suspending cankbaits

[wareagledc]

do you fish a suspending crank like a jerk bait? i bought a bomber suspending crankbait and was casting it out cranking it down to the depth i wanted and giving it short twitches like a jerk bait produced no fish. or bites. i guess it is like the rapala xrap shad but it cast farther and is a little rounder. has anyone else used these?

[bamabassman]

never used em. but i think you are using it correctly. maybe vary the twitches and cranking some?

[MississippiBoy]

Yeah, I think the idea is to have kind of a "dual purpose" lure. Throw and retrieve when you want to use like a crank, pause and twitch when you need a jerkbait type action. Vary your retrieve till you get something, then try to remember what you were doing when you got the strike.

[rangerryan]

ive never had much luck with the bomber but i have caught a lot of fish on smithwick rogues 3' diver. and a lot of big fish but the trick is to vary your presntation until you figure out what the fish want. sometimes just a "stop and go" or "reel, twitch, stop" just mix it up and dont be afraid to reel it through the nastiest cover you see they dont get hung up as easy as you think aslong as you keep it moving. they seem to get hung up when you let them float back up or if it is a suspender when you let it set.

[carolina-rig-01]

i use suspending crankbaits quite a bit, but never fish them like a jerkbait. if a fish hits the bait but misses it i just pause the bait real quick. a lot of times you can get them to come back and hit the bait by pausing it.

rangerryan......no luck with the bomber? man that is one of my best crankbaits on grand.

[Raul]

Originally Posted by wareagledc

do you fish a suspending crank like a jerk bait? i bought a bomber suspending crankbait and was casting it out cranking it down to the depth i wanted and giving it short twitches like a jerk bait produced no fish. or bites. i guess it is like the rapala xrap shad but it cast farther and is a little rounder. has anyone else used these?

As usual, just because in that particular ocassion didn´t work for you it doesn´t mean it never works, one thing is how you present the bait to the fish and another is if that presentation is done in the right location and/or depth.

[Lilmoosecountry]

Yep i like the Xrap shad-rap. they do work. It is so cool to stop a bait & watch it just hang there. That kind of thing triggers fish.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by Lilmoosecountry

Yep i like the Xrap shad-rap. they do work. It is so cool to stop a bait & watch it just hang there. That kind of thing triggers fish.

i forgot about the xrap shad. i do have several of them and fish them more like a jerkbait.

[rangerryan]

c-rig ive never had a lot of luck with the bomber jerk baits. but a bomber model A on grand will slayem and i have caught a few nice ones on grand with the ol rogue.

[Basscrazie]

Originally Posted by Lilmoosecountry

Yep i like the Xrap shad-rap. they do work. It is so cool to stop a bait & watch it just hang there. That kind of thing triggers fish.

Yep and hang on.

[keithdog]

Yeah, I started using a couple suspending crankbaits made by Norman last year, and I did have some luck using them like a jerk bait. I would cast them out and reel them down fast to the depth I wanted and then pause, jerk, pause, jerk, and so on. Some days, I had better luck with a long quick pull of the rod, pause, reel in the slack, and pull again. But my best luck was when I reeled with short intermitent jerks followed by pauses.

[Joel]

Originally Posted by wareagledc

do you fish a suspending crank like a jerk bait? i bought a bomber suspending crankbait and was casting it out cranking it down to the depth i wanted and giving it short twitches like a jerk bait produced no fish. or bites. i guess it is like the rapala xrap shad but it cast farther and is a little rounder. has anyone else used these?

Before you decide that your presentation is wrong. Did you change crankbaits that ran at the same depth, and then started to catch any Bass?

[wareagledc]

I used a small lipless rattling rapala and caught a crappie and a small bass. I just didn't have the time to try it again but i will

[Joel]

I learned the hard way not to make quick rash decisions. As I was wrong a lot more times then I was right.

I like to fish my crankbaits on the bottom, hitting everything I can find. Pause, then they rise, then repeat. I've never really worked them as a jerkbait, but I see no reason why a suspending crankbait wouldn't entice strikes worked that way.

[Rebbasser]

In a word, no. A suspending crankbait is designed to be, well, cranked. Crank it like you normally would but stop it every now and then so it suspends in the strike zone.

[cassidyta]

I watched a video on versus the other night and the fisherman there said they are one of his primary baits in the cold weather. The concept was that cold water affects the shad more than the bigger fish. He would reel for a while and pause for 6-10 seconds. Said it appeared as a fish that was stunned by the cold.

[wareagledc]

thanks for the advice i will try different things next time i go. i like the ideal of pausing and just letting it sit for a while

[bamabassman]

<<<< getting da shivers thinking of watching a big ol sowbelly sneaking up on this. goosebumps too!!!!

[keithdog]

Look at it this way. One of the favorite methods of bass fishing is the do nothing technique, where you cast out a Senko style worm, and let it sit, and sit. It's a dynamite lure and technique. The worm just lays there on the lake bottom doing nothing, except for the occational twitch or whatever. Now imagine how effective an action bait would be worked along, but just above the lake floor where it is far more visible, and you pause your retrieve, and it just sits there, suspended but highly visible to the bass. I guess you could call it the do nothing crankbait retrieve. Pause it and it does nothing. But a bass is gonna see that and wham!

[islandbass]

I don't think the way you fished it was wrong nor is any way so far described. As a matter of opinion, I really don't think there is a wrong way to fish a suspending bait. It could have been more an indicator that the area you fished either didn't hold fish or the lure was just not presented in a way that was appealing enough to solicit a strike from the fish.