Need Help With Square Bill Crankbaits

[ndejohn27]

I usually prefer to use soft plastics or topwaters but I have a lot of square bill crankbaits that I never use because I really don't know when or how to properly use them.

[Bruce424]

Throw it around cover to get bit and confidence. I don't care who says what, that is how to learn a lure like a squarebill is just to throw it and throw it and then throw it again. I throw squarebills when i know the bass are around cover (which is about all the time). Alot of strikes happen when the squarebell hits the piece of cover. logs in the water are what I like to throw to. There are also brush piles. rocky banks. Somtimes when cover is scarce I just cast the crank parallel to the bank about 5 ft away from the bank reel as fast as I can then stop it for a sec then reel fast again.

 

 

[RyanFishing]

I love throwing them around rocks because that gets them to deflect the hardest and that's when I get the strikes. I also throw them a lot around wood and that can work amazing as well.

[SWVABass]

A square bill is my favorite type of crankbait, just like everyone has said throw them around cover and get them to bounce off of it and what I like to do after is after it hits the cover quit reeling and keep it there for just a few seconds and start your retrieve again. I have caught a lot of fish by doing that.

[Frenchman83]

I love throwing them around rocks because that gets them to deflect the hardest and that's when I get the strikes. I also throw them a lot around wood and that can work amazing as well.

X2

[smalljaw67]

My favorite crankbait happens to be the square bill too and you have to use it to get confidence. The baits are designed to fish fast, with todays high speed reels the bait is now easier to use than ever which is why it is so popular. The square bill is the spinnerbait of cranks, you send it to areas of cover and bring it through fast and the bait deflecting off of cover is what will cause the strike 90% of the time. Tie one of your baits on and throw it, but do so when conditions are right, basically the same type of conditions that make a spinnerbait good, and that is a light breeze or some wind to great a ripple on the surface of the water, overcast skies, and low light situations. Once you get bit the light will go off and you'll understand it, I remember the moment I understood the bait, it was in the late 80s and I was using a Bagley Balsa B2 that I got as a present from a friend I met in trade school years earlier. I really did not understand the way the bait was supposed to be fished, I just knew you made a cast and reeled it in, and on one cast I got it, I ended up hitting my friend's line on the back cast and it screwed me up, the bait only went 20 feet but I got a backlash. I got the backlash out after about 10 minutes of messing with it but there was a light breeze blowing and my bait drifted another 20 feet. So I carefully reeled up the slack until I got to the bait and I began reeling fast to get the bait back to make a good cast, well as I was reeling it, the bait bounced off of a rock and it was a split second later that a 14" smallmouth smacked it, that is when I got the "AH-HA" moment, after that I was making casts around stumps and deadfalls and areas of chunk rock and out of the 9 fish I caught on it that day, 7 bit right after I banged it into a rock, and 1 was when I ripped it off of a limb from a deadfall and the other happened ripping it off of some eel grass. Think of it as the 4 wheel drive of crankbaits and if you don't think about getting hung up, you'll be surprised at how well they come through cover.

[a1712]

I always hear people gripe about the bills breaking and being fragile. I feel if you're not breaking bills every once in a while, you ain't fishing it correctly. Love grinding bills off on Rip Rap, really makes them hunt bouncing rock to rock. Brian.

[Turkey sandwich]

Hard cover. Let it bounce and deflect off cover/changes in structure. You can really rip them in (with a bit of common sense), but part of what makes them killer is the pause after contacting something hard. They're surprisingly snag resistant, but if you're fishing windfall, brush, etc you're still going to have them wrap the occasional branch and hang up. The better you learn to feel them, the less often this will happen, but it's kinda part of the game. A lure retriever isn't a bad purchase to make.

[Cgolf]

This spring I had excellent luck tossing the New echo over a flat that varied from 2-5 feet. Nothing to bounce it off, but the fish sure jumped on it. Great search bait. Also fish them in sparse reeds that have lanes to retrieve through, bass really jump on this presentation, because they don't see many cranks in that cover.

[junyer357]

X2

X3

when i was learning how to use cranks on riprap the rule was and still is "if you aint getting hung up, you aint where the fish are either"

[Sea NaCl]

I like to throw it over submerged cover. Whenever I feel the lure hit the tree or rock I pause it for 3 seconds then keep reeling. It gets bit on the pause nearly every time!