Primus

A lot of good choices already mentioned. There are also swimbaits that come in floating topwater versions. A good one to get that is readily available is a 9" MS Slammer, try a twitch and pause or a slow wake. Also. try an 8" or 9" Lunker Punker, think over sized spook bait.

No disrespect but that's what I hope most think. Use a 300 size reel and a swimbait rod and your good to go, I'm very excited about this bait and will definitely plan on stocking up. I would also like to see a 2 oz Red Eye Shad while they are at it. This bait should catch some lunkers.

I also agree that spring & fall are the ideal time to fish these baits but they can be effective at times during the summer. I've done best with the water temp 45 degrees plus but have caught them in colder water. Just about any lipless crank will catch fish and having tried several brands the last few years I have a few go to baits in this lure category .... Strike King Red Eye Shad - It does everything well, as others have mentioned it's great bait to rip off of grass as it flutters on the way down. Spro Aruka Shad - has a knack for attracting the bigger bite, I love their mettalic finishes as they tend to be more durable than most and look fantastic. This bait swims nose down and the standard model weighs 5/8 oz and it's great for slow rolling in deeper water. They also offer a heavier 1 oz model. Sebile Flat Shad- They make an oil filled silent model and painted knocker model. I prefer the oil filled model. This bait will vibrate harder than most and at the slowest speeds. I love the silent bait for fishing in pressured clear water lakes. I have had outings where they have ignored noisier baits but would choke on this bait. You are missing out if you don't have a few of these in my opinion. Rapala Rippin' Rap - The king of the yo yo retrieve in my opinion. It's just ok as a cast and retrieve bait and when I first got the bait I mistakenly dismissed this bait . After reading an In Fisherman article that featured this bait being fished with a rip and pump retrieve I decided to give it another try and I'm glad I did. Very tight wiggle I prefer to fish this on a 7' MH worm rod to feel the bait better. Worked very well when the water was in the mid 40's and out performed the Red Eye Shad for this application. I love the Olive Green Craw color. Xcalibur One Knocker - I prefer the bigger 3/4 or 1 oz models as they are a lot louder than the 1/2 model due to the bigger body have more internal room for the knocking mechanism to resonate. I did well this summer slow rolling the 1 oz model in deeper water, nice change up to give the fish a different look over the swimbaits and lipped deep divers that I would normally use. I did well with this bait early fall with the 3/4 oz model fishing weedy flats & points.This bait seems to attract larger fish than regular lipless baits, I prefer to fish with the water temp 50 plus. The knocking sound seems to be all or nothing with the fish, at times repelling them and at other times a difference maker. Luck Craft RTO - seems to be their answer to the Red Eye Shad as it has similar attributes. Haven't fished it enough to determine if it's a must have, that said their American Shad finish is spectacular looking and much more durable than Strike King's mettalic finished baits which tend to flake off easily. This lure comes with a premium price tag that some might not be willing to pay for since there are high performers already on the market that come with a lower price point. Damiki Tremor 65 - They make both a silent and rattling model. Since most lipless baits already on the market are rattling I picked up the Silent model and have not tried the alternative. This bait performed very well for me this spring as a follow-up bait to the Red Eye Shad. What I did this spring is when fishing weedy flats was to try to catch the more aggressive fish with the noisier bait and make a few more cast in the same area with the silent bait. Worked well at times. Good bait and a worthwhile addition to the tackle box.

I like the Yamamoto D Shad, similar glide to a Super Fluke but it sinks faster.

I like that spinnerbait as well. Another bait that should work well is the S.O.B. Mini Me which is a heavier bait with a more compact profile.

I like Mojarra, Japanese Shad, Bluegill, Sexy Ghost, Sexy Shad & Gold Chartruse if I had to limit it to a few.

Started fishing the Hammer Shad this year, very productive lure and my favorite as well for this application.

This was my first season with this line and I didn't notice anything negative in terms of fraying etc, I also used an 8 lb Suffix Florocarbon leader on 1 rod for weightless Trick Worms etc and on my dropshot rod I used 6 lb Suffix Floro.

The 7'6" handles deep divers like the DD22's & 6XD's with no problem and it does not feel overworked when throwing these baits. If throwing smaller shallow cranks like a Baby 1 Minus, 1/2 oz Traps ,1.5 size squarebills etc I prefer to use the 7' Med action rod. I also use a 3rd Crankin Stick which is a 7' MH model that I have spooled with heavier line, I typically throw large surface cranks like a Deps BuzzJet with this combo or even a small swimbait like Matt's Baby Hard Bluegill.

78Staff I have the 7'6" MH telescopic model and I'm very pleased with it's performance. Even though they list it as Fast action it is not as stiff as the designation implies, it fishes between what you would expect from a MH Graphite worm rod and a fiberglass rod. It has enough backbone to rip it free from most submergent weeds yet has enough give to get the majority of fish to the boat. This is a very good rod for the money.

I've been using 832 Ghost on a couple of my spinning reels and have been very pleased with how it handles. Regarding color it looks more like White to me which is why I fish with an app. 10' Floro leader joined by an Alberto knot. I like it because I can see it a lot better above the water than Green colored braid.

I bought their Bluegill bait a few years back and was not impressed. That said even Lucky Craft has a couple of dogs in their line-up. Saw this bait at a local tackle shop and was looking at the fast sink model which appeared to be a cross between a lipless crankbait & a small swimbait and I was intriqued, that said I'm a little leary of their baits based on my first impression. I'm curious if anyone has fished this enough to give a fair evaluation and what your opinion is regarding this bait .

I would definitely add 1/2 oz football jigs with a doubletail grub trailer to the mix since it's not very weedy. Make a long cast let it settle for at least 20 seconds. Try to rock the jig without moving moving it, then drag it a couple of feet then stop. Repeat until you bring it in to make another cast. There are times when you can slow crawl by continously turning the lure handle, try short hops or even swim it. Vary the presentation until you get bit, the great thing about fishing jigs is that they tend to catch a larger grade of fish. Good luck.

I've been fishing something similar long before In Fisherman publicized it as the Ned Rig. I use a 3" stickworm on a 1/32 or 1/16 gopher tackle mushroomhead with a # 6 Gamakatsu hook. I usually fish it in the summer when faced with those clear sky no wind bluebird days.With the small jighook and slow fall the bait fishes better than you would expect in moderate weed cover. It's a great bait for tough conditions, the other that comes through for me under similar circumstances is a R.I. Smallie Beaver on a 1/16 oz mushroomhead.

Power fishing in general. If I had to narrow it to one bait class it would be crankbaits though swimbaits are certainly playing a more prominent role in my fishing.

Early spring - lipless cranks. Strike King Red Eye shad is one of the better ones. When the water temp is under 50 degrees I like lipless baits that can vibrate at the slow speeds and the Red Eye also swims on the fall. I also like Spro Aruka Shad which is as little heavier and swims with a more nose down attitude making it good choice when I want to slow roll it in deeper water. Craw colors are good in cold water but in the clear waters I fish baitfish colors like ghost etc will also get bit. As the water temp warms and as the fish enter shallow grassy flats I will also throw silent lipless cranks if I'm at a lake that's getting a lot of pressure. Squarebill cranks are definitely in play for me as the water warms and sometimes will outperform lipless cranks. Though I consider a different category of lures I won't go fishing during the prespawn without an arsenal of jerkbaits available. Late spring use cranks here and there but soft plastics / jigs dominate as the spawn approaches. Summer - post spawn / early summer use a lot of squarebills and mid depth cranks like the Wiggle Wart / Rapala DT 10 and other baits. Regarding squarebills my favorite is the Lucky Craft RC 1.5 with the Strike King a close second. If the fish are in shallow vegatation the Mann's Baby 1 minus and the Jackall Cherry zero foot 56 are good choices. Other wake cranks like the Xcalibur model can be very effective. As the summer progresses most of my fishing is done with deep divers. 2 of my favorites are the Strike King 6XD and the Spro Little John DD. Fall - Lipless cranks and Squarebills when the water temp is the 50's . Under that Lipless cranks, I've caught them as low as 43 degress and I'm sure there are some out there who catch them in even cooler water on the right day. Sunday caught some on the Rapala Rippin' Rap with an aggressive stroking retrieve, was very impressed with how this bait performs with this type of presentation. The vibration pattern is between a Red Eye shad and a blade bait. Swims very impressively on the way down. There are other cranks that are a part of my arsenal that I'm probably overlooking right now but these are baits that have worked well for me through the different seasonal windows that I have fished.

The tandem S.O.B.Mini Me is my favorite, best color for is the TJ Special.

Caught 'em in Michigan on 8" hudds, should work in Wisconsin too.

Water temp low 50's shallow cranks especially trap style baits. Will keep throwing the trap style cranks until the water hits the low 40's, that said as it gets colder jigs , bladebaits & tubes will do well if they won't hit the trap.

Love that bait. Berkely used to make a power ring worm that I caught a ton of bass fishing it on the back of a mojo rig. The old version of the Xcalibur Fat Free Fry & Guppy had a version with clear sides with a metallic insert that is an excellent crank. I believe they called it the Advantage series. Glad I still have a couple left.

You want to have both. I generally will use the rattling version more often but there have been times when the silent versions worked much better. I also will start an area that I want to fish with the rattling version and follow-up with a silent version to pick up a couple of extra bites. In my opinion the best silent lipless crank that I've used is the Sebile Flatt Shad, make sure you get the ones filled with mineral oil (these are the silent ones) as the painted versions have a slight knocking sound. App 2 weeks ago fished a clear water natural lake on a windy day and for some reason they were not hitting the rattling baits like the regular Red Eye Shad but were choking on the Flatt Shad. The great thing about this bait is it will vibrate well at low speeds which is important when fishing cold water. Another good bait is the silent version of the Damiki Tremor, it came through for me very well this past spring.

I ordered 6 of them.

Unless your weeds are matted up on the surface you can fish a crank in shallow weedy places. Did very well fishing a shallow weeds in a small clear water natural lake a couple of days ago with the wind blowin' app 25 mph. I was catching them on a Sebile Flatt Shad lipless crank in the 3'-5' depth zone keeping my rod up high and rippin' the bait off of weeds. Found some even bigger fish right next to shallow milfoil clumps in 1-2' of water, using the DT Fat crank and slow crankin' on the surface and watching nice fish come up out the weeds to choke on it. The weeds were barely under the surface. As others mentioned a spinnerbait, swimjig and shallow swimbait are other good options for this scenario. Crankbaits were the ideal choice on this day as many of the fish were scattered along the shoreline and the best option is to cover water. I absolutely love fall fishing for the reason that in early to mid fall they are usually more fish up shallow that will take down moving baits.

Very cool, look forward to trying them.