How To Fish Crankbaits

Learn how to fish crankbaits in this informative video!
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Crankbait in the fall is always a good choice. Bass get into the grass, get ready to feed, and if you can get a squarebill or any kind of shallow-running crankbait and just pull it and rip it through the grass and play the edges and everything else, you shouldn't have a problem catching good fish. This is a little bitty squarebill, that's a big old bass. Ha ha. Let's talk about crankbaits today, guys.

The crankbait is always a good choice. I know people are intimidated by them and aren't really sure what to do with them. But if you really want to figure out a crankbait, go out and fish it. Just cast it around in a shallow area, get a crankbait that runs a foot and a half, two feet deep. Find yourself a grass flat or a stump flat or something and just throw that thing until your arm falls off. Change the speeds, change the cadence, stop and go. Play around with it until you get bit. That's how you learn a crankbait.

That's how you learn any bait really but get out there and fish it. You will see that it does catch fish, and a lot of times it's the only thing that will catch fish. The conditions I'm faced with today are post-front conditions. You can tell it's pretty windy. I've got my wind shroud on my camera, and I'm fishing this windy grass. It's tough conditions.

These fish do not like to bite. But if I can get this bait into the grass and rip it out or get it to pop or kick a piece of grass, I'll get that instinct strike. That's what I'm looking for. Just watch me for a few minutes. I'm just going to go around and I'm just going to cover this entire flat that's full of lily pads and grass and stick-ups and see how many fish I can catch. I hope you enjoy it, and then I'll talk a little more about it.

One thing to remember when you're fishing a crankbait is the hook set is a little bit different than most other baits. You've got open hooks and light line. You're just going to tighten up on it when you feel the bite. Basically, the fish hooks itself, just kind of like that. You just kind of tighten up and you start reeling. Can't believe I caught a fish on that cast. That's awesome.

But it's just tighten up. You didn't see me slam the hook home or anything else. The bass basically hook themselves, and you give them just a little bit of help.

That's a good fish. If you pick the right crankbait under the situations, you end up with some pretty dang good fish. That one's close to about five pounds, guys.

The equipment I'm using today is actually a Dobyns. It's a 705 crankbait rod, it's a glass rod. The reason I like the glass rod because it helps out with the hook sets as well. You need a little bit of delay on a hook set, a little bit of give so you don't break your line; you don't rip the hooks out. There are a lot of reasons. But I like it because it's got that parabolic bend that bends almost all the way down the shaft, and you don't lose as many fish as you would with a stiffer rod. The crankbait is an Academy Sports H2O crankbait. It's the little bitty one. It drives about two feet, foot and a half, two feet.

If you were to go out and just buy your first crankbait, what would I recommend? First of all, get yourself a low gear ratio reel. This is a 5.3:1. It's a Revo that I've actually changed the gears in and made it a 5.3:1 reel, a crankbait rod, a rod that's designed for crankbaits. It doesn't matter what brand it is. There are a lot of different good brands out there. It doesn't have to be glass, but for me personally, I enjoy glass rods. Dobyns makes the lightest glass rods I've ever fished. That's why I love them.

I would go and I would buy five or six shallow running crankbaits - squarebill, shallow running crankbaits that don't dive any deeper than five feet. Then I would just go out on the water, and I would just work the bank and fan cast and see what happens. Five different colors are just fine. Cast them out and have fun learning how to catch fish with a crankbait. It can be an absolute dynamite bait.

Like I always say, visit for the answers to all your questions about bass fishing. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can keep watching me catch fish like this, and you can learn how to catch them, too. There it is guys. Have a great day. Not bad, a little bass.

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