Guys,

I have always heard that your crankbait needs to run perfectly straight to give you the best chance for a strike. After fishing yesterday and watching some shad moving in the shallows, they hardly ever move in a straight line, always zigging and zagging back and forth, sideways etc. I understand that you want your bait to move straight so you will know where it is when you are wanting it to hit some structure that you have located but I sometimes wonder if this is not overblown, that is if your bait slightly tracks to one way or the other will it have a big impact on lack of strikes. I do know that I have had great success by making my crankbaits track way off to one direction so that I can get it completely under floating docks where some feel that you can only access by skipping a bait under it. Just getting some opinions on this.

Guys,

I have always heard that your crankbait needs to run perfectly straight to give you the best chance for a strike. After fishing yesterday and watching some shad moving in the shallows, they hardly ever move in a straight line, always zigging and zagging back and forth, sideways etc. I understand that you want your bait to move straight so you will know where it is when you are wanting it to hit some structure that you have located but I sometimes wonder if this is not overblown, that is if your bait slightly tracks to one way or the other will it have a big impact on lack of strikes. I do know that I have had great success by making my crankbaits track way off to one direction so that I can get it completely under floating docks where some feel that you can only access by skipping a bait under it. Just getting some opinions on this.

It isn't that it needs to run perfectly straight as we all know the erratic action is a great triggering action. When you hear about cranks tracking straight and/or true, it basically means it is running as it was designed without rolloing on its side or consistantly going to one side so much that it basically tumbles once it goes so far. The best action is to have the bait run straight and every so often make a sudden move to the left or right and then come back to normal, this is what they mean when you hear someone talk about a "hunting" action. The reason that type of action works is a lot of times when fishing a crankbait, fish will follow a bit before hitting it, it happens a lot and the fish is following the bait and closing in and then all of a sudden it makes a move quickly darting left or right and I guess the fish thinks it is trying to escape and they hit it, that movement is a great triggering quality and you can make a true tracking bait do that by suddenly speeding up the retrieve for a few seconds.

I agree with the previous post. Crankbaits should run true out of the box for people who just want to use a straight retrieve and because the manufacturers claim they will run true. The angler can then modify it to his preferences, such as the original poster who likes to make them run to one side so as to get them under a dock.