Crank bait question?

[Scott the fishman]

So i want to get into cranking more. i usually use spinner baits or soft plastics but i want to be more versatile. So what are some tips on cranking? Anything will be greatly appreciated thank you.

[Tavery5]

rods with soft tips, reels with low speeds, and RC 1.5's

[MississippiBoy]

If I remember, you're fishing from the bank, right? No boat? You're going to be really limited on your crankbait usage, since they dive as you reel. The shallow ones, like the 1.5's, Mann's Minus-1's, etc. are going to be your best options, along with lipless crankbaits, also called rattletraps or rattlebaits.

[keithdog]

Normally I would use a 7 foot crankbait specific rod with 12 pound copoly line and a reel of 5.4:1 or lower for larger cranks, and a 6.4:1 for shallow cranks as I like to work shallow cranks a little faster and bounce them off things. However, since your fishing from shore, I would use a 6 1/2' medium or medium heavy rod with a medium action. I woould also spooll up with 15 pound copoly. Why? Because when fishing from shore, a 7 foot rod can easily get troublesome to use around overhanging branches and tall brush. Also, when fishing shallow water, you want your crankbait to run shallow and heavier copoly line will help it do that. Also, heavier line comes in very handy when working around submerged brush, logs, pier posts and the like that can wear down a lighter line rather quickly.

[Marty]

Originally Posted by Scott the fishman

So i want to get into cranking more. i usually use spinner baits or soft plastics but i want to be more versatile. So what are some tips on cranking? Anything will be greatly appreciated thank you.

I've been using crankbaits for 40+ years and they're great fish attractors. There are dozens of effective brands out there; it can be pretty daunting. I'd buy a couple of a brand you know, that run to the depth you want to fish. One of the well-known crankbait pros--maybe Mark Davis, can't be sure--said that anyone can catch fish on a crankbait straight out of the box by just retrieving it steadily.

That's true, but first you should make sure the hooks are sharp, then get them wet!! You can experiment with retrieve speeds, cadence and the like until you find something you like.

They should make a great addition to your arsenal.

[Scott the fishman]

Originally Posted by MississippiBoy

If I remember, you're fishing from the bank, right? No boat? You're going to be really limited on your crankbait usage, since they dive as you reel. The shallow ones, like the 1.5's, Mann's Minus-1's, etc. are going to be your best options, along with lipless crankbaits, also called rattletraps or rattlebaits.

I mainly fish from shore but when i am in tournaments i am on a boat which is what i will often crank from. I got my crank rod set up St. Croix Premiere with bass pro shops qualifier. I know not the best choice for cranking but i am also using this for spinner baits. I am 14 and limited budget only get money from scrap metal and cutting lawns (hate both). But thanks i will sure try these and i do have a few lip less cranks i use often they work pretty good too.

[oglejust]

Originally Posted by Tavery5

rods with soft tips, reels with low speeds, and RC 1.5's

i agree with this... cast and retrieve

[MississippiBoy]

Originally Posted by Scott the fishman

I mainly fish from shore but when i am in tournaments i am on a boat which is what i will often crank from. I got my crank rod set up St. Croix Premiere with bass pro shops qualifier. I know not the best choice for cranking but i am also using this for spinner baits. I am 14 and limited budget only get money from scrap metal and cutting lawns (hate both). But thanks i will sure try these and i do have a few lip less cranks i use often they work pretty good too.

I gotcha. I didn't realize you fished from a boat, also......I missed that somewhere. In that case, pick out some cranks in some different depths, in some of the same colors that work for you with spinnerbaits and other lures. In general terms, you want a crankbait to run where it will contact the bottom for as much of the retreive as possible.....if you're fishing in say 10 ft of water, you'll probably want a crankbait that runs at 12-15 ft or so. Remember that even if a crankbait says "Dives to xx ft" on it, that's usually misleading. I've found that they actually run a bit shallower than what the box they came in says.
Get out there and throw crankbaits.....the only way to learn them is to use them. Don't get too caught up in what rod, reel, line, etc, either. The fish don't care if you're using the "proper" equipment or not.

[3dkicker]

Here are some baits that you can probably pick up at any swap meet/flea market for discounted prices. Save up that grass cutting money and wait until winter to get some. Or see if you can get them on sale and save a few bucks.

These will cover most depths you'll fish
Bandit 100 and 200
Rebel Deep Wee R and Wee R
Rapala DT series..... pick your depth
Norman - N series (little N, middle N, deep little N)

for shallow running baits
Mann's Baby 1 minus or Bandit footloose

Of course there are plenty more I could add but keep it simple and stick to shad colors to start with. Then maybe craws and firetiger.

[carolina-rig-01]

Man there are so many crankbaits out there and they all come in so many colors that it's really too broad of a subject to cover in any other way than just experience. I have caught more fish on Bomber crankbaits than any other brand. For some reason the model 7A in Firetiger is money on my local lake, and the bigger Fat Free Shads have been really good to me as well. The RC 1.5's are as good as they get but for less money the KVD 1.5's have caught me a bunch of big fish as well. The Bandits that Smitty mentioned can be great baits when trying to match a smaller forage but they are also hard to cast because they are so light, I bought a few Bass Pro Shops Pro Lites and they do an amazing job of slinging these little baits a long ways after Pro Reel gave me some tips on some things to do to these reels before using them. Like Tavery said, a slower gear ratio is prefered especially with deeper divers because they will kill your arms with a high speed reel. My advice on picking crankbaits is to buy at least 2 or 3 of whatever baits you choose because if you find one that is catching fish you will most likely get it hung up and lose it, it never fails. I would pick a few models that you want to try in various diving depths and buy a few clear water colors as well as some stained water colors in each. I always replace the hooks with KVD Triple Grips but there are some other really good replacement hooks out there. I like rods that are anywhere from 7' to 7'6" in length but I am a little different than most people because I like my cranking rods to have more power than most guys do. I tried the lighter rods and I lost so many fish that I went back to heavier rods and knock on wood I stopped losing fish. When you fish them you want to keep them banging off of something to get reaction bites, generally just use a bait that dives a little deeper than the water your fishing so it ticks the bottom. On squarebills like 1.5's run them into laydowns, brush piles, rock piles, and anything else you can find because that is what they are designed to do. I like using flourocarbon line on crankbaits but it seems like all line types have their supporters so I don't know if you could go wrong. It will take some time to get to where you can tell the difference between hitting the bottom or getting a bite, or for that matter to tell the difference between hitting a log or hitting a rock but if you fish them enough you will be able to tell the difference and you will learn when to pause your retrieve so the bait will float up over the object or to speed up to crash it into the object, this just comes with experience.

[Bubba_Bruiser]

If you have an Academy or Dicks near by, they usually have desent sales on cranks. Pick you up a handfull. Get some sparklys for the sunny clear days, and some naturals or contrasting for you water conditions for the cloudy days and give them a shot. Like a lot of them said though, be prepared to lose a few of them.

My gear is a 7' Med-Mod stick with a 5:1 & 7:1 reel. I like the #12 CXX for them too. I use the Med because I seldom through a crank that runs over 6-7'.

[hdmoorefootball]

C-rig, you say you use the KVDs 1.5s, do you think the fact that they are silent has anything to do with them being more effective? I assume that the rattling cranks were designed for fishing in muddy water or when the water is choppy. I just took a look at the KVDs seeing they were silent and never realizing that they had silent crankbaits, (being a amateur in the crankbait dept.) Do you add that in as a factor when ur choosing which crankbait to throw on specific days? (anyone can reply, i just saw c-rig was using the kvds)

[3dkicker]

I think it's more the vibration or movement of the bait. It has a wide wobble compared to other crankbaits. So does the KVD version. I've never used the rattle version to compare the two to see if "silent" is better than "rattle". I just know the RC 1.5 and 2.5 catch bass. Why else would Strike King, Academy, and Lucky Strike come up with discounted versions?

My buddy The Major uses both versions and likes the "silent" one better but catches fish on both.

[Tavery5]

Sometimes when fish first move up from deeper water to the creeks they can be very skidish, this is when I believe a silent crank can be effective, sometimes you just need a little more subtle presentation, after they have been in the creeks for a while it is game on with most anything.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by hdmoorefootball

C-rig, you say you use the KVDs 1.5s, do you think the fact that they are silent has anything to do with them being more effective? I assume that the rattling cranks were designed for fishing in muddy water or when the water is choppy. I just took a look at the KVDs seeing they were silent and never realizing that they had silent crankbaits, (being a amateur in the crankbait dept.) Do you add that in as a factor when ur choosing which crankbait to throw on specific days? (anyone can reply, i just saw c-rig was using the kvds)

Like 3dkicker said, the KVD 1.5's have a little different action to them. Crankbait gurus look for baits that "hunt" which means every once in a while on the retrieve it will randomly kick off to one side or the other ever so slightly. I have heard pros say that you can buy 100 of the exact same bait and if your lucky you will find 5 that will hunt, but those five will get you more bites than the other 95. The KVD 1.5's and 2.5's have this hunting action built into them and I think that is a big factor in them getting bites. But to answer your question I do believe that the silent version will get more bites at times. Like mentioned above when the fish are spooky, in clear water, or when the fish are getting getting a lot of pressure from crankbaits are times when the silent version has an edge in my opinion.

[tomegun]

I rarely tune my crankbaits. If they get knocked out balance or run funny out the packaging, I tend to get bit better. I only change hooks. Been running the KVD hooks of late(no opinion yet), normally I use gami's.

[DerekW]

hello here !