Crankbaits

[a321eric]

Hey, I was looking out to go buy some good crankbaits and expand my arsenal as a fisherman. I am more of a finese guy and hardly ever fish reaction baits. I think its mainly due to confidence in them and finding the right areas to fish them. Any how I want to get more into crankbait fishing and was looking for some pointers as well as good crankbaits to buy. I am not too worried about buying a $14 crankbait, so any advice you can give will help me out. I am gonna be up at Havasu in the next few weeks and would like to be able to throw a huge line of baits up there.

[P.A.W.]

I haven't fared to well on cranks. Caught a few here and there, but have done much better on reaction baits like slashbaits, jerkbaits and pointers. Still the same thing.... throw and retreive. You can cover alot more water than a finnese approach. As for types... well I have had good success on Rapalas and Lucky Craft both.

[wackyrigged]

Well when crankbaiting is good its great youll nail one every cast. Just a certain time of year i guess try a rapala extreme series deep diving. I like either the shad or the shiney colors but dont hesitate to throw a bluegil or baby bass pattern too. Also its cool to have the flat billed ones for shallow water.

[Dr. MindBendo]

The Strike King squarebills are good quality for the money. You can't go wrong with Lucky Craft cranks. Just figure out what depth you're trying to target. The longer the bill the deeper they dive. There are shallow, medium and deep diving cranks. Don't be afraid the use them but be ready to lose a few here and there. They get embedded in differant structure easily. You then would choose the color. You obviously want to imitate the bait fish of the lake you are fishing. I also like the Norman's, Damiki, Jackall and Koppers cranks. Good luck out there. Another thing to make sure you are using good hooks like Owner. I have noticed cranks with cheap stock hooks tend to lose lots of fish.

[a321eric]

Ya I have a few cranks that I picked up but never really fished them. Its more like give it a fan cast and if nothing happens I get tempted to pick up my DS rod. I wanna go out and just spend a whole day throwing the crankbait. Ill probably pick up some of those Koppers cranks...they look really nice.

[smokehound]

Strike king actually makes decent lures, especially considering the low price..

Bitsy pond Minnow FTW!!

[vanillagurilla]

everytime ive caught a fish on a crank i was making contact with the bottom, structure contact is more important then what brand you buy. that being said, i dont like fishing cranks lol if you want to get your feet wet with a reaction bait give spinnerbaits a try. Fish them around cover and over weeds and you'll catchem.

[a321eric]

Ya the only time I've caught a crankbait fish was running it on the bottom at Lake Perris. It was probably luck more than anything. And also at Jess Ranch I caught like 5 of them on a small trout crankbait but that doesnt count because those bass are super easy to catch. Is there anything more specific though that I should be looking at when throwing cranks?