch is choosing the right crank to do the job, so to answer your quation, yes you can use your cranks in open water, the question about open water is in relation on how "open" is "open" ? just because you don´t see it doesn´t mean there´s nothing underneath all that "openess"

[carolina-rig-01]

Joe, congrats on trying to tackle crankbaits. As much as I love topwater, flipping, and dragging jigs, crankbaits are probably my biggest strength for some reason. Just like everything else in fishing, there are no absolutes or hard and fast rules to crankbaits. But here are my thoughts and experiences with crankbaits.

Originally Posted by joedog

Threw them till the end.
Well that and Float'n'Fly.

Well it got cold and I threw towards the end mostly the crank shown above...I think.
Switched up at times with a suspending hard jerk bait.

But the cool deal with the Rap I was using, was it was a square-bill that swam 5-8' and when stopped it would turn, face fish and then suspend,
When draged or pumped against the bottoms and stopped it would hover right at the bottom like a 1/2 in off bottom.

Caught like a dozen but still.........not a 100 percent confident YET.

Want to thank everyone for the great input but as always......I got a question.

Now I know squares have a tighter wiggle. This isn't always the case. Actually a lot of squarebills have wider actions. Generally the thinner or flatter the body the tighter the action will be. It seems like bill shape only partially plays into the action of the bait, with body shape being the other factor. Think of crankbaits like women, fat ones will have wider wiggles than skinnier ones hahaha.
I know they are designed to dig the bottom. Squarebills aren't necessarily designed to "dig up the bottom". They are designed to be more snag resistant in cover, like laydowns or brushpiles. They do fine when banging into the bottom however. I know it sounds like I am splitting hairs here but the reason I point this out is because I hear people talk about dredging up the bottom or digging a ditch with crankbaits all the time and I think that is a sign of fishing them incorrectly. I never fish a crankbait that won't hit the bottom in whatever depth I am focusing on, but I don't want it to dig up the bottom. I want a bait that will just barely dive deep enough to smack the bottom pretty consistently on a retrieve. If your bait dives too deep then you actually lose a lot of the action.
I know the small square lip is designed to kick tail up in laydowns. This is what makes them worth their weight in gold around brush!
BUT
Can't you fish them over open water? Absolutely! I said earlier that I never fish a crankbait that won't reach bottom in whatever depth I am focusing on...........I probably should have said almost never. The main thing to remember with crankbaits is you will always get more bites when you get the bait to make erratic movements. A fish might follow the bait or watch the bait without reacting to it, but once it suddenly changes pace or direction a fish will usually commit to it. In open water you won't be hitting stumps, logs, or rocks so you have to make the bait make erratic movements. Snapping the rod tip or pausing the retrieve or one really fast turn of the handle during the retrieve will make a world of difference.
Better yet, DOES anyone fish them over open water?

Especially shorebusting.
The water may start deep but usually gets shallow/er closer to shore and end of retrieve. If you're bites are all coming towards the end of your retrieve in shallower water you can parallel the bank with your cast to keep it in the strike zone longer. Also if you go with heavier line and hold your rod tip high it will keep the bait a little shallower to keep it from actually digging into the bottom.
Like when I bring them through a deeper laydown or whole sunken tree.
Before I hit the branches and after I clear the branches, I've gotten numerous bites. Try "walking" your crankbait through limbs. When you feel it coming into the tree, keeping it moving will usually result in less hangups. But if you slow down and move the bait with sweeps of your rod tip rather than reeling the bait you will still feel the limb before you hang up in it, but you will keep the bait in their face longer and get some erratic movements out of the bait.
Basically open water BUT connected or close to structure.
Other than the tighter wiggle and with the slow upward float or suspending ability shouldn't open water non structure laiden water be acceptable technique.
If fished slow the wiggle drastically decreases too.

Anyways I've really given them a go and will be using at the start of next season again.
I really have been intriqued by this little endeaver.

There is such a HUGE variety of cranks to.
Hey, is a suspending hard body jerk/slash bait considered a crank bait? No, They are a rip bait, jerkbait, slash bait, or stickbait depending on who you're talking to. However if you just cast and retrieve them they usually have a really subtle action that can be effective in cold water. This is why a lot of jerkbait guys will just move the bait with slow sweeps of the rod in really cold water as opposed to sharp snaps of the rod tip.

[joedog]

Thanks guys!

Kory,I think I got the tree walking down?
Well sort of?

When hitting bottom unless all rock, once I hit bottom I'll ever so slightly hesitate to allow lure to float an inch or so and then continue retrieve.
hesitating as needed. Not really stoping actually.

I've ripped them out of grass.
I've sweept them.
I've reeled and stoped and reeled and stop and so on.
I'm getting success but no-where near what guys like you and Raul and others have.
A couple hear and a couple there.
Never really finding a pattern.

Believe it or not, unless shorebusting I actually enjoy working tree limbs and branches.
Go figure?

Thanks again guys!

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by joedog

Thanks guys!

Kory,I think I got the tree walking down?
Well sort of?

When hitting bottom unless all rock, once I hit bottom I'll ever so slightly hesitate to allow lure to float an inch or so and then continue retrieve.
hesitating as needed. Not really stoping actually.

I've ripped them out of grass.
I've sweept them.
I've reeled and stoped and reeled and stop and so on.
I'm getting success but no-where near what guys like you and Raul and others have.
A couple hear and a couple there.
Never really finding a pattern.

Believe it or not, unless shorebusting I actually enjoy working tree limbs and branches.
Go figure?

Thanks again guys!

It sounds like you are pretty much doing all the right things. Just keep after it, you'll eventually start seeing the results you are after. The thing about crankbaits is when the conditions are right they will catch a ton of fish but when the conditions aren't right you won't get near as many bites as you will on other techniques that are fished in less than ideal conditions. Anyways that's been my experience with them.