Deep Cranking for LMB

[mnbass80]

I have never really dedicated a few fishing trips to deep diving cranking for big bass. Heard that now in the late summer is a good time when they hit up the deep for cooler waters. Hoping to land some 4+ pounders. I got a setup dedicated for that and would like to put it to use and not just part of my collection. Like usual, if you haven't catch fish on that technique you just don't have confidence in it and switch after a few minutes.

If anyone could guide me on this it would be great. Questions are;

Time of season?

Depths?

Colors?

Lakes?

Thanks in advance.

[RK]

Hiya -

I like cranks a lot, and fish them a lot.

Time of season -They're an all-season bait for me, but there definitely is a peak crankbait bite in August and September. Some years it's good by mid-July even, but that hasn't been the case for me this year, at least where I've been fishing. Also, there can be a very good crankbait bite post-spawn on lakes that have remaining green weeds from the season before.

Depth is totally dependent on the lake, and how deep what you're trying to fish is. Could be the top of a rock pile or a hard bottomed flat outside the weed edge, but a lot of times it's the weedline. Some lakes that might be 6 feet, others with clear water it's 17 feet. It can also depend on what you're trying to reach. If fish are over the flats or high up along the weed edge you may end up running a bait that only goes 9' down even though the depth of the weedline is 16 feet. The 'corner' where the top and deep weed edges meet is a real key pivot point. Baitfish like bluegills and crappies hang there and bass follow, especially when they're active. They can be very willing to bite but it's easy to fish under them. At other times they key pivot point is the base of the weedline. So you kind of have to experiment sometimes.

Colors - I have all kinds of colors of soft plastics, but I only carry a few crankbait colors. I fish mainly clear to oh-my-god-that's-clear water so my colors are mostly natural and pretty subdued. I also really like translucent colors. I like bluegill patterns, shad patterns (there isn't a shad for hundreds of miles where I fish, but it's a natural, fishy-looking color all the same), and 9 days out of 10 I could use those two and leave the rest at home. I do carry a few brighter colors for algae blooms or dingy/stained water, like chart/blue back, etc., though.

Lakes - pick a lake you know has a solid bass population and go try it. Force yourself to stick with it, and most importantly, try it when you already know the fish are biting. Hard to learn a new technique and get confidence in it when the only time you try it is when the stuff you DO have confidence in and can do well isn't working either. I've forced myself to learn new techniques by leaving everything else at home before, so it's either learn to catch fish doing it or don't catch fish at all...

Good luck. Cranks are a riot. One of my favorite ways to fish this time of year for sure. Love the hits that knock slack in your line for a second...

[mnbass80]

Thank you for the reply. One of these days I will have to just do that, force myself to learn by using that technique for that day. BTW deep cranking are the odds better at getting big fish like 4+ pounders? When I shallow crank most of the time it'll never produce bigger fish than plastics.

[RK]

Thank you for the reply. One of these days I will have to just do that, force myself to learn by using that technique for that day. BTW deep cranking are the odds better at getting big fish like 4+ pounders? When I shallow crank most of the time it'll never produce bigger fish than plastics.

Hmm... I guess I've never thought of crankbaits as size selecting for bigger fish like some other baits seem to do - jig & pig, for example. You can certainly catch big fish with them. Some of my biggest of the season usually come on cranks in September or October. But I think that's more a virtue of fishing where there are good numbers of fish to begin with. What I like about them more than size selecting is the efficiency. This time of year when fish start to school up a little they're a great tool for covering water and finding groups of fish quickly. Once you find them you can catch them with whatever, and then sometimes wake a school back up again with a crankbait if the bite tails off.

[jalberg]

A couple times this year I would be working a school with plastics and the bite would taper off, then I would change angles, throw a deep crank and pick up a couple more. They were usually quality fish if not bigger than the ones I was getting on plastics.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

They are a great tool but they take a good deal of time to really learn them. Too many people just chuck and reel and pay no mind to what the bait is doing or how it feels and not long after they give up.

I fished with a guy on a lake that I have milk runs on deeper rocks and drop offs that are money with crankbaits. A DT10 will run the strike zone perfect, that's what I usually throw here. I was just grinding these rocks. We're talking the lip is getting chewed and Im retying often because of it. My partner tried a dt10, said it wasnt hitting bottom (what?!) He tried a dt20, said he felt the occasional tick finally (again, what?!) He was just chucking and reeling.

Give your cranks all your concentration, same you would for jigs or drop shots or whatever. I can feel tiny strands of weeds stuck on my bait.

I love fishing deep cranks and usually I find the bite gets going best for me early july and on and then tapers off in september when my deep fish start to scatter.

[RK]

Give your cranks all your concentration, same you would for jigs or drop shots or whatever. I can feel tiny strands of weeds stuck on my bait.

Excellent, excellent post. If you're just casting and reeling, you aren't catching as many fish as you should be on cranks. Beyond any crankbait's inherent action, there is still a lot left to the angler. Fishing a crank along a deep weed edge takes a lot of concentration to do it right. Playing with speed, stop/go retrieves, keeping an eye on running depth and how it relates to the cover you're fishing, walking a bait through cover...all of that plays into making it work. Nothing worse than zoning out, catching a fish, then having no idea how you were working the bait when it bit.

[smalliehunter]

Are Cloudy days or sunny days better? Early morning, afternoon, or evening?