The crankbait. You can catch fish anywhere in the country if you just utilize and stick to this technique. The reason being, places where you can employ a crankbait are present in almost every lake, river, or reservoir in the country. Just where exactly do you fish a crankbait?
In short, grass, wood, docks, ledges, and rock are all places where productive crankbait fishing can be found. Use square billed and lipless crankbaits for shallow areas while utilizing deeper diving plugs on ledges and rock.
I decided to put together a comprehensive guide for some of the best places you can find and consistently catch fish using crankbaits. I’ll outline the specific type of crankbait to use in each situation.
Grass
We will start with the most counter-intuitive place to throw a crankbait: grass. Crankbaits are nearly 50% treble hooks so why in the world would you wanna fish these baits around grass? Well for some reason, bass cannot get enough of a crankbait being ripped out of the grass.
Lipless and square bill crankbaits are almost always players on grass lakes in Florida because these shallow running baits get through grass surprisingly well when you feel the grass on your bait and rip it through. The action this ripping imparts on your bait entices a reaction strike out of bass. Numbers as well as tournament-winning fish have been caught using this technique.
I was recently in the boat as a marshal with Bradford Beavers for a recent FLW (Fishing League Worldwide) Tour event on the Harris Chain of Lakes in central Florida where he caught most of his weight ripping a square bill through shallow eelgrass. I also watched as nearly half of the field of boats in this tournament loaded up in the offshore grass flats of Lake Griffin ripping a lipless Rattle-Trap style through offshore eelgrass mixed in with hydrilla.
Wood
Fishing wood with a crankbait is one of the most well known ways to catch fish cranking. Again though, you’d think that a crankbait would get hung up constantly when fished through thick wood and trees.
This is where the bill of a crankbait comes into play. Not only does the shape and length of the bill determine how deep and what kind of action a crankbait has, but it also helps deflect the bait off of structure such as stumps and trees.
Similar as to how ripping a crankbait through grass elicits reaction strikes, intentionally bouncing a crankbait off of wood is known to trigger reaction strikes from fish. A squarebill crankbait is best suited for the job since wood is normally found in shallower water.
Rodman Reservoir is arguably one of the best bass fishing lakes in the south. It’s absolutely FLOODED with submerged trees and logs. Check out this video of me fishing for bass at Rodman while utilizing a squarebill, bouncing it off of visible logs beneath the surface.
Docks
Targeting docks with crankbaits is about the most surefire way there is for you to go catch fish anywhere. A crankbait is next to impossible to skip but covering water by fishing it along the outside edges of multiple docks along a stretch is a fairly dependable way to get a bite.
One sneaky technique is to throw a waking crankbait (wakebait) along the sides of boat docks. The sound of the bait constantly banging into the side of the docks will trigger reaction strikes from some big bass.
Banging a little square bill off the main post of the dock works similarly to bouncing a square bill off of wood. Sometimes pausing your bait right after you feel it bounce off a post will entice more lethargic fish into biting.
If you happen to find docks that come right up against a channel swing, fish the fronts of them with deep-diving crankaits. Many mega-schools of bass have been found using this technique.
Ledges
Ledge fishing just simply dominates summer tournaments on big Tennessee river impoundments such as Lake Guntersville, Wheeler Lake, and Lake Chickamauga. A ledge is defined as an underwater ridge which is an obvious hideout for big schools of quality fish to group up on.
The first-ever FLW Super Tournament was held on Lake Chickamauga and the majority of the field targeted offshore bass that were holding on the abundant ledges that run up and down Chickamauga. The eventual winner of the event was Jacob Wheeler who outlines his specific crank baiting tactics for the tournament in the video below.
Deeper-diving crankbaits are best for fishing offshore ledges since most ledges are in deeper water. When choosing your crankbait, look for those with wider and longer bills to determine how far your crankbait will dive.
Rock
Many anglers opt to crank rock as one of their first options when going to a new lake. Most dams or rip-rap in a lake will hold groups of fish that can be caught casting a shallow-running crankbait and bouncing it off of the rocks.
This is an especially useful tactic in the wintertime. Crawfish will set up on these rocks in the wintertime which draws bass to those areas. Rocks also hold heat better so when the water temperatures plummet, fish will congregate on any rocky areas of the specific body of water.
A great bait to target these fish with is a crawfish patterned, medium-diving crankbait such as the Storm Wiggle Wart. Professional angler Brandon Paliniuk outlines how he uses a Wiggle Wart in the video below.
Also Noted: Schooling Fish
The reason I put schooling fish as an “also noted” item is because schooling fish is not necessarily an area where you can fish your crankbait. That being said, when you do find fish schooled up chasing shad or herring, a crankbait is a great choice to throw at them.
Once the school has stopped busting up the surface of the water, you may think the fish have left. Most of the time, the fish will hang around waiting for the next opportune time to feed on shad. This is a great time to bust out a deeper-diving plug to reach the fish. Great numbers of fish have been caught catching schooled up fish on a crankbait after they have stopped visibly chasing bait fish on the surface.
Conclusion
Crankbaits can be fished in a variety of different situations and you can almost always find fish to be caught on crankbaits anywhere in the country.
I hope this article helped you to have a better understanding of where to use specific crankbaits and what situations warrant specific cranking techniques.
Tight lines!
