Breaking Down Cranks

[Robert Riley]

Looking from a tackle perspective, how do you break down cranks?

 

 

I mean of course you have rattles, colors and flat/round. But it seems to me to be mostly about diving depth. 

 

 

[HoosierHawgs]

All of those listed above are important classification. Base your selection on current conditions. Hot summer day? Deep diver w/ a wide wobble (round sided) and lots of sound will pull fish out of the depths. Blue bird fall day? Silent squarebill in natural colors is your best bet! Murky water conditions? A large 5/8 oz squarebill in a bright purple bluegill hue w/a big rattle will present a large assuming profile for bass to hone in on. And lastly, I think to winter, where a deep running, silent bait w/a tight wiggle (flat sided) will end winter lockjaw. This is also a great option as a springtime bait if you add a suspend strip to it, and give it long pauses.

[papajoe222]

I break down my cranks by depth first. Wake baits, shallow and deep runners, lastly, lipless.  Each catagory has it's own box and in each box I separate square bills, coffin bills, body shape, etc.  I have similar boxes for 'silent' cranks (no rattles), although there isn't as much variety in styles and shapes.  Colors aren't considered in my system, as far as having different boxes for different colors as the majority of my baits are either shad or crawfish variations.

If you're inquiring about what style, depth or color to use in a given situation you can do a search and find almost endless examples and personal preferences from this site alone.

[WRB]

I break down crankbaits into 2 categories; with diving bills and without. With diving bills you have various diving depths and sizes, without you have lipless lures in various sizes.

You can fish a lipless crankbait at nearly any depth, so size and color becomes choices. With lipless my choice comes down to size of the bait, color similar to the baitfish.

Diving cranks baits with bills comes down to what depth, speed and wobble will work to get strikes. Where I fish Threadfin shad and crawdad colors work, white or bone white, combinations of chartreuse and silver, gold, blue, green and purple are good for shad and black, brown and red are good for crawdads with crankbaits.

Not all crankbait are created equal from the same mfr/model. When try out a crankbait keep only the lures that catch bass and sell those that don't.

Tom

[J Francho]

Mine are organized by what rod I throw them with. Then the typical groups above are used to organize. Some rods may have three boxes of baits that go with it. There's also some crossover.

[Choporoz]

Usually 4 boxes:

Shallow/Wake

Mid and jerks

Deep

Lipless

 

I reorg all too often and sometimes I'll put all 'longer' baits in one box....and/or all squarebills in one box.

Depends on what waters I plan to fish and what mood I'm in and to some extent, how lazy I am that evening

[Robert Riley]

Mine are organized by what rod I throw them with. Then the typical groups above are used to organize. Some rods may have three boxes of baits that go with it. There's also some crossover.

How many rods do you use? I tend to throw shallow on a MH/F and deep with... Well nothing yet haha.

[J Francho]

Six or seven.

[Comfortably Numb]

Jerkbait

wake

one minus

shallow (2-4)

medium (5-10)

deep (11+)

lipless/countdown

[Bass_Fanatic]

I have the following boxes.

1.5's

2.5's

Wake baits

Jerk baits

Traps

4-8 ft divers

8-12 ft divers

12-16 ft divers

16+ ft divers

10xds and lucky craft magnums

[roadwarrior]

Not all crankbait are created equal from the same mfr/model. When trying out a crankbait keep only the lures that catch bass and sell those that don't.

 

 

Professional advice!

[ww2farmer]

.

Not all crankbait are created equal from the same mfr/model. When try out a crankbait keep only the lures that catch bass and sell those that don't.

 

 I see this non-sense written in many places. Either I am a wizard or it's total BS. Because I have NEVER.......and I mean NOT ONCE (unless I broke it off on a snag or something)Taken a crankbait out of a package and had it NOT catch fish, and I own a ton of baits.For example...........I am catching fish on a brand new KVD 1.5 all day until Mr. Pike decided he wants it for his collection, and it;s gone...............OH NO!! What to do?!?!? All the so called BR "experts"l say I just lost a rare gem of a bait that in my lifetime will never be able to found again............oh wait, I'll just tie another one and keep on keeping on.....give me a break with this crap. Maybe in olden times this was true, but that's not been my exp. with modern baits. To me this is just another example of fisherman thinking too much, and making lure selection out to be something it's not,and quite possibly making themselves out to be something they are not.

[Catt]

Professional advice!

Yes Sir!

I can not open this Tackle Forum without noticing Rare Insight into Crank Bait Fishing...Lot of knowledge right there!

[primetime]

I seperate mine by what they do and when will I use them, and I only bring the ones that will fit for that day....

 

Crankbaits are complex, I would say this...It is important to understand why a lure costs $15, and one costs $5 yet look the same...The more expensive lure may not be any better, or it may perform a function that is not helpful to how you fish....buy a flat crank, square bill, balsa, suspending, mid range, deep diver, lipless, silent, suspending lipless, nose down, and then figure out which ones are high pitch, low, mid, one knocker, and how they cycle or fall, some of the best lipless crankbaits fall like a rock, hellicopter and get tangled if you try to yo-yo them or use a stop and go retreive, but the lures that do that are often the best lures to rip through grass and have a nose down action that is killer...If I had to pick just one lipless crankbait that can do it all, I would say Red Eye Shad can do it all, yo=zuri vibe is a close second, but don't assume you get what you pay for....I hate that phrase, some times you do, sometimes you get alot less value than you pay for....

 

I have fished some expensive lures that had the exact same action as a less expensive model and actually was inferior in quality. I like to order from Tackle warehouse and look at reviews, and best selling, plus they match pricing and have best selection, they break it down for you as well so you can pick from each section, pricing is good and by far the best one stop shop for bass fishing.

[Sam]

Depth and color.

 

Remember the scene in Forest Gump where Bubba lists everyway you can prepare shrimp?

 

Same for crankbaits.

[Master Bait'r]

I separate by depth. I try to keep my box as simple as possible so I am constantly dialing in and getting rid of stuff that didn't work so well.

These are the trays though:

Wakebaits/poppers/surface baits

1-4ft

5-10ft

11-20ft+

There are a lot of in-between depths and within those separations there's rattling and silent and different profiles etc. but that's the basic breakdown that keeps it easy to wade through for me. By breaking it down to 4 basic ranges I can simplify the basics. Depth and then noise, wobble and color get dialed for the conditions.

[WRB]

Wake baits are wake baits, jerk baits are jerk baits, rip baits are rip baits, crank baits are crank cranks, they are different lures.

Tom

[Senko lover]

I just have a few in different depths. I have multiple squares and cranks because I have a lot of confidence in them.