Over the weekend I fished a new lake and forced myself to use crankbaits almost exclusively. I had a couple of KVD 1.5, and a few cheaper Rebel square bills. I did ok, and caught 11 bass between 1 and 2.5 lbs. while fishing the KVDs I had no problems, but I had to keep turning the eyes on the Rebels to keep them straight. Have any of you had this problem? I'm probably going to buy several more KVDs in various sizes instead of going as cheap as possible. Also does anyone here use BPS crankbaits? If so how are they?

I buy other brands but think BPS has been trying to upgrade their crankbaits lately.  The problem you run into is that their crankbaits are mostly made in China and Chinese fishing products have lots of variability in performance unless the buyer applies a demanding level of quality control - which BPS has not always done.  Not saying that some of the BPS crankbait models are not good lures - I'm sure some are.  But personally, I'm not going to sift through the chaff to get to the wheat -  life is too short and fishing time is too valuable to waste.

That's the way I'm thinking as well. After every fish, and almost every cast with the cheaper crankbaits I had to "tune" them. I did learn a lot though, and I'm not afraid to throw them into cover now.

My KVD 1.5 is my secret weapon. I got a Rebel crank in the dollar bin at Walmart and thing is a joke. Runs like crap no matter what I did to it.

BPS' XPS crankbaits are a good bargain, from wake to 15ft depths they perform and have a good amount of colors to choose from

My KVD 1.5 is my secret weapon. I got a Rebel crank in the dollar bin at Walmart and thing is a joke. Runs like crap no matter what I did to it.

 

Haha same here.  I bought 2 of the Rebels and it was horrible.  The BPS square cranks are better than the rebels but not even close to the KVD in my opinion.  The KVDs are like are like Barry Sanders zigging and zagging, the BPS cranks is like a drunk guy running from the cops.  The Rebels are like a blind drunk guy running from the cops.

Lol revival, nicely put! I'll never buy rebel crankbaits again.

There's a reason I carry a needle nose pliers in my tackle box. I find that the harder hitting fish can actually ruin any crankbait action. On slow days I also take a break the check & tune cranks to make sure they run there best. I always stop and return the erract ones as I fish them.

 

My favorite cranks are the bomber ones. Second are the Mann's. I been purchasing lately the ones from eBay just to test them out for quality. There colors and paint jobs are different. Some of there colors are printed like the square block camo our army uses but it's in all different colors. I figure fishing the same smaller places the fish do learn my lures. So like a baseball pitcher a change up in what we throw is good.

It's your call.

 

I'm not saying the other cranks don't work but being disabled my fishing time is limited so I kind of stick 

with what works for now. When it gets slow I switch to other lures. I had success with one of the BPS

crankbaits in chartreuse in stained water. Like I posted before sooner or later I see every lure catch fish.

Some just don't have the success right off the bat but it's the water conditions that dictates what we use.

I've had good luck with with the BPS XPS Flat Cranks as well as there super shallow line of cranks. Haven't fished any of the others much yet.

Thanks for the replies y'all, I've really gotten into crankbaits this summer. They've been productive, but I wish I would have learned to use them sooner. I bet I've missed out on a lot of fish!