crankbait verus lipless cranbait?

[Muad Dib]

okay i fish only soft plastics and i never caught a fish on a spinner bait crankbait or liplesscrank. so my ? is what is the big difference between the lipless crank and the one with a lip and in what situations would u use one verus the other. just ordered the bps sexy shad kit and wondering what situations to use what. thanks for the help fellas

t

[Steven Ladner]

Both were made to resemble baitfish. You use a crankbait with a bill in areas with a lot of grass and wood, using a lipless will get you hung up. Cranks with a bill are good for woody areas because they deflect off of it and resemble an injured baitfish. Lipless cranks are great for open water situations such as fishing flats. Hope this helps.

[Marty]

Lipless are often recommended for fishing over grass, letting the bait catch the grass and ripping it free. However, there aren't always hard and fast rules on when to use what.

One hard and fast rule that I'd suggest is to use these baits until you're comfortable with them because they're too good to not have in your arsenal.

I'd suggest the same for spinnerbaits.  

[U.W BronzeBack Hunter]

Generally in my gamebook:

Spinnerbaits: Heavier cover (brush piles, weeds, etc)

Crankbaits: Lighter cover

Lipless: Light to no cover (atop weedlines, etc)

For flats, i generally use shallow crankbaits or jerkbaits (or wake a spinnerbait)

[zbass]

I would also recommend using the lipless in more open water. When I throw a lipless on flats and such where there is grass, it will always be on braid. i let the bait get in the grass and rip it out. Mono or flouro have too much stretch for that. Other times I burn it back to the boat over the grass. Sometimes you can't crank it fast enough.

On the crankbaits with lips, there is usually a depth rating om the package. 9 times out of 10 it's not correct. You can usually deduct 10 to 15% off that number. Say it says 8-10 feet, I figure 6-8 feet. All of that is relative to the size of line you throw it on. The larger the line the less depth you achieve.

As far as the bills, a square bill is a fairly shallow bait and deflects off rock and wood very well. The baits that have a bill that is almost at a 90 deg angle from the lure is a very shallow bait. The ones that the bill runs parallel with the bait is a deeper diver.

These are great fish catchers and you should have fun with them. There is a ton of info you can read on crankin'. Experiment and find what works for you. Hope that helps.

[KYntucky Warmouth]

That kit is a whole lot of sexy shad

[BassFishingMachine]

Lipless cranks kill in March, and in the earliest of spring. I find them to really get a good reaction strike. Definetly one of my go-to baits in the early spring, right next to a hard jerkbait.

[flippin]

lipless are good cold front baits also

[Chris]

Think of a spinnerbait as a weedless crankbait and throw it in stained to muddy water close to laydows and weed edges or flats and give it time and you will catch on. With a trap style bait I tend to use it most on grass flats, weed edges, up against bridge walls, any edge I can find. Crankbaits on the other hand I tend to throw either in a zone of depth or around hard cover. That is not to say that they will not work around weeds because they do but I find that wood cranks work better for weeds because the way they float up and backwards when they get stuck. Hard cover the lip on the crankbait acts as a guard and deflects the bait from the hooks hanging up. Single objects like a lone stump a coffin bill works best for general shallow water a square bill works best. A rounded shallow bill does deflect the bait away from the cover but because of the lack of kick out points the bait will travel close to the object when it strikes it and moves around it. This also means that with a round bill the bait will end up on the front side of the object faster because it didn't kick out away from the object as far. So if a bass sets up at the base of the stump you about hit it on the head. The longer the bill the more depth the lure will dive given that the lure has enough running room to reach its max depth. A crankbait is a heck of a bait and my opinion it is one of the best lures in your box to catch fish year round and under most conditions. Tinker with them and figure out what personality each bait has it is worth it. Good Luck

[senko_77]

T-rage, listen to what Chris has to say.  The dude is a machine when it comes to catching them with a crank and other reaction type baits.

Nice to see you around here again Chris.  You been staying busy?

[aceman387]

thanks for asking that question t rage ive learned alot from these replys myself .

[Muad Dib]

thanks fellas ive always had a thing for those soft worms or jerks. that didnt sound right hahaha . thanks for the help in trying to expand my game one step at a time. hope this helped everyone else who is curious.

one last question. i know that u guys said to rip the lipless crank through the grass but does the grass that gets tangled on the bait affect it at all u think . or just drives the fish crazy?  

t-

[Chris]

What you want to do is tick the top of the grass and when it feels like you have weeds on it rip the rod to clean the weeds off of it. What your doing is changing the speed of the lure by ripping it and you get a reaction strike. You can also yo yo the bait which also works well. The idea with any crank style bait is to make the lure look and act alive by changing the speed, or direction. most baitfish do not swim from point (A) to point ( at the same speed or at a direct line. The faster you can get a rattletrap style bait to move the more it tends to search a little which looks like a real shad or shinner. It is like a minnow swimming in a current it looks like it is struggling to stay in one spot because of the current. With a crankbait when you hit an object your doing the same thing you are speeding the lure and changing directions. That it why a lot of people dig the lure on the bottom it does the samething.