Search And Rescue

This past week’s FLW Tour Stop at Kentucky Lake reminds us of just how important the crank bait is to today’s professional bass anglers.

While David Fritts led the tournament for the first three days fishing his trademark cranking pattern, it was South Carolina Pro Anthony Gagliardi who won the tournament on.....you guessed it, a crank bait.

The conditions at Kentucky Lake were perfect for Crank bait fishing in that fish were scattered all over the lake in between spring and summer patterns. At this tournament the conditions called for what a crank bait does best.....Search and rescue!

Search as in, when bass are hard to locate, finding a population of fish that will bite is often a race against the clock. No time to drag a carolina rig or count pebbles with a worm, that takes too much time, and if your aren’t finding them, you aren’t catching them.

Rescue as in, when you have nothing else going, a crank bait can find you a hand full of bites on a day when nothing else is going right.

There is no other bait or technique that can do what a crank bait can do. What a crank bait can do is allow you to cover several different depth ranges on the same cast, locate important fish holding cover such as deep boulders or brush piles, and catch fish that are typically bigger than the garden variety fish you will catch on a worm rig. All of this, plus, the crank bait allows you do this more efficiently than any other bait. That is what makes a crank bait, the ultimate search and rescue technique.

Oh its a lot of work, there is no doubt. Sure your arm will feel like its going to fall off after a day of deep cranking. But on a tough day, what will you have to show for yourself after methodically counting every pebble in the lake with a plastic worm? I’ll take the sore arm and the bigger limit every time.

Think of it this way. If the bite is wide open and say, 50 percent of the bass are feeding, I mean its wide open! Just about anything you fish will have a good chance of producing the desired result. On the other hand, on a tough day when maybe 5 percent of the lake’s bass are biting, what is the best way to locate those few that will take a bait? Right, the bait that you can cover the most water with. Search and Rescue.

There is no better weather condition for crank bait fishing than wind. When you can’t hold on your favorite point to fish a plastic worm, you can sure put your boat along a point and fish a crank bait. I see anglers all the time running their trolling motor batteries dead trying to hold on a spot in the wind. Trying to keep contact with your bait, the bottom and the fish while trying to hold on a spot is near impossible. Find a stretch of good looking bank, and let the wind move you down the bank. With the wind at your back, you should be able to add about 10 to 20 yards to your casts. Bang that crank bait into every piece of wood or rock that you can, you are going to find some active fish.

Arm yourself with a seven and half foot, fiberglass rod, a 5 to 1 geared reel, ten pound test line and a deep diving crank bait, and you have yourself an excellent search and rescue tool.

This past week at Kentucky Lake, the fish were scattered. Pros that wanted to drag a carolina rig found the fishing slow and tedious. The Pros that stuck to the deep diving crank baits, found the fishing slow, but rewarding. When looking for a needle in a haystack, one must move a lot of hay.

Crank bait fishing, the pro’s tool for search and rescue.