Never caught anything on a crankbait :( anyone else ?

[Ksam1234]

I know most people who fish have fished using crankbaits be that a squarebill, deep diving, shallow diving, wake bait or medium diving. I have fished all bill types. Silent or rattles and I have never caught anything on a crankbait .. lipless baits have worked and jerkbaits a plenty but that’s it. The lakes I fish don’t have docks or hard bottom. They have lots of grass and weeds of all kinds so crankbaits aren’t to good in them .. still in early Prespawn with no weeds the bass just don’t eat cranks! Anyone else deal with this? Would be fun to have a crankbait bite

[Sam]

Keep trying.

 

Throw parallel to the bank or to and from the bank if you are in a boat.

 

Try to stay above the grass and be sure to fish any changes in rocks, grass, open areas, wood, and anything in the water that could hold bass. Clean any gunk or grass off crankbait before throwing it again.

 

Sooner or later you will hook one and have a good fight.

[Ksam1234]

9 minutes ago, Sam said:

Keep trying.

 

Throw parallel to the bank or to and from the bank if you are in a boat.

 

Try to stay above the grass and be sure to fish any changes in rocks, grass, open areas, wood, and anything in the water that could hold bass. Clean any gunk or grass off crankbait before throwing it again.

 

Sooner or later you will hook one and have a good fight.

I fish from my canoe , have thrown parallel. I have squarebills 1.5 and 2.5 size. From multiple companies. Deeep divers and medium. I try ripping it from grass. Staying above grass. I they just never eat it! But I can throw a swimjig , spinnerbaits , chatter bait or pretty much anything else and they eat it.. crankbaits nope!

[Harold Scoggins]

Great video with this article.

https://www.bassresource.com/fish/crankbaits.html

[Ksam1234]

Just now, Harold Scoggins said:

Great video with this article.

https://www.bassresource.com/fish/crankbaits.html

I saw this and tried it.  I think my lake just doesn’t like crankbaits lol. I can catch them and find them.  They just don’t eat the crank ! Silly fish 

[Harold Scoggins]

17 minutes ago, Ksam1234 said:

I saw this and tried it.  I think my lake just doesn’t like crankbaits lol. I can catch them and find them.  They just don’t eat the crank ! Silly fish 

Maybe they've grown wise to the more popular cranks being thrown today. You could try switching it up with some "old school" cranks like shad raps, risto raps, or fat raps. You may change your luck throwing cranks that many find a hard time dropping the coin on like Megabass's S Crank or the Z Crank models. Are you throwing straight rattle cranks, silent, or both. Don't give up on your cranks, you'll figure out the code.

[Ksam1234]

7 minutes ago, Harold Scoggins said:

Maybe they've grown wise to the more popular cranks being thrown today. You could try switching it up with some "old school" cranks like shad raps, risto raps, or fat raps. You may change your luck throwing cranks that many find a hard time dropping the coin on like Megabass's S Crank or the Z Crank models. Are you throwing straight rattle cranks, silent, or both. Don't give up on your cranks, you'll figure out the code.

I have silent and rattle.  I have some from strike king , 6th sense , norman , berkley and live target. Oh I have one wiggle wart and some rapala fat DT

[WRB]

Does your lake have a dam? If so is it a dirt or rock dam?

The reason I ask is all man made lakes have a dam, only natural lakes don't.

The dam and the area where it's biult should be the deepest water with the steepest bank. Crawdads live in around the dame area, crankbaits work better in that type of structure as a rule, cleaner water with less aquatic plant growth.

If you can catch bass on a spinnerbait or chatterbait, they will strike a crankbait.

Tom

[haggard]

Yep. I've never caught anything on a frog, rat, spook, popper, squarebill, spoon, spinner or skirted jig.

 

Which is why I fish mostly soft plastics.

 

Which is why I never catch anything on a frog, rat, spook, popper, squarebill, spoon, spinner or skirted jig.

 

[Ksam1234]

4 minutes ago, WRB said:

Does your lake have a dam? If so is it a dirt or rock dam?

The reason I ask is all man made lakes have a dam, only natural lakes don't.

The dam and the area where it's biult should be the deepest water with the steepest bank. Crawdads live in around the dame area, crankbaits work better in that type of structure as a rule, cleaner water with less aquatic plant growth.

If you can catch bass on a spinnerbait or chatterbait, they will strike a crankbait.

Tom

Yes there is a dam in 2 out of 3 of the places I fish. the main one is actuslly a lake made for a watershed project to protect farms from flooding. It is where I have caught my PB as it is stocked yearly with trout and has plenty of other fish. But the shallower area is full of weeds and is clear water about 5 ft. The dam has dirtier water but generally clear  and around 12-15 ft deep. I have never caught anything by the dam but a friend of mine said a couple years ago he caught an 8 pounder in the spring fishing off the dam oh and it’s concrete 

2 minutes ago, haggard said:

Yep. I've never caught anything on a frog, rat, spook, popper, squarebill, spoon, spinner or skirted jig.

 

Which is why I fish mostly soft plastics.

 

Which is why I never catch anything on a frog, rat, spook, popper, squarebill, spoon, spinner or skirted jig.

 

Lol I have tried fishing crankbaits lots of times and just never end up with anything and go back to the usual power fishing tactics 

[Deleted account]

No, a crank was one of the first lures I caught a bass on as a kid. But there is a place and time for different lures, and in some places lures with trebles aren't always a good choice. I would say if you want to fish with and get better with cranks (or any other lure) fish it when/where it is most productive. The worst thing one can do is try to force something that isn't working or isn't the right tool.

[MickD]

Next time you go fishing don't take anything with you except cranks.  Be sure to have a Rapala DT of appropriate depth rating.  Force yourself to use only cranks and I expect you will find a way to catch fish on them.  On my last SMB outing I caught fish only on cranks, although I tried a lot of other stuff.

 

You have to know that if millions of fishermen catch fish on cranks, you can too.

[WRB]

I would target the dams at low periods with crawdad color diving crankbaits,high % for bass hunting craws. If the lakes don't have Shad or other school type baitfish then craw colors should work.

If trout are planted, a swimbait in trout colors should also work in the areas with brighter sunlight.

Lipless cranks is your better choice along weed edges, as bill types tend foul too easily and difficult to snap the weeds off.

Tom

 

 

[Ksam1234]

1 minute ago, WRB said:

I would target the dams at low periods with crawdad color diving crankbaits,high % for bass hunting craws. If the lakes don't have Shad or other school type baitfish then craw colors should work.

If trout are planted, a swimbait in trout colors should also work in the areas with brighter sunlight.

Lipless cranks is your better choice along weed edges, as bill types tend foul too easily and difficult to snap the weeds off.

Tom

 

 

Thanks I’ll have to try that. And no shad are present , trout and bluegill/pumpkinseed are the main forage 

[WRB]

13 minutes ago, Ksam1234 said:

Thanks I’ll have to try that. And no shad are present , trout and bluegill/pumpkinseed are the main forage 

Forget bluegill and pumpkin seeds as prey outside the cover, they rarely leave it until the cover dies off in the winter. Focus and crawdads imatators which means the cranks need to be very close to the bottom or structure.

Tom

[Ksam1234]

1 minute ago, WRB said:

Forget bluegill and pumpkin seeds as prey outside the cover, they rarely leave it until the cover dies off in the winter. Focus and crawdads imatators which means the cranks need to be very close to the bottom or structure.

Tom

Thank you I never knew that. I would always throw crankbaits to imitate bluegill and such and try not to hit bottom.  I’ll focus on craw imitations and see how that goes. 

[bigbassin']

53 minutes ago, Ksam1234 said:

Thank you I never knew that. I would always throw crankbaits to imitate bluegill and such and try not to hit bottom.  I’ll focus on craw imitations and see how that goes. 

If you're trying to not hit the bottom that might be part of your problem.  In my experience, which seems to be backed by most of what I've read and watched, crankbaits work the best bumping off any hard cover or gravel bottom you can find.

[Ksam1234]

1 minute ago, bigbassin' said:

If you're trying to not hit the bottom that might be part of your problem.  In my experience, which seems to be backed by most of what I've read and watched, crankbaits work the best bumping off any hard cover or gravel bottom you can find.

I try to in the spring but once summer

comes all my lakes are covered in weeds unless it’s like 40 ft deep.. I fish smaller lakes bc I only have a canoe. I have never bumped bottom in the smaller lakes I fish like Tom mentioned so I’m going to try that 

[Sifuedition]

One of the most productive actions of a crankbait is what they call "seeking" behavior. Each crankbait "wiggles" in a specific frequency. A quality not all crankbaits share, however, is some will "seek" which is the term for when they randomly path back and forth. For an example of this notice the old-style wiggle wart (from before Rapala bought out the pattern) in this video. The idea with bumping a crankbait on the bottom or off of structure is to cause some of this random pathing.

 

Also, stopping and starting randomly has triggered the most strikes, in my experience. I try to have the most random, erratic behavior I can create.

 

Viewing my post today, it looks like my link to a youtube was removed....

[OCdockskipper]

3 hours ago, WRB said:

The reason I ask is all man made lakes have a dam, only natural lakes don't...

Being a resident of Southern California, I thought you would know that isn't true.  Most of the private "development lakes", those small man made lakes with homes completely around them, built to enhance the value of the homes when they were initially built, have no dam.  They are more like a swimming pool than a lake, with an inlet consisting of a pipe and an outlet that goes into the storm drains.

 

Small crankbaits often work well in these lakes, either squarebills along the retaining walls or deep divers in the few offshore spots.

[WRB]

West lake has a dam, man made with homes all around the parimeter and every other similar lake has dam, if your lake doesn't it's uncommon construction as severe rain could over flow the residents. Not saying there are bowl carved out and made like a natural lake, just few and far between.

The op says no or few docks, didn't mention retaining walls and dought if any exist or any outside rock piles that would attract bass.

Tom

[Bluebasser86]

While I've caught lots of fish on cranks, and can if the need arises, I don't enjoy fishing them. 

[Ratherbfishing]

21 hours ago, Ksam1234 said:

I know most people who fish have fished using crankbaits be that a squarebill, deep diving, shallow diving, wake bait or medium diving. I have fished all bill types. Silent or rattles and I have never caught anything on a crankbait .. lipless baits have worked and jerkbaits a plenty but that’s it. The lakes I fish don’t have docks or hard bottom. They have lots of grass and weeds of all kinds so crankbaits aren’t to good in them .. still in early Prespawn with no weeds the bass just don’t eat cranks! Anyone else deal with this? Would be fun to have a crankbait bite

Am splitting hairs here but take solace in knowing that lipless baits and hard jerkbaits are merely subsets of crankbaits.  So you HAVE caught fish on crankbaits.  But if you insist on distinguishing them differently, if you keep at it, you'll eventually connect.  Try trolling one sometime.  They cover a lot of water and (medium and deep divers) are great for suspended fish.

[Bankbeater]

Crankbait fishing has been very slow around here this year.  I usually catch between 1/2 and 1/3 of my bass each season on crankbaits, but this year I don't think I have caught 10 bass fishing with them.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Bankbeater
I need to learn to spell

[YoTone]

Same here. Maybe it because i dont have a depth finder so i dont know how deep of water im in so im not sure on which crank bait to choose from.