Bass Fishing: It’s Crankbait Time

The bass spawn in Texas is officially over and the fish are more than likely in a post spawn-summer time transition.  There are many ways you can target bass this time of year, but one of my favorite tools is a crankbait.

I mean think about it.  You can fish the entire water column from 0 foot to 30 foot deep.  You can pick from literally thousands of crankbait colors to match your given water clarity and forage base.

Now, let’s break down crankin from a fundamental stand point.

I will set my crankin equipment up into 3 groups- Shallow (0-6) Mid Depth (6-14) & Deep (14-24).

Each of these may require a different rod action, rod length, line size and color.

Shallow- When I think shallow crankbaits, a square bill or wake bait comes to mind.  These are the work horses of the crankbait lineup.  These baits can be thrown into brush and grass with reckless abandon much like a spinnerbait.  A lot of these shallow fish maybe guarding fry and will readily crush a bream imitator. Or you may find yourself fishing a sea wall with a huge shad spawn going on and need a shad colored bait.  This is when you need to have multiple rods on the deck ready to deploy when the situation arises.

My personal favorite shallow crankbaits are – a 6^thSense L7 Squarebill in Baby Bluegill or Gizzard Flash, Strike King KVD 1.5 in Chartreuse Sexy Shad and a Mann’s Baby 1 Minus in Grey Ghost.  Each of these baits has a much different action and may require a different retrieve and equipment.

Mid Depth- Fish in this depth range are either suspended in trees at mid depth or at a transitional time getting ready to move out to summer time haunts.  I will typically ditch the bream patterns once I get over about 8 foot deep.

My personal favorite mid depth crankbaits are a 6^thSense Crush 250 Md in Supermodel Shad or Blue Treuse Shad, Strike King 3Xd in Chrome Sexy Shad  or a Rapala DT 10 in Helsinki Shad.

Deep Divers- This is the depth range that I prefer to fish. Yes it is fun to catch a bunch of fish crushing shad up shallow.  But for me, graphing fish out deep usually yields bigger fish.  Just look at the FLW event last week on Kentucky Lake.  Ledge master Jason Lambert caught 101 lbs of bass over 4 days out deep while 2^ndplace finisher Scott Martin was primarily shallow (lost by more than 28lbs.)

This depth range requires a bit more specialized equipment that we will go over in next week’s blog.  When I am fishing at this range I try to use baits that imitate gizzard shad, barfish (yellow bass) or crappie.  These are the larger meals that bigger offshore bass prefer IMO.
My personal favorite deep diving cranks are- 6^thSense Cloud 9 in either the 20 or 25 size in Sob’s Juice or Chart Pro Blue, Strike King 8 Xd in Barfish and a Spro Little John DD in Citrus Light.

Crankin is a great way to cover the entire water column and put fish on the deck in a hurry.  Next week I will go over the equipment I use to crank and what I look for.

G Luck & Tight Lines Texas Nation

Shane Smith