What's your experience with Lipless Crankbaits?

[fellowx]

I'm fishing this weekend in a little group tournament and I'm gonna try to stray away from the stickbait plastics. I'm comfortable with the stickbaits now and would like to learn new lures. I'm thinking about starting off in the morning with a chrome lipless crankbait and running it parallel to the docks and also along the sand flat dropoffs, idea behind that is to get them while the temps are still low and while they're in the feeding mode. Once the sun comes up, I'm thinking outer weedlines with a DT10 green firetiger and if all else fails the stickbait seems to bite all day.

What do you guys think about the lipless in the morning and the DT10 along the outer weedlines.. Is it a good pattern choice? The 2 other guys with me will be using spinnerbaits and will be throwing stickbaits so I want to better our chances by throwing other lures. Just haven't really had time to build up the confidence in the lipless and deep diving cranks. What are your experiences with these cranks?

[Deitz Dittrich]

I think it really depends on the conditions. There are days when the fish do not want to chase a lure like that. I do throw a lipless quite a bit, they are a great search bait, but in my opinion, not the best for catching a lot of fish. I use the trap to find a fish, I then comb the area with a slower presentation.

its also going to depend on water clarity and such, weed cover, ect...

[Muddog]

If the Bass are schooled it is a great way to go. Last year after a midnight thunder storm, I ran into a School of Bass that were in 12-17 FOW just off a break to a canal that lead to a large shallow area. I don't know if the Bass or the bait fish were spooked from the shallows the night before but the Bass were stacked in a small area. We caught and released 15 Bass in the 17-19" class in 15 casts on lipless crankbaits! So if you can find Bass schooled and competing for food, there aint no better way. Boy is it fun to see two or three nice size Bass chasing the one on your line.

[Pherris]

I throw a lipless crankbait to find fish only if my favored patterns do not produce. Lipless cranks do catch fish. I personally would not start a tournament with them. I have found that they produce best when they are just on top of the grass or weed flats letting the bait just tick the weeds and when I do snag a weed a quick rip will usually free the bait of weeds and it is also when the majority of strikes occur. I would start with a top water if the conditions are right otherwise probably go to my drop shot or stick bait or jig type presentation. Good Luck!!!

[Fever]

Some good responses here. I too have had great days throwing a rattle trap type lure. Just last fall (Oct) I had a phenominal day catching back to back to back to back (you get the point) Bass all decent on a silver/chrome lipless. In situations where they are schooled up and hungry... probably the best choice. However that will not probably be the case and if your partner(s) are throwing spinnerbaits I personally would go with a white clacker buzzbait or a Mann's baby minus one. Both of those choices will produce fish for you and you'll probably outfish the spinnerbaiters with the mann's just because it's something different. Just my 2 cents. When you do find them, I would slow down like Dietz said. Good luck.

[Central Bassman]

What do you guys think is the ideal Cranking weather?? and season?? I like to fish cranks but need to do it more

[FishingRebel]

I personally use that lure all of the time in my tournaments... You should definitely use it... You would be surprise.... I just fished that lure at White Bear Lake today and I did quite well with the largemouth bass.

[Coach Dog]

Also nice to crank over submerged weeds. Relatively easy to do by just guiding the bait with your rod tip. Rattle 'em up!

[Meat-Run]

Heres what I have done in the past with great success when I lived in the cities and fished the Wednesday tournaments on tonka. Since we had a slower and less powerful boat we were limited to short runs and focused on docks. We had a stretch of docks that always produced and used the normal skipping plastics and slugs under docks. Keep in mind this was back in the late 80's and for some reason I had a shallow fat rap on that I used to twitch and locate fish in and around wash outs behind boats and open pockets. Well i tried skipping this fat rap under the docks and was VERY successful with it. I'm think the bass were not conditioned to a skipping crank and yes I could skip this under docks pretty easily. So next time out put the trolling motor on high and fish docks very fast with a fat rap and/or a Manns Baby -1 and you'll be surprised how effective it can be. Do keep in mind that we did this earlier in the year when the milfoil wasn't at full length and the docks weren't completed choked.

The fat rap from Rapala has been out of product for along time now but is an over looked presentation in most fishermans arsenal. But generally the rattle trap is also a great locating lure too.

Good Luck,

mr