If you're old enough, you probably remember when we fished with "plugs," artificial lures that carried unique names like River Runt, Bass Oreno, Brooks Reefer, Lazy Ike, and others. They served us well, but somewhere along the line, things went awry when someone, who shall live in infamy and quite possibly die in purgatory, discarded a perfectly good name and dubbed these lures, "crankbaits." I suppose that lost soul thought that such a name described them well. After all, to make it work, you turn the reel handle, which could also be called, "cranking." But the odds are high that person never trolled for walleye. Besides "trollbaits" does sound tacky. Truth is, odds are high all of this originated in the south, in bass country, where almost all lure presentations involve casting. I like bass, all kinds, but face facts; this is walleye country. And if I mention plugs, please understand that I'm talking about the same thing you probably call a crankbait.
It's my age, nothing else, other than maybe a wee bit of skepticism.
I'm not suggesting walleye fishermen don't cast. They do, but most do not do it well, perhaps because they troll so often. Perhaps the first major casting for walleyes took place in the glacial lakes of northeastern South Dakota where the practice continues through the present. Devils Lake in North Dakota has also become a casting mecca. And casting seems to work particularly well on small, stained water lakes and reservoirs. For some reason, other than in tailwater areas on the Missouri River reservoirs, casting, other than jig pitching in the spring, has never caught on. That's too bad because I think it would work in a lot of situations. And I know that I don't have to convince Bill Mitzel, Publisher of this magazine, of the value of casting. He's been preaching of casting for many years, and he's darned near as old as I am, give or take a year or two. I think Bill will agree, as will most other good anglers, that for reasons we don't understand, cranks will often take bigger fish than other methods.
Casting cranks works well once the water warms a bit and fish are gathered in the shallows. It is a method that lets you fish a lot of water quickly and efficiently. It also produces fish other than walleyes, including northern pike, white bass, large and smallmouth bass, and even trout.
If you deal with clear water, as is the case on lakes like Roy or Enemy Swim, casting works better during low light periods. In darker water lakes, it is an effective presentation technique during daylight hours. Trolling tends to become a more productive method when fish move away from the shoreline and gather on expansive flats, especially during lengthy periods of stable weather.
Let's break down the various styles of crankbaits and examine where and when they are a good choice.
Lipless crankbaits such as the Bill Norman Rattle-Trap and Salmo Zipper feature BB-shot chambers and vibrate tightly and rapidly. They are among the noisiest cranks made which makes them a good choice in murky or stained water situations. I like them when long casts are necessary because you can cast these heavy, streamlined baits a country mile. I've also discovered these are terrific smallmouth baits as well, and when I fish them in Lake Sharpe, my catch is equally divided between walleyes and smallmouths bass. Silver and silver/blue are good reflective color choices for dark water, though a chartreuse or firetiger pattern should also produce in dim water.
Body Baits such as the classic Rapala, Salmo Minnow and Rebel are always good choices in Missouri River tailwaters because their long, slender shape resembles the rainbow smelt. They normally run shallow because they are floaters that dive only when retrieved and most have a somewhat tight action. For years, nighttime shorecasters, largely due to the influence of Doug Stange's articles in In Fisherman magazine, have doctored these baits by drilling holes in the balsa and filling them with lead shot. Hollow plastic baits are best doctored by melting a hole with a hot needle, adding water, and patching the hole. These neutrally weighted baits will maintain the same depth once you reach it. The bait is properly weighted when it sinks very slowly. Salmo's Sting comes right out of the box as a suspending bait, albeit one that sinks slowly.
Such baits become great nighttime casting choices for tailwater fishermen who do much of their casting from shore. It is also a good spring and fall pick for wading shorecasters in natural lakes.
Sinking Crankbaits are tremendously versatile lures. You can count them down, since they sink about a foot a second, until you hit the desired depth. The CD Rapala sinks faster than the Salmo Sting. That's not always an advantage because there are times when a slow sinking bait offers a big advantage, such as in shallow water where the bait stays in the strike zone for a longer period of time. Other times, the faster sink rate let's you fish deeper water without the hassle of waiting until the bait reaches the proper depth.
Shallow Divers like the Salmo Hornet, Bullhead, Perch and Rapala's shallow runner, are great baits designed to enable you to cast into gently sloping shorelines such as you find in dishpan type lakes like Devils Lake, Poinsett, Thompson and others.
Deep Divers usually float but dive rapidly when pulled through the water. The maximum depth is a result primarily of the length and angle of the lip. Lures with long lips are good choices over rocky or snag-strewn bottoms because the lip hits the snag and usually causes the bait to tip upright and over the snag. When trolling, you should always select a bait that will stay within a foot or so of the bottom. It doesn't hurt if you occasionally bump the bottom, and at least that allows you to know when the lure is running at the correct depth.
Each crankbait is designed to travel at a specific speed. The rule to follow is to put it in the water and gradually increase your trolling speed until the lure no longer dives deeper, and instead, tips and comes back to the surface. Slow down a bit and you're probably at the correct maximum speed for that lure.
You can cause a bait to go deeper in a variety of ways. One is to troll with leadcore line. Leadcore comes on heavy spools and is marked by a different color every 10 feet. Thus, if you have five colors out, you are trolling with 50 feet of leadcore line. For best results, tie in a 10-foot monofilament leader with either a small barrel swivel or with a jam knot. Then attach your lure to the leader. Bob Propst may have been the first angler to popularize this method of fishing, and in his company, I have hit bottom in 60-feet with a Thin Fin, a short-lipped floating plastic lure that normally runs only a few feet down on 10-pound mono. A downrigger rod and a large reel such as a Daiwa 27 or 47A will work nicely when using leadcore line.
Another easy way to go deeper is with the use of a superbraid. Fireline 10-6 will get a bait about 25 percent deeper than 10-pound mono. I also like to use Fireline 14-8 for casting cranks in snag-filled water. Boyd LaFluer, an innovative Devils Lake fisherman is the guy who showed me this technique. If you've not fished Devils Lake in recent years (and you should), you probably don't know that the rising waters flooded over a million trees. Many of these partially submerged trees are now home to the walleyes. And if you're not casting your crank into these areas, you're not fishing fish. Of course, you will inevitably become snagged. Don't fight the bait. Just move closely, take your landing net, follow the line down to the bait, and presto, you'll snag the hooks in the heavy cord on the net and retrieve your lure.
Anyway, the Fireline works great in this fishing because you can pull free from most snags. Moreover, it's highly sensitive, and you will actually feel fish occasionally bump the lure before they take it, a phenomenon I never felt with monofilament.
One feature all crankbaits offer to greater or lesser degrees, is vibration, and those vibes are received by fish through their lateral line that runs along the side of their body. That dark line is actually thousands, maybe millions of tiny nerves that sense vibrations in the water. Regardless, fish feel those vibrations, a fact that might well explain why crankbaits work so well in dark or stained water lakes.
Color is a factor to many anglers, perhaps more than to the fish. Generally, you can't go wrong by picking bright, florescent colors in dark water, and subdued ones in clear water.
When you fish a lake like Devils Lake where walleyes and northern pike are present, adding a wire leader will help save valuable crankbaits. South Bend makes the best I am aware of. They come in short lengths of sevenstrand wire and they do not cause walleyes to ignore your lure.
That raises a sore point. Line companies make a big deal about line visibility. If you pay the extra bucks for florocarbon because you worry about fish being able to see your line, you're one of the suckers born every minute. Consider this. If fish knew what fishing line was, we'd never catch them, and monofilament gill nets certainly wouldn't work. I do not doubt that fish can see fishing line of almost any kind, especially trout. But my point is, they don't have the foggiest idea of what it is. I remember during the infamous "line wars" of the 1980's when the marketers at one company suggested research that indicated fish shied from yellow line, primarily because their competitor was marketing a yellow line. I once asked to see that research, and while I received a promise that I would, it wasn't kept. View any talk of "invisible" fishing lines and the suggestion they'll help you catch more fish, with a great deal of skepticism. Concentrate instead on things that actually improve your fishing abilities.
Boyd LaFluer convinced me that a stop and go retrieve catches more fish. That makes sense because the slight pause gives the fish time to inhale a bait, as opposed to ignoring it or missing it completely. There are times a fast retrieve seems to trigger more fish, but most times, a slow one produces more strikes. Either way, incorporate those pauses into your retrieve. You can accomplish the same thing when trolling by pumping your rod and then allowing the bait to fall back. I'm convinced the sudden forward movement attracts the attention of fish, while the pause is the trigger. When you're trolling, it's easier to tell if your crankbait is working properly when using a braided line simply by paying attention to the rod tip. Because these are no-stretch lines, even a wisp of weed on a single treble will change the way the rod tip vibrates.
Many anglers, especially those who troll cranks, have gone to line-counter reels. These reels measure the line by the foot as it goes out, which makes it easy to duplicate the exact same length after experimenting and catching fish at one specific amount of line out behind your boat. Put these reels on downrigger rods and they'll work well for you. The only drawback is the cost.
Dennis Kassube, a terrific angler and pal from Big Stone City, SD, showed me how to solve that problem with what he calls a "poor man's line counter." Dennis figures that if he has a way to know when he's trolling with 80, 100, and 120 feet out, he has his bases covered. To do this, ask your fishing buddy to help. Pull the line off the reel and thread it through the guides and tip. Then put a simple slip bobber knot on the line. Have your buddy hold your rod and the slip bobber knot as you walk away, pacing off 150 feet. Then pull the knot tight and add a drop of super glue. Now retrieve the line until you have 120 feet out, add another slip bobber knot, tighten and super glue it in place there, and then repeat at 100 feet.
Now, when you tie on your crankbait, drop it overboard and let the line slip through your fingers. When you feel the knot at 80-feet, stop there and troll at that lingth for a while. Then, if not successful, try both of the other settings. You can even get fancy and use differently colored thread on your bobber stops, though it isn't necessary. If you hit fish at any of those distances, it's easy to repeat with any other baits you are trolling.
At the outset of this story, I mentioned some of the old "plugs." On a whim one evening, I launched my boat and tied on an old Lazy Ike. This "banana bait" has a very wide wobble and must be fished very slowly. My outboard wouldn't handle such slow speeds, forcing me to to use my trolling motor. Over the next half-hour, I caught and released four walleyes. Then I tied on a Brooks Reefer, and fished it the way it was supposed to be fished, with nightcrawlers dangling from each set of trebles. I couldn't keep the walleyes away from it. Finally, I tried a River Runt and cast the shoreline. I drew a blank. But I suspect it was mostly because the fish were deeper.
This experience led me to believe that though the name changed from plugs to crankbaits, some things never do.
