Chris

The way I look at it which end will the bass see the most of. Which end will draw the most attention from a distance? A sexy body or a flashy tail. ;D Seriously, the body part of the bait is going to have the most color profile than the dash of color by the tail. With the last two colors both can be interchangeable to a degree but without a picture I can only speculate what the perch color would be. If it is natural perch then it would be hard to see in muddy water and chartreuse would be easier to see. A true natural perch color would be best for clear, stained water with the orange giving it just a little flash of color to draw attention. Light green, light green tail would depend on what green they are describing. Watermelon for example would work for clear and stained water. Bright chartreuse is a green and reflects light real well and can be used in stained to muddy water.

Clear water->see-through with a red curly tail Stained water->perch with an orange curly tail Stained water/murky-> light green with a light green curly tail (Chartreuse?)

That is one of my top winter baits. I figured out how productive that bait can be a few years ago. I was fishing in clear water about 40 degrees and I was using it around points. I would count it down and slow reel it for about 5 ft then count it back down a foot then reel it some more and count it back down. When you reel it the lure tends to rise some because of the angle that your reeling the bait so it helps keep the bait down in the zone. The bait also flutters on the fall like a struggling shad. The thing about a countdown lure that is great is that with a regular lure you cast it out and reel it down to a depth. With a countdown lure you just cast the bait and count it down to a depth and most of your cast the lure will be in the depth that you need it. The bait has the same action as the original floater I was using mainly the shad style but the minnow style is just as effective. No, it isn't line diameter sensitive exactly because your not fighting the line to get depth like a regular crankbait. It is like throwing a spinnerbait. You can use it like a crankbait or jerkbait but I would use it like a crankbait in cold water and like a fast moving jerkbait in hot water.

When should you use them? I use crankbaits all year long and there isn't many situations where I can't use a crankbait.

I fish a spider grub like a jig either I pitch it to a spot, swim it through an area, or hop it off the bottom.

I got this lake that I fish that was a forest before they flooded it. I have a real hard time using that bait in that lake because I spend most of my time unsnagging it from a tree. I love the bait the only thing I can figure out that would make that lure snag up as much as it does is the front hook position. I do understand that I am fishing jungle and most people wouldn't throw a crankbait in it but by the same token if I move to the river fishing the edge of the tree's for some reason that lure snags more than other lures that I use. Most lures will hit a log and flip over it this lure glances and sticks it. I have used it in other water that has less cover and I still find myself running down that lure more than other ones. It could very well be that the trick is to speed it up for the impact.

(More stuff) Knock on wood Out of the many ways of presenting a crankbait all anglers will agree that bumping the stump is high on the productivity list of techniques. This is power fishing at its best and with the right gear can put some big fish in the boat. Anytime that you put a lure in a jungle of stumps and snags without the heavy gear to ****** and drag them out you stand a good chance of being left with a lost fish and a broken heart. Most tournament fishermen use 14-20 lb test line to help resist against aberration and beef up to a heavy action rod to give the fishermen the power to help control and move the fish out of the cover. This is not for the faint of heart and if you are worried about loosing your prized crankbait your not going to put the bait where it needs to be to catch fish. You would be amazed how well a bait with six hooks on it will get through cover without snagging if you choose the right bait. The lip style can be critical and having a working knowledge of each lip style can make or break you. What you need to understand is that a square bill has one kick out feature on either side of the lip. When a square bill rams into a stump it will turn and hit the corner of the bill and kick out away from the object. This style is the best for heavy cover. A coffin bill has two kick out features on either side of the lip. When this lip rams into an object the first corner kicks out the bait and the second corner really kicks it out away from an object. This style bill works best on a single stump or object. This bill reacts the most when deflecting off of an object and you don't want to use it in heavy heavy stuff because it will kick out away from one stump and snag into another. A round bill don't have any kick out features unless your using a Fat Free shad style lip. When a round lip crankbait makes contact with cover it will travel the closest to the object to get around it. This is the lip style you want to use for standing timber. The materials that a crankbait is made out of can be factored in also. I have always been a firm believer in using wood crankbaits for wood cover. I like them over plastic mainly because a wood bait will react more that a plastic bait in cover. Wooden baits hunt plastic baits will not. This year try a little wood knocking you might be surprised how effective this technique can be.

(here is the rest of it) You don't want to throw a tight vibrating bait in heavy stained water because bass would have a hard time finding it and it will not stand out. If you ever took a close look at a rattletrap it runs in a straight line but kinda looks like its fighting to stay straight. The bait kinda shifts to the right a little then to the left a little then rights itself. Well, that's the way real shad swims. A live shad doesn't run dead on straight to get anywhere. A crankbait that mimics that same pattern when cranked will displace more water and look like what a bass was born to eat shad. Tight vibrating crankbaits that are just a hair off tune will mimic that same action. Wood baits are the best for this action but some plastic baits can do it to. Lucky Craft BDS, Bandit, and Norman baits are some that I have tuned to mimic that off center action (sometimes its the luck of the draw). Most wood baits do it on their own most of the time without messing with them. Distressed live bait: If you ever watched a shad get spooked you should know that it darts around trying to get away from a would be predator. Shad and other live bait act completely different when they figure out that they are on the dinner plate. They boogie in a random direction to try to get away. Many fishermen try to bounce their bait on the bottom to make it have a random action. This is fine and it works but if you take a wood bait and tune it slightly out of tune your bait will do some wild stuff. You don't need to bounce it off of anything just reel. Some "special crankbaits" will search a good distance right and left. I was fishing one today that when I started my reel it shot right 3 ft then straightened out then shot right and left randomly. The thing about it was each cast the lure acted different. This random action makes your bait different then most of the baits that people throw. They also have a unique vibration pattern that is different from the mechanical action of most plastic baits that the average guys use. The bait acts like a distressed live bait. Foreign: Baits that have a lot of rattle or an odd vibration or action strikes the curiosity of a bass. In some cases it turns the bass off. You need to understand that a bass that lived all of its life in clear water has developed its sight the most because that is what it mainly uses it to feed. By the same token a bass in muddy water bass has developed its hearing the most because it uses it the most to feed. If you take a clear water bass and drop it in a muddy lake it would have a hard time hitting your crankbait with 100% accuracy until it adjusted to the muddy water if it does at all. You need to understand this when you choose your crankbait and the speed you reel it. Lakes that are clear most of the year then a storm muddies it up this is when it is wise to slow down and use more vibration because the bass is still in the clear water mode. Where a bait signature becomes foreign is when you use a wide wobbling lure in clear water. Some bass will be duped by a strange vibration but most will be turned off because it is foreign to the environment. You take that same bait and fish it on an overcast day, over heavy cover or low light and things change. Tuning: (regular baits not wild search baits) A medium and deep bait that is perfectly tuned when you throw it out and point your rod at your lure and reel. When your bait reaches the boat it should run almost under it and the very front of the lip should be what you see as it reaches the surface. It should not run right or left of center at the boat. Some baits take time to tweak to get it right and other baits for whatever reason will never get right and need to be weeded out. A perfectly tuned bait will dive the deepest and vibrate the most when it is tuned correctly. Bait runs right bend the eye left. Bait runs left bend right. It just takes a slight bend in most cases and if it takes a dramatic twist you might want to ditch the bait. Some plastic baits the two halves are not matched up right and will be difficult to tune and would be a good bait to give to your buddy. Some Bandits are like that and I have had some Fatfree shads that way too. Strike detection: When in doubt set the hook! It takes some time to know what weeds feel like and stumps but while your getting the right touch its a good idea to set on anything different. If you have a hard time feeling the strike or the vibration of the bait graphite is a wonderful thing and a glass rod has its place but composite is the best of both worlds. I stuck a fish today that if my line broke I would have thought it was just a stump. Sometimes it is tough to determine a strike so I set the hook on anything. This time it turned out to be a 3 pounder.

A rare insight into crankbait fishing The biggest key to becoming a better crankbait angler is to pay attention to the vibration. Try to block out distractions and tune in to what your bait is doing. Feel the vibrations the whole cast and retrieve. Use the force! Concentrate on the vibration and keep a positive attitude. The more you pay complete attention to the steady vibration of the bait the easier you can detect a difference or change in the vibration. You can tell when your bait comes in contact with cover or when its about to. You can feel the rush of water that means a fish just rolled on your bait. Sometimes you just loose the vibration which means the fish has your lure or when you feel slack. Most strikes are not bone jarring but a slight difference in the vibration and almost feels like an interruption in the vibration. Most guys say well with a crankbait the fish hook themselves. Well, unless you spend hours sharpening your hooks and if the bass turns with your bait more than likely your missing fish. If you do not react to the strike you can have the sharpest hooks but guess what they can still spit it. You don't set the hook like a jig or worm but I sweep my rod to gather any slack and line stretch just that tension is enough to drive the hook but if your sitting there waiting for the fish to hook themselves your going to be waiting a long time. If your using a dead pulling crankbait where all you feel is the pull and not the vibration you will never feel the difference in vibration and will never have a clue how many fish hit and spit your bait. Color is a factor to what bait to use in what water color or clarity but your first step should always be vibration. Depth control, lip style, line size all need to be factored in also. When figuring out what retrieve to use I try to make an educated guess of what I think the activity level of the bass should be then tweak the way you work the bait as you learn more through the day. I feel that a single rattle or no rattle work best because it gives a bass more of a direction of where the bait is. Sound from rattles kinda spreads out and doesn't give much of a direction just an are of noise but vibration gives more of a pinpoint direction. Baits with tons of rattles in them call bass from an area and in clear water to slightly stained water can be very effective. You need to understand that rattle noise and vibration are two separate things. You can't put them in the same category. Vibration gives a pinpoint direction and rattles give a general direction. Rod position will effect the depth of your bait and will change the amount of feel you have. I try to point my rod to my bait and as the bait runs deeper follow it with my rod. If I keep my rod high it will loose depth if you point your rod to the side you will have a hard time feeling that rush of water I was talking about. Casting distance will effect the amount of room the bait has to reach its deepest running depth. Its kinda a game of angles if you get good at it you can hit structure or a depth zone with some consistency. Different lures that are identical will have different running depths so you need to play with them to figure out what depth they run. The depth on the lure package in most cases is an average running depth. Lur Jenson and DT lures are the few that have an accurate running depth not an average but always factor in casting distance and how much running room your bait has to reach that depth. A Bill Norman bait kinda slowly works its way to the depth and about when the bait reaches the boat is the max depth it will run. It took most of the cast distance to work down to that depth. As a bait gets close to the boat it looses depth and starts working its way to the surface. So if I make a long cast with this bait and reel it in about 30 feet out away from my boat is the max depth that bait will run. The DT baits are different because it digs as soon as you start reeling and in a short distance gains depth. Most baits don't do that and take more running room to reach the same depth. The wider the wobble the more resistance the bait has and the less depth the bait can go. It just takes them longer to get there and may not reach the depth they have marked on them unless you cast them a mile. For a bait to dive deep quick it needs to have a tight action. You have the floatation of the bait fighting the lip that's trying to make it dive. You also have the wide wiggle that puts up resistance. Your line is adding floatation to your lure. Some line by itself floats and the resistance of the line cutting through the water cuts down on how deep the bait will go. Colors lol well let me put it to you this way most bass grab a bait from under it or behind it. (look at the bass in my picture what do you think the last color it saw before it hit that bait and notice the location it hit that bait) The belly color and the colors viewed from behind is the most important. Bet you never thought about it that way huh. The back color only comes into play when the bait is plowing the bottom like a crawfish. The sides only come into play in clear water (flash)or when the bait deflects off of cover and turns the bait so that the sun reflects off of the side color. A lot of the neat finishes that crankbaits have unless there is enough light to reflect off of it (which means the bait needs to tilt to the sun to reflect with the right mechanical action already in the bait) or if the bait glances off of something to reflect the light they serve no purpose other than they look pretty. If the bait doesn't reflect off of the sun the color appears dull or a shadow. Crawfish colors for bottom bouncing lures and shad or yellow for anything not hitting the bottom. Clear water flash comes into play. If the lake has shad I throw shad baits if there is a lot of bluegills then I try to match it. Dirty water bright or dark colors because your dealing more in shapes and vibration. Super clear water I fish more chrome colors. If I am fishing a place that has shiners then gold works. Shiners in stained water or heavy stained water appear yellow or dark or white depending on the amount of stain the water has. In spring red because it looks like a bluegill and they are the first to move to the shore after ice out. You can put a ton of thought in colors and styles if you want but really it boils down to the vibration and the way a bass views the colors before they hit your bait. Most of the time a bass just sees an opportunity to feed and if its the right size it has been feeding on it hits it. Spend more time on vibration and depth control than pinning down a new color that nobody has. You will get a headache. There are times like after a hatch that you need to match the size and general color of the hatch or if there is alot of stain in the water you need to use a brighter color but most of the time a basic color selection and a good selection of different kinds of vibration is the key. There is a lot of times I use odd colors for the wrong clarity of the water and still catch a bunch of fish because I match the right vibration to the right clarity of the water. Color is important when they can see it but vibration is top on my list. Bait signature is the vibration and water displacement that every bait has. The more water a bait displaces the greater the bait signature. This means the more water displacement the better a bass can find your bait in low visibility. This is important in choosing the right vibration with the right water clarity. I always label lures in three main categories tight wiggle medium and wide. Tight wiggle baits are for clear water because bass feed mainly by sight not sound or vibration. Medium wiggle baits I use for clear to stained water and wide wiggle baits are for stained to muddy. I do this because the less distance a bass can see under water the more a bass uses its hearing.

You need to understand where I am going with this. Some baits are great for slamming into standing timber or docks. The same bait may not be the best bait to root around on the bottom or places that look like a beaver hut. With the RC, Fat CB BDS, the front hook hanger is in the upper part of the curve of the belly. By placing it there the hook will naturally hang parallel to the bottom when you run the bait. When the bait smacks log the nose will dip and the hook will be exposed and not protected by the body of the lure. When you run it over a log the bill will not kick the bait enough to clear the hook and it will snag. You take the same bait to a dock or standing timber and the body and bill will deflect of the cover no problem. That was kinda why I was saying look at what your thowing in and figure out which lure would be best. I hope you understand what I am trying to explain.

I use pork trailers when the water is cold. I feel that the fish will hold the bait longer because it feels real and has salt. Plastic in cold water tends to be stiff and pork chunk will stay flexible. Some of the newer pork chunks really float and I use it to slow down the fall of the bait. I tend to cut the front part of the chunk so that it looks more wedge shape this helps give the chunk more action and I have more of a gap between the hook and chunk. In most cases I can use the same chunk the whole day with proper care.

Body design, if the bait is properly tuned, hook, lip shape/width, hook placement, and wiggle pattern is what makes a crankbait deflect off cover the best. Body design- round..the round body helps shield the hooks while they swing. tuned- If the bait is off it will tilt the bait when it strikes the cover and hang up hook- triple grip hooks because the point is tilted toward the shank tends not to hang as much as a round bend. Lip shape/width-the wider the lip the more it acts like a weedguard. a square bill tends to work best in heavy cover because it only has one kick out point. a round bill tend to strike the target and move around it real close to it. A coffin bill will strike the target and kick way out away from the target which isn't good in heavy cover because it will shoot itself into another branch. A bill with a simi round front and squared off sides is a happy medium to the round bill and square. Wiggle pattern- a wide wiggle tends to fling the hooks wildly from side to side and tends to latch onto things. A medium wiggle tend to be best. Hook placement-If the front hook is placed to forward it will cause the point to be exposed to anything that the lure tries to work itself over. Wood- I tend to throw wood baits the most around heavy wood and weed cover mainly because it tend to react to the cover better and hangs less. Hard rock or if I am going to just drag the bottom I tend to use plastic. RC crankbait is a good crankbait but because the front hook is forward your going to hang it a lot. I never down size my hooks ever. I don't because it will change the action of the bait or your not going to have enough gap to pin a good fish and you will be sorry. I do not like a thin bait, or a bait that has a short and small bill in heavy cover. The reason is because both do not have the deflection qualities. DT is another good bait but because of the thin design it is not a heavy cover bait. The thin DT's are the same way even if the bait has a coffin bill the bait is designed to run to a depth and strike a lone target. If you take the same bait to any heavy wood because of the thin design the body will not shield the bait and it will hang up on every branch of the tree. There is more to it then just lip shape. Try to use the things I listed above to make good decisions on which bait to choose and not just the name or the price tag. You would be better off in the long run and you will be able to just look at the bait and figure out if it is the right bait for you or the cover your fishing. On a side note: Whittler is about to come out with a shallow runner that is a class A bait in cover. We both have been tweaking this bait for the past year to get it perfect. I think this latest design I got yesterday is the best design yet. It employs everything I want in a shallow crankbait. This is the only bait I own that will serge forward almost like it is pecking something while still being a fantastic search bait (the bait will dart to one side or the other then right itself). What this means is that the bait has a lot of action and acts alive with random motion and will displace more water than a typical crankbait. A bait that surges looks like a minnow trying to fight a heavy current.

I sure do.. I don't plain when I fish or not by them but I do try to frame my day around it. If the activity level is going to be high I try to be in areas that I might produce larger fish.

You make your cast and then point the rod to the water. You reel up till you have simi slack line and you jerk the rod. Each time you jerk the lure will dart to one side take up some of the slack and jerk the rod again on simi slack line.

There is a color-rite dip, or you can use a powder paint.

Clipper, go buy yourself a few Hildebrandt inline spinners they are just a blade with clip on it. Take the thing apart and flip the blade and put the brass bead on the other side. Now bend a ring on the end of the spinnerbait arm and just clip the thing on the end. Now make up another one and clip it to the end of the other one. Make up a bunch with the different size blades that you use and then switch them out whenever you want. These things just reverse everything. http://www.yakimabait.com/catalog/home.php?cat=282&sort=orderby&sort_direction=0&page=2

Well, I hope you got deep pockets : I think the minimum order for custom colors is 10,000 regular colors is 1,000 plasticlures.com <-this is the company that pours that lure for other companies

What you need to do in clear water is just back away from your target that you want to fish. If your right on top of your fish adjust your trolling speed to slow or just fast enough to get by on. If you are fishing heavy thick cover the fish are not move much because they will feel safe but the strike zone will be small. In stained to muddy water I wouldn't worry about it much unless you tend to bang the prop on the bottom a lot. Try to fish in front of the boat and not to the side if your just buzzing around with crankbaits or other moving baits. When you have a small body of water a noisy trolling motor is either going to make the fish hunker down in cover or head for an escape route to deep water. If you back off in the deeper water casting to the shallow areas your not going to bug the fish that much. If your trolling motor has a small ninja prop change it to a normal sized prop because it takes less power to move the boat. If all else fails position your boat and drift through the area. If the area is real shallow invest in a push pole.

Haven't we seen these in Wal-mart about 15-20 years ago for about 5 bucks a piece. Yep same bait different person pushing it. Back then they had the shad body with the chugger mouth. The creator of that bait had it on a fishing show many years ago. He said to take the tail and bend one side of the fin down and the other side up. He said that when you do this the lure with either spin or create several rings on the water. He got the idea after seeing a shiner spinning around on top flopping around after a bass tried to smack it. He figured if he could make a lure that could act like an injured baitfish that it would be a great lure. It never had much of a following 15-20 years ago. I guess Chuck has reinvested in the company and trying to make a go at it. The lure looks cheesy but it isn't that bad of a lure. I never liked it because you had to really jerk the thing to get it to pull the string and when you had a strike you have a problem with loose line. I have never caught a bass on the lure and gave it to a fishing partner. He took it to the stick marsh and when I got it back most of the paint was gone.

That zipper bait I mainly just flip the bait or work it on the bottom like a worm, when you hop the bait you can feel the paddle real well. You can also buzz weed flats with it rigged Texas with a weight to keep it down or stick it on a jighead and swim it. It is a good bait to flip in floating weeds and yo yo or hop it sharply and let it fall then pitch it to another spot. The ribs on the bait puts off pressure waves that other baits can't. It makes the bass think it is eating something bigger than it is and also displaces more water so a bass can find it in muddy water. If you peg the beaver craw with a flipping weight the claws float up when it is sitting on the bottom make sure you use it in the spring on beds Another thing, because the lure floats you can counter balance it with the weight and really control the fall rate to real slow. This works well when you have cold fronts or just cold water in general. The beaverbug is the same way the appendages float up at rest. Wait till you try them on a Carolina rig. The frog and the paddle zip when you are done with it, use it as a spinnerbait trailer or a swimming jig trailer.

Fish it in clear to stained water it should work fine.

That's fantastic Avid. I am glad your back in the saddle again. I kinda like that frog myself it is kinda cool. Those other baits I have been smacking fish with them most of the year. I just never said much about them

A spinnerbait company wanted me to come up with a new design concept.

I like to use white or chartreuse blades in cloudy conditions or low light. I also like to use black blades, chartreuse, or a combo of black and orange in muddy water. The idea with colored blades is that when there isn't enough light to reflect off of the blades the painted blades show up better.

Do you choose a spinnerbait by the shape of the head? By the size of the wire? By hook? If the bait has a trailer keeper or not?