How do you know that a fish has taken your bait and you're not just hitting some cover, also how do you know when to set your hook. Will you feel it if so what does it feel like?

Hooksets are free my brother

You just need to go fishing with a crankbait. The strike is decisive and the hookset

can be either a horizontal sweep or simply lifting your rod and reeling quickly. Treble

hooks tend to set themselves.

 

 

Really depends on the fish, sometimes there's a distinct thump other times your line just get heavy or starts swimming to the side. Just need to catch a few fish on them and get the feel.

Most crankbaits will transmit their vibrations up through the rod (assuming you have a half way decent rod) and you will feel it working. If the vibrations stop, and you don't feel much if any weight, you are probably dragging weeds. When you feel the vibrations stop, sweep the rod up which will set the hook if it is a fish. You'll know pretty quickly if it is or not. 

1 hour ago, d-camarena said:

Hooksets are free my brother

Only if you have a lure retriever 

I can tell if its on the front or back treble... 

I'm on a bandit 200 over grass pattern right now on a local lake, you'll just know once you do it enough. I use light wire smallish trebles, and since the rod is loaded somewhat while working the lure, I just reel tight, and its pinned.

I still don't know sometimes. I usually just lean into it if I'm not sure. If it's a fish, I got him, if it's not, maybe I trigger one with the speed change. 

If you watch enough fishing shows you'll even see pros  hesitate and then set the hook because they aren't always sure. Once you get fishing cranks long enough you can feel cover like the bouncing and deflecting off the bottom, it is when the rod loads or when you lose contact with the bait that usually signal a strike. Square bill fishing is fun and it is usually easy to know when you get a strike. You reel the bait at a fast pace and it is banging and bumping the bottom along with rocks and wood and then you get bit, if the fish are active and chasing you won't have a problem detecting a strike, the rod will lunge forward and you can tell it is being pulled away from you. Mid depth and deep cranks can be tricky because you are normally retrieving them slower and a lot of the strikes the rod will just begin to load up as if you are hung up or you are just moving the bait and all of a sudden you can't feel it anymore, in those two instances you need to set the hook. The other thing with cranks that you are moving with a slower pace is to watch your line, a lot of times the fish will track it for a bit and hit it from behind while moving fast toward you, when that happens you see your line go slack, again with the fishing shows you'll often hear a guy say that the fish knocked a ton of slack in the line, that is a clear indicator of a strike and you need to set the hook. That said, you will get a feel for it with experience but even then some strikes aren't clear and you will set the hook on cover of some type or "accidentally" catch a fish when you think you are hung up, it happens to all of use eventually.

My advise to those inexperienced at fishing cranks  is  to only fish one or two baits until they become accustomed to how the bait feels when digging bottom, deflecting off cover, digging into weeds (or better yet when approaching them) and most importantly, exactly how deep they run.  The more you fish with them, the better you get at interpreting the information they transmit up the line to you.  You'll still set the hook into weeds, or wood. Just not on a regular basis. 

Go to the thread at the top of the page "A rare insight into crankbaits " and read the first post .