Hey Glenn stick this post into the articles section if you like.

[Chris]

Crankbait Mechanics

By Chris Sink

Equipment:

Reel- I tend to use a reel that has a high gear ratio most of the time. I choose a high gear ratio because I feel that I have an advantage when catching up to a fish during the fight and I waste less time when I make a bad cast or I am fishing dead water and want to cover water. I feel that with a high gear ratio it is always easier to slow down then to take a low gear ratio and try to speed up. It is mostly personal preference just how I fish and what I feel comfortable with. One of the techniques that I use often to illustrate this is what is called speed reeling. What your doing is making a cast and burning the lure back to the boat to cause a reaction strike. This works well with balsa crank baits because of the random movement that a special crank bait will make. If I was to use a slow gear ratio reel it would not give the lure the same action or the effect that I was intending and the result is that I would not catch as many fish. With deep running crank baits I tend to use a lower gear ratio because I want a reel that can handle the larger lure. I also feel that with a lower gear ratio reel it forces me to slow down to get the max depth of a crank bait. Max depth is the maximum depth a lure will reach on a given casting distance. Most of the time I am fishing low gear ratio reels when I am fishing deep and most deep running lures have more of a pull or resistance and the winching power of the lower gear ratio is just the ticket. If you use a high gear ratio with deep crank baits you tend take up line faster and will not give the lure enough time to dig. This will change the point where the lure reaches a target or if it hit's a target depth at all. The slower diving speed makes the lure lip bite the water column and the lure dives to the greatest depth. In other words the faster the lure is moving the more depth you loose and will not achieve. I prefer reels that don't have a ton of bearings in them for cranking or spinner bait fishing. I believe it gives me more feel and better vibration transfer from the spool to my hand when cranking. I also prefer hard plastic handle grips as opposed to soft pad handle grips on reels because I feel that it dulls the vibration into my hand from a crank bait.

Rod- When I am fishing close to the bank I tend to use a 6'6" fiberglass rod. I choose this rod over a graphite because I feel that it helps with the impact of a bass strike. When I am fishing close to shore in shallow water I have less distance between me and the fish and if the fish makes a mad dash the rod can handle it without jerking the bait hooks out. This style rod also slows my reaction time and I feel that it gives the fish that half second to engulf the lure enables a better hook up. I also feel that I have more accuracy with this size rod over a longer rod. I was fishing a patch of flooded stumps one time with a balsa crank bait fishing with the boat at a 90 to the shore. Most of the casts where a short roll cast to targets or beyond the target to bump the stump. I was using 14lb line with a fiberglass rod which was perfect for this application. About a 4 pound bass smashed the bait and made a bee line under the boat. If I would have been using a graphite rod of a longer rod I might have lost that key fish.  A Glass rod will absorb that  pressure from the fish and prevent the hooks from tearing out. Another time I was fishing a night tournament and the fish I had located where on a flooded island filled with standing timber. I picked up my 7ft rod and began fishing with it because it had the right lure tied on. I made one pass around that island and didn't even have a strike. After a little sole searching I realized that the problem was the rod length. Because of the longer length I was unable to make pinpoint casts to targets and could not put the bait where I needed it to cause the fish to react to it. I made a minor adjustment and fished the island again and loaded the boat. When I am making long distance casts with crank baits I tend to favor graphite rods and in cold water situations. For long casting I prefer a 7' or better rod because it gives me longer casts and more take up on the hook set. I choose graphite because I have better vibration transfer for longer distances. Keep in mind that the higher the graphite content the more sensitive the rod will be. I was fishing a large deep flat that dumped off in a channel in mid December. I marked fish right on the edge and was throwing a deep diver running it off the edge into the channel. Because of the cold temperature and the cold water the strike felt like just pressure on the lure. If you where unable to feel that slight difference you would miss the strike and not catch fish. If I had been using a fiberglass rod in this situation there would have been no way that I would have caught those fish because I wouldn't have felt the strike. When choosing a rod I like to mount the reel to the rod and string it up. I next look at the angle the line is from the reel to the first guide and through the rest of the guides. What I want is a straight line without angles this insures that the line will have less resistance through the guides which means longer casts. I next bow the rod holding the handle of the rod and the tag fishing line strung through the guides. What I want is a nice backbone to the rod with a nice transition to a flexible tip. The mid section will help with fighting a fish and the tip will help with longer casts. If the tip is to flexible like a wet noodle the tip will load to fast and will not give the lure enough spring for longer casts. I also want to make sure that when the rod is under a load that the guides keep the line off the blank of the rod. By keeping the line off the blank you will get longer casts and will help prevent some wear on your line because of less friction. I next take the tip of the rod and put it up to the ceiling and lightly scratch the ceiling. I want to make sure that I can feel the scratching vibrations transferred to the hand. Some manufacturers put to much flex coat on the guides and it will deaden the feel of the rod. If the rod makes it hard to feel the vibrations or can't transfer the vibrations to the handle you are going to miss fish. Also keep in mind that the more guides on a rod the more accurate the rod will be on casts. The main thing is to choose a reel that fit's the rod that fits your style fishing.

Fishing Line- For most of my deep water fishing I tend to use 10 lb line and if I need a little more depth I might drop down to 8 lb test. For shallow water I use 10 lb line unless the cover is bad then I might use 12 lb or even up to 14 lb or 20 lb line in some cases. Understand that line diameter effects the running depth a lure will dive and under different conditions you can manipulate the running depth by changing the size line. Most lures when they come from the manufacture are given a depth that is printed on the package this is based on 10lb line. The larger the line the more it kills the vibration and action on some lures. I choose mono in most applications the exception would be for deep cranking or cold water where I choose fluorocarbon line or if I need a foot or two more depth in shallower applications it also resists abrasion better. Fluorocarbon line has less stretch than mono and sinks instead of floats which mono does. With each style line because of the properties of the line can help manipulate the depth of the lure I am using and can help me refine the depth I need the lure to reach. I am not a fan of using braid for crank baits the exception would be for lipless crank baits on weed flats. I have a tendency to use a bow and arrow technique to retrieve lures stuck in cover. I use the stretch of mono to load the rod by pulling the line from between the reel and the first guide. When you load the rod and let go the line it helps dislodge the lure from the cover. If I use the same technique with braid because it has zero stretch the hooks just dig deeper. If your dealing with hard cover and your not in a boat and can't get to the lure it's a lost lure. Lures hung up in trees because of  tactical mistakes or senior moments just hang there like Christmas tree ornaments. Mono helps get some of those lures back more so than braid.

Crank bait Hardware- The hooks you choose for a crank bait can help you make the most of a bait by enabling you to get through some nasty cover that otherwise would cause you to donate the lure to the fishing gods or can turn misses into fish in the boat. Most fishermen just make sure that they have a sharp quality hook but few take the time to understand what each style hook can do for you or how to maximize a bait just by the hardware you select for the bait. I will break it down into hook styles kahle style treble, round bend treble, short shank treble, and rotating treble. A round bend hook will catch more fish for you because it will still stick a fish even if it swipes at the bait. A triple grip hook tends to be a better hook if the fish is taking the bait good because once impaled by the hook the bend of the hook helps prevent the hook from being thrown. This hook is also great in cover. A rotating hook tends to be hard for a bass to throw because it gets impaled at and angle it is also great in cover. Short shank hooks help in snags by not extending past the body or lip of the bait because of this the lip and body of the crank bait help shield it from snags. Changing the gap on your treble hooks will also hang more fish. The larger gap will put a better bite on the fish and will help prevent loosing larger fish. I sometimes mix it up by putting a kahle style hook on the front hanger to help with snags and a round bend on the back. I also change the front hooks sometimes to a short shank it just depends on how bad I am hanging up to which I choose. I also sometimes increase the size of the back hook on crank baits if I need more weight to cast a light bait. How thick the wire of the treble hook is can also effect the weight of a crank bait by causing it to suspend more or change the action and signature of the crank bait. Split rings for example are the least talked about item on a crank bait but can be important. I choose oval split rings for most of my crank baits on the hooks and line tie. I choose this style because it lets the hooks free swing more. The longer oval shape gives the hook a pivot point that helps it impale a fish better. The hook is also less likely to hang on the split part so it will always be in position for a strike. This style because of where the split is positioned is least likely to have the wire hook hanger begin to thread itself up the split ring. When you use a oval ring on the line tie your knot will always be centered with an oval ring and your ring will always be center to the wire line tie hanger. Suspend dots is another tool I use to get the most out of a crank bait. Depending on where you place them and how much weight you add can change the diving angle of the lures decent, max depth, or the signature pattern of the lure. I was using a DT crank bait one time fishing and underwater hump. I fished the hump trying to attack it at different angles and on one pass noticed on the graph that the hump had a finger that extended out on one side. With the lure that I was using I could never reach it. I added some tungsten sticky putty (weight) under the lip and with this small adjustment changed the diving angle of the lure and was able to hit the finger. This observation and adjustment to the diving pitch resulted in a nice 3 lb bass. When the weight is placed under the bill of the lure it changes the pitch of the lure causing the lure to sit nose down. When you reel the lure it digs faster causing it to dive to its max depth faster. When you add weight to cause the bait to suspend the weight causes the bait to diver deeper than a lure that doesn't suspend so you can get an extra foot in depth. By adding weight to the tail section of a crank bait it changes the side to side action of the bait and gives the bait a different signature or a different vibration in the water.

Shape Of The Lip- When choosing which crank bait to use at a given situation the shape of the lip can make a difference on what works best. Deflective qualities is one things I look for. If the bill has a corner on it like a square bill or is rounded helps me determine where I will fish it. One day when your bored try this. Take a round billed crank bait and throw it past a flooded tree. You will notice the bait will deflect around the tree but when it does the pattern of deflection caused by a round bill will make the bait to run close to the trunk. Now take a square bill and try it again. You will notice that the square bill will cause the bait to kick out away from the trunk once it is deflected off of it. Next try it with a coffin billed bait. You will notice that the bait will kick out away from the trunk at a greater distance than the square bill. The wider the lip the more it acts like a weed guard. A square bill tends to work best in heavy cover because it only has one kick out point. A round bill tend to strike the target and move around it real close to it and is also a good choice for cover. A coffin bill will strike the target and kick way out away from the target which isn't good in heavy cover because it will shoot itself into another branch. This style lip works best when fishing around a lone object like a stump. A bill with a semi round front and squared off sides is a happy medium to the round bill and square. Action is another quality I look for in picking the right bait for the job. If you look at a crank bait notice where the line tie is. If its away from the bait the lure will have a wider wobble. The closer the line tie is to the bait the tighter the wiggle. Shape of the bill also determines the wiggle of your lure. A wide bill will have more side to side wiggle than a slimmer bill.  The degree that the bill is positioned on the bait determines how fast the bait will dive. example: a fat free shad has a bill that jets straight out from the nose of the bait. This causes the bait to have a steep dive. 

Shape Of The Body- The shape of the body of the lure should be another factor to consider when choosing the right crank bait for the job. A fat bait has more of a rolling action and a flat bait has a tight action. A fat bait works well in stained to muddy water and a flat bait is great for clear or cold water. A fat bait displaces more water that a flat bait. A flat to semi flat crank bait has more flash than an fat body crank bait. The flat side acts like a mirror and reflects light better. Round body crank baits help fend off snags and shield the hooks better than thin lures.

Rattles- Something that a lot of people don't mention is rattles. For me I like a crank bait that has a single deep tone rattle or no rattles. I am not a fan of crank baits that have a ton of rattles in them. High pitch rattles give out sound waves that travel short distances and low pitch rattles give off sound waves that travel greater distances. I feel with a low pitch rattle I am presenting a sound vibration of a larger baitfish and better meal. Sound from rattles kind of spreads out and doesn't give much of a direction just an area of noise but vibration gives more of a pinpoint direction. Baits with tons of rattles in them call bass from an area and in clear water to slightly stained water can be very effective. Rattle noise and vibration are two separate things and can't put them in the same category. Vibration gives a pinpoint direction and rattles give a general direction.

Wood/Plastic/Foam- Plastic crank baits have the loudest rattles and because they are injected molded plastic have a consistent mechanical action from lure to lure. Plastic crank baits have air chambers that can be filled with weight and rattles to attract fish. Plastic crank baits have wire hook and line tie hangers that are molded into the plastic bodies. Wood crank baits can be mass produced or hand carved. Because of the properties of wood the cells of the wood have air cells that make a wooden crank bait float. Different kinds of wood give a wooden crank bait different qualities from raising slow to high floatation. The cell structure also gives you crank baits that have different personalities. They are less consistent in action from lure to lure compared to plastic lures. Plastic crank baits have a tendency to hold up to abuse better than wood crank baits. Foam crank baits are said to be a happy medium to both materials.

Tune Crank baits- Tuning your crank bait is one of the most important things that you must do to get this lure to catch fish. When you have a crank bait that is tuned correctly the bait will vibrate the most and dive the deepest and hung up the least. It just takes a little adjustment in the opposite direction that the bait is running. What I do when I tune a bait is I cast the bait out. I then place my rod centered to my body with my rod tip at the surface of the water. I then  make sure that my line runs straight from my lure to my rod not at an angle. Then I just reel and watch my line. I want my bait to run straight to the boat and dive past my rod tip under my boat and then come to the surface. If a bait does that then its dead on. If its off then I tweak it making little adjustments each time in the opposite direction by bending the line tie point.  Bait runs right bend the eye left, bait runs left bend right. It just takes a slight bend in most cases and if it takes a dramatic twist you might want to ditch the bait. Some baits take time to tweak to get it right and other baits for whatever reason will never get right and need to be weeded out. If after you have messed with the bait and it still is not running correct check out the line tie and see if it is loose. Also check out the hook hangers and make sure they are straight. Look at the lip and make sure it is set correct and make sure if it is a plastic bait the halves match up and that you don't have one halve longer than the other. On some baits you can add more belly weight and it will straighten it out if everything checks out and it still will not tune chuck the bait. (Baits that hunt are different and I will explain later in father detail.)

Running Depth- Most lures are tested with 10 lb line and are given a average running depth which is marked on the package. My average long cast is about 35-40 yards so roughly 105-120 ft. The shorter my casting distance the shallower my bait will run because it will not have enough running room to reach it's max depth. If your looking to get a crank bait real deep or to stay at the depth you want for any period of time casting distance is important. If I make a 50 ft cast and wanted to reach 20 ft

[Chris]

it would never get there. Visualize this if you tied a weight to the end of your line and dump it over the side it would take up 20ft of line. That leaves 30 ft of line left over for running room to reach 20ft. When the bait gets close to the boat you loose depth because it is making an upward climb back to the boat. You need x amount of feet to reach a desired depth and x amount of feet the bait will stay at that depth desired depth. When the bait reaches a certain point it stops digging for depth and makes its climb to the surface. Some lures take longer distances to reach its max depth mainly because of lip design. You may think that you are fishing a bait that will reach the structure you are fishing when reality is you have another five feet to go to even reach it. The faster a bait can reach it's max depth the more time the lure is able to stay at that depth. Your lure will stay in the depth zone longer. The longer your cast the more running room that you have for your bait. What this means is that a bait that says it will run 10 foot will now gain more depth because it has more room to dig. Some baits will run deeper on a normal cast without the need for a longer cast. For whatever reason some lures act different. The best way to learn what the true running depth of a crank bait is to locate an object that has a known depth and see if you can hit it with your crank bait. Change your casting distance, boat position, line size, retrieve speed, rod position, and see how it effects your running depth. When you find the true running depth mark it on the bottom of the crank bait with a sharpie marker.

[Chris]

Ambush Points

By Chris Sink

Bass take up positions on cover and structure for safety, comfort, and for a place to ambush prey. We all know that bass like all sorts of stuff to hang out in and around. Anything from weeds to stumps, rocks, depth change, or drop offs to anything in between.

Understanding how bass use cover and their environment can help you catch more fish. Along the same lines understanding how bass react to the forever changing environment will help you stay on fish.  The key term is forever changing because it is changing as more and more guys learn better ways to catch the same green fish. Techniques,

education, and equipment are advancing and to a degree the bass are changing along with it. They are not necessarily getting smarter they are just reacting to the environment though instinct. Things change and the bass reacts to it. One thing that will never change is that a bass still needs to eat. An ambush point is nothing more than an area that a bass move to where it has a good feeding opportunity. It is kinda like the bass's hunting ground. The bass only takes up a position in that given area just to eat. The spot must have either a population of bait or just a sweet spot that the bass has a high percentage rate to trap

food. It is the kind of spot that if you put the bait there he will eat it. Largemouth bass are not made to chase down prey for long distances. They rather just take a short burst of speed to ****** up something than run it down over long distances particularly big bass. Because they want to conserve energy they take up a spot to ambush rather than hunt down. The hunting down part comes in when they find something injured. Many times when a lure gives off a weird swimming motion or vibration or acts scared they rush to investigate. They are looking to see if it is something easy to catch because it sounds or acts hurt. Active fish that are already in the feeding mode if you can catch them soon after the act of feeding you can throw anything that looks like bait and they will nail it. That is why you catch fish sometimes that have something like a tail hanging in the back of their

throat or they look like they just got back from an all you can eat pizza place and they still hit your lure. Sometimes if the opportunity is there and they can make a short dash to catch something they take it. Two things that will trigger a bass is a easy meal like

something slow moving and just something trying to get away. They hate the idea that something is going to get away. Ambush points are places that hold active bass. Like I said they only go there to hunt. It is like a spot within a spot. You take a point for instance you might find fish on your depth finder hanging all over the point scattered. You fish it one way then you change directions. You fish both directions and at different angles. Then all of a sudden bam you get a hit. The next thing you know you caught a few bass. On any given cover or structure there is a natural direction that bait will swim on that cover or structure. If you figure out that direction and you figure out the sweet spot things change...you catch fish. I have said this many times find the place where the deep water runs close to the shallow water. This is a ambush point now find the right direction. The more you pick apart cover or structure it gives you clues to what the natural bait flow is. Some days each place is different other times you can just hop scotch around and duplicate it. What your doing is figuring which direction the bass is facing and which direction the food is coming from. This works shallow or deep around cover or structure. When I fished Florida lakes most of the lakes where filled with all kinds of grass from pads to cattails to hydrilla. One lake I fished was filled with what we called pencil grass that looked like sharp green pencils sticking out across the shallows. When you looked at the grass it was uneven and had grass points and pockets. Everything was spaced out the same and the only thing different was the edge that was irregular. The key was to find where there was a depth change close to the edge of the grass. That was the sweet spot that held the most fish and the bass was using that slight depth change as an ambush point. Cattails are the same way if you have a wall of cattails look for something irregular like a pocket or point or where you have two forms of cover like a change of weeds or wood or something different. The more variety the area has the better. The key to sweet spots or ambush points is something different or unique to a given cover or structure. There will always be one spot within the spot that is prime. I was fishing a river channel one time and the deep side of the channel ran straight for a good distance. I followed it fishing along then all of a sudden I came across a deep pocket no larger than 5 ft that dropped down to 9 ft while the surrounding channel was 6 ft. I fished through it then turned right around and fished it again making sure the bait was parallel to the channel and in the right depth. Bang I caught a 5 pounder. You need you understand that a bass uses a depth change or break to intercept anything that falls off the edge or shoots to the open water past the edge. In open water bait has no where to hide and a feeding fish is right there waiting to ambush. Flats are another example of a feeding area and it doesn't matter if the flat is deep or shallow the bass use it the same. When you take a deep side of a point or any cover that is on the point bass use these areas to feed they are ambush points. You take a dam on a lake that has rocks and break it down to something that has a different size rock or a ledge running close to the rock or a group of rock that fell off away from the dam. This is something different that bass will move to and feed. The other part of this deal is window of opportunity. This is the time frame when the sun moon and stars align and magic happens. A window of opportunity is a time frame that the bass in that area move to ambush points and actively feed. Sometimes the window opens for a short span other times all day but if your not in the right place at the right time you don't cash in on it. Wind and overcast sky's extend the time that bass are active.

[Chris]

Pressured Bass

By Chris Sink

Most bass fishermen tend to hit visual cover and most don't know how to approach fish that they can't see or cover and structure that they can't see. There is a lake I fished for years that got hammered by weekend anglers and tournaments. The bass where still in the areas that they should be but had moved off the bank. Sometimes they would be suspended out over a depth change other times they would be hanging on deep structure. At the time I was cranking some shallow fish but I was off the bank about a cast length tossing the lure up on the bank and bringing it to the boat. I had two hammer it at the boat. I moved off another cast length and located a group suspended off the first drop. Many times when you find fish hanging on deep cover in most cases you found a gold mine. In many cases you will find a kicker fish in this kind of spot and they don't tend to mess around if its active it will hit a lure quick if it is put in the right spot. Large fish tend to take up the best spot in a given form of structure. Because of this if you know how to read the cover and can identify the best spot within the spot you can generally point out where the big fish should be. Places like this that have everything that a bass needs food, cover, escape route to deep water, shallow feeding area or natural flow of food like deep shad will hold fish year after year. If everyone is fishing points motor around that area and watch your graph and see if that point has some deeper options. Another thing I have found is to change my location. I try to get away from the noise and boat traffic and try to find a spot that might be less effected. Some places its hard to do but when you can it helps out a lot. It could be areas that don't get hammered by a boat wake or an area that tucked away from the rest of the fishermen. (backwater areas) Deep water is another option but in dirty water it can be a lost cause. Something else is to look where everyone is fishing and fish areas that they stay away from. Some of the nothing banks when you fish them you will find cover or structure that most just pass by. Also watch what they use and where and use something different. One day I was fishing a rock bank with a buzzbait and catching fish. The next thing I knew a guy pulled in front of me throwing the same thing. I changed to a spitt'n image and continued catching fish and caught a good kicker fish right after this guy. Changing your tactics can be key or size

bait. I tend to reaction fish more on weekends and for me its paid off. As I mentioned don't overlook nothing banks they also can be a gold mine. As bass fishermen we know that bass need cover or structure so we as fishermen tend to draw our efforts to places that are obvious to hold bass. We tend to pass up places that seem to be void of cover. So as we boat around the lake we fish the spots that worked before or places that should look like a bass condo. As more and more fishermen become educated on the how to catch fish something strange happens to the bass they move or change where they hang out. Bass shift from heavily pressured areas to these nothing banks. I am not going to say that all nothing banks work out but sometimes you stumble onto a group of fish that receive less pressure. Sometimes fish use nothing banks and when you catch it right you can cash in. Wind is one of the things that change nothing banks into fish factories. Most nothing banks don't offer much cover or structure so the bass are predictable. With less options to the bass they hang on isolated stuff right on the nothing bank. Sometimes these banks have more to offer the bass than meets they eye. In older lakes you might have tons of old tree's and stumps just a few feet off the bank. Maybe there is a rock pile or small point that jets out or a ledge. Your odds of catching the big fish of the nothing bank is good because he has less places to hide. Where the bass is positioned on cover or structure can indicate the activity level of the bass not depth. If a bass is sitting on top of a stump I would consider it being active. If the bass is sitting on the bottom or away from the stump the fish is inactive. If the bass is in the school of shad or just below it I would consider the fish to be active. If the bass is well below the school I would consider the fish to be inactive. If I was fishing a lay down and the fish was sitting on the deep side edge I would consider the fish to be active. If the fish was hugging the bottom or deep in the thick part of the tree I would consider the fish to be inactive. In most places that bass hang out there is a place where the bass goes to feed and a place where it hangs out and a place for the fish to escape or change depth if conditions change. The fish has identified areas that they go to feed and hunt for prey. Deep or shallow it doesn't matter they still find a natural flow of bait and use it as a hunting ground. Deep fish tend to use edges or breaks. So if the fish is nose to the break off the edge in deeper water I would consider the fish active. Also if the fish is on the shallow side of the break they are active. If the fish is suspended out away from the break and you don't see bait the fish is inactive. When a high pressure system comes through most of your shallow fish will be tight to shallow cover and if there is anything that is thick they will be in it. The bass that where relating to the cover either above it to feed or next to it for ambush or comfort will now be in the middle of it for protection. Deep fish will be acting like business as usual because the front will not have a big impact on them. You don't have a mass migration to deep water but if the fish where hanging on a drop they might drop down or suspend deeper along the drop where they are less effected. If no cover is available they will just hug the bottom or hang tight to any bottom structure and become inactive while waiting for conditions to be more favorable. The front does effect the bass to a degree so they will not be actively swimming around looking for forage. The bass will be in an inactive state waiting for conditions to change. It is like a survival response more or less. Let me also add that fish that live in running water are also less effected by a front.

[Chris]

When Things Go South

By Chris Sink

I have had more than one tournament that I never turned up a keeper pre fishing. I watched one of those new bass shows the other day and Rick Clunn hit the nail on the head and I am so glad someone finally came out and said it. You have got to fish for today and forget about yesterday or even the cast before. If you get caught up in the idea that the day is going to stink you already beat yourself. To many people fish or pre fish on a slow day sloppy and with a bad mind set and it effects your fishing greatly. It messes with your confidence and you start second guessing yourself. The guys that say I will never win, I will never be as good, I will never learn that bait, Oh the conditions stink I will never catch anything.  The fact is your right because you already beat yourself. When you plant doubt in your mind, doubt in judgment, or abilities you let the gates wide open for defeat. 90% of fishing is mental if you care to believe it or not that is up to you. But always remember this saying angry man catches no fish. Let the fish tell you what they want don't go by what you feel like throwing because it worked last week. Developing a pattern is just a learning process to figure out the lake and what mood the fish are in. You need to catch fish to find fish. I try to break it down into two parts first I figure out if they want a vertical or a horizontal presentation. Next I try to figure out what kind of cover or structure are they holding at. Then try to refine the pattern to catch more fish or bigger fish. If I fish a 5 day stretch I might use 8 different kinds of crank baits to stay on fish and continuing catching fish because conditions and mood changes. To many people get stuck in a rut and use the same stuff over and over and wonder why they are not catching as many fish. They fish their favorite lures that they like to throw and not just the right lure that you should throw. If you are in an area and you know there should be fish there FISH IT! I don't care if there is no fish on your graph or if conditions change use that spot as a starting point and take some time to find the fish. Try to figure out how conditions caused the fish to move and areas that they should move to. If you need to slowdown, scale down, move down, whatever do it. If you need to take some time to re group and treat the lake as a new lake and find fish hey at least your being productive and you putting yourself in a better position to be in front of more fish or getting bites remember your learning through mistakes. Bites are the key then you can refine your technique and pinpoint your larger or in some cases keeper fish. I love tough tournaments or conditions because it messes up so many people. Most of the time people see tough conditions and it throws them for a loop. You need to make yourself think that each cast or pitch has a 5 pound bass sitting there waiting to bite. It sounds weird but you got to do it to put yourself in the right frame of mind. The other part is having a positive attitude which is hard at times but with these two things will help dig yourself out of a hole. Always remember that an angry man catches no fish. Patterns change from day to day hour to hour and you need to change with it. You got to figure them out even if it means you file 13 your pattern that you have been catching fish on for the past week. If the pattern isn't working you might have to start over from scratch and figure them out, change, or move. Sometimes its just a matter of hitting the right place at the right time. Some spots have a window of opportunity and if you are not there at the right time you miss out.  This could be a feeding area or point. Fish use places when they want to hang out or feed. If your there at the right time you cash in on the spot. If your there before the window opens or after it closes you miss out. The other part of this deal is that nobody fishes the same as everyone else. I remember one time I was teaching a guy how to pitch a jig. I told the guy to fish a brush pile the way he would normally. The guy fished the edges and tinkered around for a while then said nobody was home. Then I pitched in the brush pile and pulled out 2 fish. You can have a large group of fishermen on a given lake all saying the same thing there is no fish. Then you make a change and load the boat. Great anglers or not it could be a little thing that makes all the difference and maybe the other guys have not keyed into it. I had one tournament that was tough everyone was throwing up their hands and lost. I threw a spinnerbait and had a follower and then changed to a crankbait and had another follower. I switched 180 degrees and swam a 1/8 oz jig and loaded the boat. I had other times where they want one lure or color over another or depth. My point is that it could be just a little thing that maybe nobody had figured out yet. As you narrow down what the fish are doing and what they will hit your beginning to develop a pattern. A Pattern is nothing more than a group of fish doing the same thing at the same time either holding at a certain depth, cover, structure and you can duplicate what your doing to catch them in other areas of the same type. Some days the fish might be hanging on stumps that are right on the edge of a drop. You take what you learned from fishing that area and find other stumps that are sitting next to different drop offs and see if the fish are there. If they are then you just found a pattern. Sometimes you can have several patterns working at the same time.  Confidence plays a major part in trying to figure out a new lake. You could use the systematic approach where you start off with what you like to fish and then expand into other areas or techniques while you get a picture of what the lake is doing. As a tournament fishermen if you like to fish off colored water then you tend to try to find it if available. If your a structure fishermen then you look for the right structure that fits your style of fishing. We tend to look for something that is familiar to us or something that fits our style of fishing. For a lot of us every day is a jig day or crankbait day because we search out areas that that technique will work. What throws us for a loop is when the techniques we love to use don't fit the water that is new to us and we don't change what we are doing. Each lake fishes different and when your not comfortable using other techniques you get stuck. The all mighty 0! If someone says that they never blank they are telling you a story. Many people just chalk it up to they just where not biting. There are times when you find fish during practice on water that you know really well. Then the tournament comes around and you have nothing to show for it. You get back to the ramp just in time to hear one of the guys say "Man we really caught a ton of fish in practice but in the tournament they turned off." This is code word for they just fished out your hole. There are so many factors that go into why people with great intentions and skill still comes in with zip. The idea that everyone has off days is more true. There are times that no matter where you go or what you do you just have a hard time putting things together. I had a tournament last year on a heavy stained lake. During practice I knew what they where biting and how to catch a great limit. I prefished right and had several patterns working for me. I caught one 3 pounder on a spinnerbait in a pocket in some grass and that was it in the tournament. I didn't zero but I never got on the fish that I should have. I thought wow it must be a tough day. I came in for weight in and found out it was just tough for me. I never seen so many limits. The fish where on beds and I didn't know it. When I was prefishing the bass where in prespawn and when the tournament rolled around they where locked on beds. With the stained water I couldn't see them. This lake had a late spawn and I thought I was fishing post spawn fish. The lesson is to keep an open mind and check all options even when you think you got it right things change. What many people don't realize is that success is achieved only through a long list of mistakes. You learn to become a better fishermen by making mistakes and learning from them. Think about it when you are developing a pattern what are you doing. You throw this here you fish this then that to figure the fish out. It is through your mistakes that you gain knowledge  on what the fish are doing and what they will bite. People that have a good instinct have the ability to weed out bad mistakes faster than others to reach success. You know when you hear guys say time on the water is the best teacher. Fishermen at the top of their game have had years on the water making mistakes to help fine tune their decisions. So if conditions are presented to them they have dealt with the situation before and know how to react to it.

[Chris]

A Rare Insight in Crankbait Fishing

By Chris Sink

The biggest key to becoming a better crank bait angler is to pay attention to the vibration. Try to block out distractions and tune in to what your bait is doing. Feel the vibrations the whole cast and retrieve. Concentrate on the vibration and keep a positive attitude. The more you pay complete attention to the steady vibration of the bait the easier you can detect a difference or change in the vibration. You can tell when your bait comes in contact with cover or when its about to. You can feel the rush of water that means a fish just rolled on your bait. Sometimes you just loose the vibration which means the fish has your lure or when you feel slack. Most strikes are not bone jarring but a slight difference in the vibration and almost feels like an interruption in the vibration. Most guys say well with a crank bait the fish hook themselves. Well, unless you spend hours sharpening your hooks and if the bass turns with it's mouth closed with your bait in it more than likely your missing fish and the fish is spitting your crank bait because it feels a resistance. If you do not react to the strike you can have the sharpest hooks but guess what they can still spit it. You don't set the hook like a jig or worm but I sweep my rod to gather any slack and line stretch just that tension is enough to drive the hook but if your sitting there waiting for the fish to hook themselves your going to be waiting a long time. If your using a dead pulling crank bait where all you feel is the pull and not the vibration you will never feel the difference in vibration and will never have a clue how many fish hit and spit your bait. When in doubt set the hook! It takes some time to know what weeds feel like and stumps but while your getting the right touch its a good idea to set on anything different.  Sometimes it is tough to determine a strike so I set the hook on anything. Always remember swings are free.

Color is a factor to what bait to use in what water color or clarity but your first step should always be vibration. Depth control, lip style, line size all need to be factored in also. When figuring out what retrieve to use I try to make an educated guess of what I think the activity level of the bass should be then tweak the way you work the bait as you learn more throughout the day. I feel that a single rattle or no rattle work best because it gives a bass more of a direction of where the bait is. Rod position will effect the depth of your bait and will change the amount of feel you have. I try to point my rod to my bait and as the bait runs deeper follow it with my rod. If I keep my rod high it will loose depth if you point your rod to the side you will have a hard time feeling that rush of water I was talking about. Casting distance will effect the amount of room the bait has to reach its deepest running depth. Its kind of a game of angles if you get good at it you can hit structure or a depth zone with some consistency. Different lures that are identical will have different running depths so you need to play with them to figure out what depth they run. The depth on the lure package in most cases is an average running depth. Lur Jenson and DT lures are the few that have an accurate running depth not an average but always factor in casting distance and how much running room your bait has to reach that depth. A Bill Norman bait kind of slowly works its way to the depth and about when the bait reaches the boat is the max depth it will run. It took most of the cast distance to work down to that depth. As a bait gets close to the boat it looses depth and starts working its way to the surface. So if I make a long cast with this bait and reel it in about 30 feet out away from my boat is the max depth that bait will run.

Crank baits that have the lip extending out from the nose and are postured with the nose down when at rest at the surface are different because it digs as soon as you start reeling and in a short distance gains depth. Most baits don't do that and take more running room to reach the same depth. The wider the wobble the more resistance the bait will have and the less depth the bait can go. It just takes them longer to get there and may not reach the depth they have marked on them unless you cast them a mile. For a bait to dive deep quick it needs to have a tight action. You have the floatation of the bait fighting the lip that's trying to make it dive. You also have the wide wiggle that puts up resistance. Your line is adding floatation to your lure. Some line by itself floats and the resistance of the line cutting through the water because of the thickness cuts down on how deep the bait will go. You can put a ton of thought in colors and styles if you want but really it boils down to the vibration and the way a bass views the colors before they hit your bait. Most of the time a bass just see an opportunity to feed and if its the right size it has been feeding on it hits it. Spend more time on vibration and depth control than pinning down a new color that nobody has. You will get a headache. There are times like after a hatch that you need to match the size and general color of the hatch or if there is a lot of stain in the water you need to use a brighter color but most of the time a basic color selection and a good selection of different kinds of vibration is the key. There is a lot of times I use odd colors for the wrong clarity of the water and still catch a bunch of fish because I match the right vibration to the right clarity of the water. Color is important when they can see it but vibration is top on my list. Bait signature is the vibration and water displacement that every bait has. The more water a bait displaces the greater the bait signature. Any crank bait that has a high pitch vibration works well in stained to clear water but because of the high pitch of the vibration the vibration doesn't travel as far under water as a low pitch vibration. Lures that have a wide action can be heard at a greater distance. Large lures just by their size and water displacement also can be felt at a greater distance. You can take any lure and cast it a few times and know what kind of vibration it has and apply it to the situation it fits under. Lures that thump is for places that visibility is limited. Tight action high pitch vibrating lures work better in water that the fish can see it. The style of lip helps figure out which bait will be the best lure for the cover you are fishing or depth. Color for some isn't important but for me I have seen when it made all the difference in the world and times when it didn't matter. A good starting point would be shad, bluegill, crawfish, bass colors with brighter colors for stained to muddy water. A bass that lived all of its life in clear water has developed its sight the most because that is what it mainly uses it to feed. By the same token a bass in muddy water bass has developed its hearing the most because it uses it the most to feed. If you take a clear water bass and drop it in a muddy lake it would have a hard time hitting your crank bait with 100% accuracy until it adjusted to the muddy water if it does at all. You need to understand this when you choose your crank bait and the speed you reel it. Lakes that are clear most of the year then a storm muddies it up this is when it is wise to slow down and use more vibration because the bass is still in the clear water mode. Where a bait signature becomes foreign is when you use a wide wobbling lure in clear water. Some bass will be duped by a strange vibration but most will be turned off because it is foreign to the environment. You take that same bait and fish it on an overcast day, over heavy cover or low light and things change. This means the more water displacement the better a bass can find your bait in low visibility. This is important in choosing the right vibration with the right water clarity. I always label lures in three main categories tight wiggle medium and wide. Tight wiggle baits are for clear water because bass feed mainly by sight not sound or vibration. Medium wiggle baits I use for clear to stained water and wide wiggle baits are for stained to muddy. I do this because the less distance a bass can see under water the more a bass uses its hearing. Some days fish tend to prefer one kind of wobble over another from day to day but conditions tend to weed out choices that would work best. I'll give you an example and maybe shed some light on this. If you ever sat down and spoken to a prominent spinner bait fishermen he is able to break down the color and blade configuration to fit the conditions facing them. When the sun pop's out from the clouds or if water clarity changes the fishermen will change their lures. Why? Because some times because of light penetration, mood, water clarity, where the fish is positioned the fish tend to bite better on lures that are easy for them to find or feel in the water. In super clear water fish are feeding mostly on sight so vibration isn't as important but realism and flash are. I make it a point at times to say that a spinner bait is nothing more than a weed less crank bait. I do this for a reason because you weed out which one will work best in much the same way. If you break down your lures based upon vibration, depth, action, and you apply the conditions your faced with to help determine which lure selection would work best then you can make an educated guess which one to use. If I went out in a clear lake and knowing that shad is what is on the fishes mind how would I pick the right bait. The first thing I would do is find the fish or try to locate a depth that most of the fish where using. This means that Depth finder comes into play. I try to find the thermal cline then look for bait then find areas that have should hold fish. If you take a temperature reading from the surface to the bottom of a body of water the area where the warm and cold water mix is known as the thermal cline. This is a large layer of water that has a constant temperature and it a layer that bass feel most comfortable in. This layer of this mixed water and comfort temp changes depending on the season, weather, or even time of day.  I also narrow down my search by seasonal habits. What should the fish be doing this time of the year and I use that as a starting point. A crankbait is a tool so I try to find a lure that will reach that depth. Action is determined on what time of the year(temp), how stained the water is or how easy the fish can see my lure or if I needed to help it find my lure with more vibration. Understand that bass make their own rules but this is a starting point. If I used a wide wiggle bait in clear water with cooler water temps bright skies the lure would look out of place and the fish might reject it. The fish also might not want to run down a fast moving bait because the energy expended and the reward are not equal. Bass are lazy to began with and particularly larger fish will not expend the effort. Conditions change and a front moves in with sky full of clouds. The fish move away from cover and become active sight becomes more impaired from lack of sunlight. It isn't that they can't see the bait but it would be harder for the bass to pick out because less light is reflecting off of the bait. Vibration comes into play and brighter colors are easier to be seen. Colors like chartreuse tend to reflect light which in turn are easier to see for example. So you can use one lure under one set of conditions and when those conditions change your original lure is harder to find and other lures tend to be a better choice. 

[Chris]

They are all cleaned up, revised and korrekted lol

[Chris]

Crankbaits That Hunt

By Chris Sink

When you take a wooden crankbait and tune it slightly out of tune the lure will hunt or zara spook from side to side in a erratic swimming action. (You are slightly putting the bait out of tune for a specific effect and application) Some crankbaits will do it more than others and it takes some time to get the lure tweaked just right. The lure still gets from point A to B it just takes a different path to get there and acts like a spooked live shad that is trying to get away from a hungry bass. Lures that hunt displaces more water because its drifting from side to side. Lures that hunt also have more triggering qualities. Its like bouncing a lure off the bottom or off of a tree but with this lure has a erratic action built in. Some fishermen feel that you need to hit something to get strikes with lures. With lures that hunt I maybe running my lure at a do nothing retrieve but my lure is doing more than nothing. Its darting and ducking around and all I am doing is reeling it in. The bait kind of shifts to the right a little then to the left a little then rights itself. When you bounce a crankbait off of cover you are doing two things one is that the bait will change directions the second is that the bait will change vibration pattern. Normal healthy shad swim from point A to point B at the same speed and direction for the most part. Shad being chased by bass or spooked by bass hall butt in any direction bang into things and change their swimming pattern. Baitfish that have issues from being sick or hurt also throw out an odd vibration pattern that fish pick up on. They also swim different than healthy baitfish. Bass have an instinct to chase down the sick an injured and will pick out that shad from a school. You can catch bass with a crankbait just chucking it out and reeling it in. You begin to open a new realm when you start fishing the bait and making it act like a baitfish should act around a hungry bass. Some wood baits do it on their own most of the time without messing with them.   Some "special crankbaits" will search or hunt a good distance right and left.  I bought a crankbait one time that when I first started my reel it shot right 3 ft then straightened out then shot right and left randomly. The thing about it was each cast the lure acted different. This random action makes your bait different then most of the baits that people throw.  They also have a unique vibration pattern that is different from the mechanical action of most plastic baits that the average guys use. Wood baits are the best for this action but some plastic baits can do it to.

Knock On Wood

By Chris Sink

Out of the many ways of presenting a crankbait all anglers will agree that bumping the stump is high on the productivity list of techniques. This is power fishing at its best and with the right gear can put some big fish in the boat. Anytime that you put a lure in a jungle of stumps and snags without the heavy gear to ****** and drag them out you stand a good chance of being left with a lost fish and a broken heart. Most tournament fishermen use 14-20 lb test line to help resist against abrasion and beef up to a heavy action rod to give the fishermen the power to help control and move the fish out of the cover. This is not for the faint of heart and if you are worried about loosing your prized crankbait your not going to put the bait where it needs to be to catch fish. You would be amazed how well a bait with six hooks on it will get through cover without snagging if you choose the right bait. The lip style can be critical and having a working knowledge of each lip style can make or break you. What you need to understand is that a square bill has one kick out feature on either side of the lip. When a square bill rams into a stump it will turn and hit the corner of the bill and kick out away from the object. This style is the best for heavy cover. A coffin bill has two kick out features on either side of the lip. When this lip rams into an object the first corner kicks out the bait and the second corner really kicks it out away from an object. This style bill works best on a single stump or object. This bill reacts the most when deflecting off of an object and you don't want to use it in heavy heavy stuff because it will kick out away from one stump and snag into another. A round bill don't have any kick out features unless your using a Fat Free shad style lip. When a round lip crankbait makes contact with cover it will travel the closest to the object to get around it. This is the lip style you want to use for standing timber. The materials that a crankbait is made out of can be factored in also. I have always been a firm believer in using wood crankbaits for wood cover. I like them over plastic mainly because a wood bait will react more that a plastic bait in cover. Wooden baits hunt plastic baits will not. This year try a little wood knocking you might be surprised how effective this technique can be.

[Pez]

Great Articles!!!

[sal669]

Super dooper read !!! This should be set as an article.

Thanks for posting

[whitwolf]

This Is exactly the reason I visit this forum. Thanks Chris.

[Glenn]

Hi Chris,

If you wish to submit these, please see the FAQ for information on how to submit articles.

Thanks!!

Glenn

[Long Mike]

Wow Chris!  If you are that verbose and have so much information to share, why don't you write a book?  Great stuff!

[Chris]

Well I sent them and hope I did it right. I just finally got around to formating the them the way I wanted it for an article and I honestly didn't know how to send them :-/ the doc. thing threw me for a loop. lol

[Lund Explorer]

Congrats Chris on the effort it took to put all those thoughts down into this forum.  I'm looking forward to taking the time to digest all of it.

For now, I've done the copy and paste to MS Word to make it a little more portable.  Long Mike had a good idea about a book, because taking the computer into the "library" is kind of a pain! 

[Gatorbassman]

Once again you amaze me Chris. It was your help three years ago that got me started with crankbaits and I would go fishing without several boxes of them today. Thanks again bud. We miss you on here.

[Grey Wolf]

Chris's knowledge of cranks is astronomical.

He's knowledge should be asorbed here by every one.

[simplejoe]

Nice write up Chris. You must be an outstanding crankbait fisherman. thanks for sharing.

[Gomer Pyle]

What's nice about this forum is that I can sit here in my boxers sucking down a cup of Joe while educating myself on the finer points of bass fishing all without ever having to leave the house! Outstanding write-up Chris Kinda like a mini-seminar in the confines of my living room at ZERO cost...

[Chris]

Cover and Structure Mechanics

By Chris Sink

Out of the many ways of presenting a crank bait all anglers will agree that bumping the stump is high on the productivity list of techniques. This is power fishing at its best and with the right gear can put some big fish in the boat. Anytime that you put a lure in a jungle of stumps and snags without the heavy gear to ****** and drag them out you stand a good chance of being left with a lost fish and a broken heart. Most tournament fishermen use 14-20 lb test line to help resist against abrasion and beef up to a heavy action rod to give the fishermen the power to help control and move the fish out of the cover. This is not for the faint of heart and if you are worried about loosing your prized crank bait your not going to put the bait where it needs to be to catch fish. You would be amazed how well a bait with six hooks on it will get through cover without snagging if you choose the right bait. The lip style can be critical and having a working knowledge of each lip style can make or break you. I have always been a firm believer in using wood crank baits for wood cover. I like them over plastic mainly because a wood bait will react more that a plastic bait in cover.

Wood Cover-In standing timber I tend to try to locate the largest trees which at times will hold bigger fish if it is placed right. Larger trees tend to cast the most shade and could have a large root system exposed under water that offers bass a great place to hide. If the tree is positioned next to deeper water it will really become a high percentage area. When you have a group of standing timber usually the trees that are grouped close together or the trees that sit away from the main group will isolate a larger fish. Trees that sit at an angle or have a Y in the tree throws more shade and in turn more cover for the bass. Where the tree is positioned is important with just average looking trees if they are going to be productive. The golden rule is that any cover that is positioned next to or on the edge of a depth change or where two forms of cover meet like a transition area draws fish. Perfect casts produce perfect fish I live by this rule. I would say that 90% of the fish I catch is because of the cast. It is very important when you are fishing around docks, logs, etc., that you can place the lure where you need it and not in the trees. When I am casting to a lay down I want to cast my lure as close to the bank or close to the root end as I can. What I want to do is parallel the log as I reel the bait in. With my rod pointed in the direction of my lure but slightly pointed to the water I start my retrieve. I want to reel my bait at a medium pace. You are going to feel that bait thump and bounce off of any limbs as you reel. If you feel the bait kind of hang up stop reeling and let it float up off of the hang up and reel. Most of the time the bait will just bounce off the limb without and trouble. Make two or three casts to each side of the tree make sure that you run your lure in the same direction as the limbs are growing it helps prevent hang ups. Each time that bait hits a limb or the trunk of the tree it is changing directions speeding up and acting like a shad. You want to make sure that you are positioned at a 90 degree angle to the tree so that you can run that lure perfectly down the side of the trunk. If you have a tree that part of it is out of the water and the rest is under water you want to run the lure right down the middle of the tree. A lay down is used as a road map to deep water and fish use them much like a point.

Points- The first thing your going to need to do is visualize the point in your mind. You know that on either side of the point there is deeper water. You know that a point is a highway to deep water. Fish can position themselves anywhere on the point. There is usually one part of the point that the fish will position themselves to feed you just need to figure out where as you fish it. I tend to try to find points that are steeper than other points because it will set it apart most of them. (remember areas next to deeper water) Points that have irregular features on it like a secondary point, or one side is deeper than the other tends to hold more fish then a plain Jane point. If you where in a boat looking down the point you want to make your first cast much like you would with a lay down tree. You want to hit the right side of the point bringing your lure parallel with the point. Make sure you are positioned correctly with your rod in front tip down pointing to the lure. This is important because you are in the best position to set the hook and you know exactly what your bait is doing and know if the lure isn't running correctly in case a minor adjustment needs to be made. You also are able to detect strikes better in my opinion. Make a few casts and then try the other side of the point. You just want a steady retrieve make your cast close to the side edge and work your way out each cast until you loose contact with the point. You want to bottom bounce the bait on point with no weeds and you want to just tick the top of the weeds if weeds are present. After you have covered both sides reposition your boat to cover the end of the point. You might need to change baits to deeper runner because this should be the deepest part of the point and sometimes bass will hang out there. Then switch sides and fish the end again. Next position your boat to make casts across the point. If the point is large enough position your boat to bring your bait from deep water on the end of the point crank the bait as if it was trying to climb up the point. Sometimes fish want the bait to come from a certain direction before they strike. You can do the same thing with shore cover also by changing your approach the bass have a different look at your bait and sometimes a different angle makes all the difference.

[steezy]

Chris, I hope you will be at the roadtrip event, I want you for a fishin buddy!

[Black Bass]

Thanks Chris. I enjoyed the information.