6 Deep Diving Crankbait Tips for More Bass
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- Опубліковано 10 жов 2024
- Bass fishing with deep-diving crankbaits is a top way to trigger and locate bass relating to deeper structure and cover. Bob Downey shares 6 overlooked tips for increasing success through bait experimentation, upgrading hooks, boat positioning, and using the optimal rod setup. He catches several fish throughout the video, delivering great viewing fun and solid support for each talking point.
Downey’s 6 Tips for Deep Diving Crankbait Bass Fishing Success:
1. Find good spots. Downey starts by targeting point extensions, humps, and other prominent main lake structures. Use mapping or the naked eye to get you to these spots, and if equipped, put side imaging to work to locate choice areas such as subtle rises, edges, and bottom composition changes such as where rock and gravel meet soft bottom.
2. Boat positioning. Position your boat off of these structures. Avoid driving or drifting over the fish to prevent spooking and dispersing the school (think of it like deer hunting). GPS-enabled trolling motors such as Minn Kota’s Spot-Lock allow you to lock the boat in place, freeing you up to thoroughly fan cast spots and experiment with casting angles and different baits.
3. Bait experimentation. Mix up baits to determine the best color for the spot and time of day. Downey looks for clues by inspecting how the crankbait is positioned in the mouth of each bass. Changes color if you’re getting short strikes or poorly hooking fish, such as lightly hooked on the tail treble or outside their mouth. You know you have the right color tied on if the bass are consistently pinned with both hooks or hooked inside the mouth. Similarly, having multiple crankbaits rigged with different diving depths allows you to work extra depth ranges without re-rigging downtime. Downey likes the Rapala DT lineup as they take the guesswork out of diving depth if you’re using a conventional 10- or 12-pound fluorocarbon or monofilament line.
4. Change hooks. Serious bass anglers are hook snobs - a hook can easily equate to a tournament win and critical points, so it makes sense. While stock hooks are fine for most, there’s no question that premium hooks with characteristics such as heavier wire, different shank lengths, and specialized shapes can improve hooking and landing percentages. And regardless of what hook you use, always pay attention to sharpness, as bottom contact and multiple fish catches dull even the best hooks. Resharpen and replace as necessary to ensure they’re sticky sharp in all situations.
5. Use a longer fiberglass rod. Rod selection is highly subjective, but Downey favors using fiberglass over graphite, as he feels the extra “give,” aka shock absorption, reduces boat side bass surging away from the boat. Why go longer? Adding a few inches to your offshore cranking setup increases your casting distance, ease, and fish-fighting efficiency - you’re not target casting, so why not benefit from these attributes?
6. Choose a slower reel. Resist the hype of using an ultra-fast gear ratio reel. Deep-diving crankbaits are hard pulling, so a lower geared transmission (reel) is the right tool for the job. Downey opts for a reel in the 6.3:1 gear ratio range as the right compromise of power and cranking speed. Moreover, he feels this gear ratio range works the bait at the designed speeds, allowing them to “hunt” through the bottom and trigger more bites.
TACKLE USED (retail links)
• CRANKBAIT - Rapala Dives-To Series, DT-14: wired2.fish/3B...
• TREBLE OPTION 1: VMC Hybrid Treble Hook: wired2.fish/3R...
• TREBLE OPTION 2: VMC Hybrid Treble Short 1x: wired2.fish/3C...
• ROD - St. Croix Mojo Bass Glass Crankbait Casting Rod, 7'4" MH: wired2.fish/3x...
• REEL - Daiwa Tatula Elite Casting Reel, 6.3:1: wired2.fish/3U...
• LINE - Sufix Advance Fluorocarbon, 12-pound: wired2.fish/3q...
FISH FINDER & ELECTRONICS
• FISH FINDER - Humminbird HELIX 10 CHIRP GPS SI+ G4N: wired2.fish/3y...
• 360 SONAR - Humminbird MEGA 360 Imaging for Minn Kota Ultrex: wired2.fish/3v...
• TROLLING MOTOR - Minn Kota Ultrex Trolling Motor: wired2.fish/39...
• PLIERS - Rapala Elite Pliers: wired2.fish/3S...
• SUNGLASSES - Costa Del Mar Corbina: wired2.fish/3m...
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What was old, is new again. Love how that works. I still have a collection of 10 POE's from the 90's. When I marked fish at 20-25 ft.., I would add small pieces of lead tape to them to go even deeper. Won many mid summer tournaments that way. Add even more weight and slow the retrieve for winter time ledge fishing.
Yep, it's all cyclical! Thanks for sharing the deets on your old Poe setup. Solid crankbaits that probably still catch them as good as ever.
4.7 or 5.1 ( with no anti-reverse) for us old school deep crankers.. exceptional feel …..when you were a young buck , 6.1 was super high speed …… Hard to explain to a generation that never experienced no anti - reverse reels….they were outstanding for deep crankbaits. You really had those fish fired up on the DT-14 … Since they no longer make the Bagley DB3, or the Norman DD14. The Rapala DT 14 shines. Rob
Buck Perry was right again!
Deeper digging for the fish produces.
For a video that wasn’t constructed in post-production to be a tutorial, this one offers a good number of tips.
I like the suggestions about hooks, and adjusting brightness of lures as the water stains.
Two other strong points are the ability to know the depth at which your lures run. That is a very useful tool.
The focus on structure, versus “throwing to cover,” is another key point here.
Basically, this is intercepting the fish in their sanctuary areas, before they ever come to the cover we usually look for.
And while electronics has taken the place of active trolling to locate fish, it’s still true that open water and bottom structure situations like this are not comfort zones for the average angler.
This video goes some way to providing encouragement along those lines.
This is a good video to keep in the library. Thank you very much.
David
SC
Our pleasure. We always enjoy hearing from the Buck Perry students out there! His legacy lives on.
Buck perry was not right, '' deeper digging '' does not necessarily always produce fish...and no evidence ever that fish live in and come up from '' sanctuaries ''.
Modern lake fishing is so alien to me, I've never used a fish finder, my dad had one that broke and he never fixed it so it was all by the look of the water. I haven't really lake fished in years, I kayak rivers and creeks mostly. Catch more fish than I ever did on lakes.
It’s a lot of fun , using sides can and topo maps to narrow down ideal offshore spots is like a game or a puzzle that’s always changing based on the fish
Good stuff Bob! 👀 🎣 👊🏼💯🇺🇸
Thanks for the tips my friend!
Great video !! As always !
Thanks Glenn. Bob is a pretty interesting guy to listen too. Lot's of thought behind what he does.
Amazing 👍👍👍😇
Do you guys typically deep crank 1st thing in the morning after the rain ?
If you prefer to use higher speed gear ratios just crank slowly for crankbaits, deep diving crankbaits, and square bills.
The best bass is The peacock bass. Black bass is lasy
It's difficult to burn a crank bait with a low speed reel
Exactly, he was wrong on the reel speed selection. I use a reel with the most efficient speed according the type lure I'm using, like for a no lip crankbait I want a fast reel, for a deep diver I want, of course, a slower reel.
I'm just trying to understand why you keep pumping the rod that's literally how you create leverage for them to throw the hook
Soooo, Change your hooks. Hooks hooks hooks