By Greg Hines

Crankbaits are perhaps the most effective overall bass baits ever made. However, just throwing them out and reeling them in, not understanding what really makes them so effective, limits their usefulness. In seminars I'm frequently ask for my suggestions on more effective crankbating. The following are my personal ideas on when, where, and how to throw a crankbait, and which crankbaits I recommend to use.

My rules of thumb on when to use a crankbait are:

1. When schools of bait fish are in less than 10 feet of water.
2. When there is scattered structure.
3. When there is moving water.
4. When there are active shore birds.

Let's take each rule and see how it applies.

Baitfish
A few years ago, I fished a tournament on Lake Powell and had an hour run to the back of the San Juan River each of the practice days. Part-way up the river, I noticed shallow bait fish registering on my meter around a bend in the river. For the first couple of days of the prefish I ignored the readings, but on the first day of the tournament I couldn't bring myself to pass up the opportunity to crank a few fish following this important key. I turned the boat around, went back, and never left the spot for the tournament, and got a top-5 finish.

Scattered Structure
On many lakes, especially fertile lakes that may have off-colored water, you might find areas where points and banks have stumps under the surface every 20 or 30 feet. To fish these areas with a jig or a worm wouldn't be very easy becaue the structure is so spreadout, while throwing a crankbait would allow you to cover the water more quickly and effectively.

As we all know, bass will gravitate to each one of the scattered pieces of structure, and finding each stump is a key to finding fish.

While fishing the St. Lawrence River in New York a few years back, I noticed many small clumps of grass off of wind-blown points. These weren't full-blown grass beds, but rather small scattered grass pockets, each one holding several smallmouths. At low light, these clumps were invisible, and throwing a crankbait helped me find them and fish them effectively.

Moving Water
Moving water is caused by current flow and wind. Areas that naturally hold the most current are points, windblown shorelines, and incoming or outgoing water.

Clear Lake is a great example of current created by wind that affects the positioning of the bass. Behind each point or rockpile, the fish will stack up when the current it moving.

Shore Birds
If I see fish ducks working a bank, or I see a blue heron wading in the water, I know they are feeding. If the shorebirds are up on the bank, or are rafting in the middle of a bay, I may have found a good area, but not necessarily. If the shorebirds are feeding, you have baitfish nearby.

With the "when" out of the way, let's move to "where"to crankbait. Concentrate on changes in the shoreline. On Shasta or Oroville, for example, a shoreline may drop off on a steeper angle than another nearby. Those changes hold the fish. Rockpiles, points and riprap, as long as there are differences in the bank, are likely areas to hold crankbait fish.

To really be an effective crankbait angler, you must develop a "feel" for what your bait is encountering under the surface. Whether it's grass, rock or wood, the better you learn to feel your way, the more fish you will catch. Many times, I've seen anglers simply crank a bait until it gets caught in grass or against a stump, because a school of thought is that by bouncing off structure you entice strikes. Well, not necessarily. As you wind, your line will generally hit the structure first. As this happens, if you will hesitate for a split second, your bait will not hang up but rather lift just enough to come through the structure without snagging.

By learning to feel your way through structure, you'll be amazed at the structure you can fish without much problem. Guys like David Fritts have made their name understanding how to feel their crankbaits along.

When I've found area I want to crank, 99 percent of the time I will throw parallel to the shore. I want to keep the bait in the strike zone as long as possible. If I've determined the fish are in 8 feet of water, I want to keep my bait there as long as possible.

Keep your crankbait selection simple. I love to throw SpeedTraps in 8 feet of water or less. They have tremendous wobbles and rattles, but their best feature is that you can reel them into a grass bed and just stop, whereas if you're throwing a rattle trap or something you've got to keep the bait moving.

For a deeper diver, I like the Bill Norman Deep Little N. Another great bait is a Rapala Shad Rap, but because of its profile, it's more difficult to throw in the wind as other baits. Crankbait colors need to be basic. Shad colors include white with a black back or perhaps chrome.

My crawdad baits will be red or brown, or combinations of green and orange. And then I'll have a chartreuse bait.

If you'll follow my suggestions on using crankbaits, you will find greater success and you will become a better more versatile angler.

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