I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks as they are my favorite for crankin' up some numbers of good sized bass. I've done very little deep, summer crankin' over the last five years, but I love fishing with cranks.That's why I get so pumped when night time temps start dropping.

Those fish become easier to target with cranks as they will move up in the water column using the less fatiguing baits that run 12ft.-15ft.

My absolute favorite crank for this is a Bomber Fat Free Shad. It dives fairly quickly and just flat out catches fish.  The problem with this bait is that sometimes, it's just too big and I can't get the Jr down past 12ft.  What's a smaller, (around 2in. body) crank that will run at those depths?

I really like the Berkley Dredger. Smaller bodied baits for the depths that they run. It has a tighter wiggle than most other deep divers and less resistance than most others as well.

 

The 14.5 in this HD color is killer. Done really well on smallies.

 

The Strike King 3XD gets down pretty good. 

I mostly use 6th sense Cloud nine series they work great, but do pull hard.  Rapala DT series dive to advertised depths and do not pull as hard.  Spro Rock Crawler is small in size, doesn't wear you out and crushes the fish, but I haven't been able to get one to dive over 12 feet.  I use these and many more.  I haven't found a perfect one yet, but the Bait Monkey wont let me give up the search.

21 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

My absolute favorite crank for this is a Bomber Fat Free Shad. It dives fairly quickly and just flat out catches fish.  The problem with this bait is that sometimes, it's just too big and I can't get the Jr down past 12ft.  What's a smaller, (around 2in. body) crank that will run at those depths?

Can't do anything about the bait size but 

ever think about using Storm SuspenDots & strips to help get, and more importantly Keep, your crankbait down ?

I've been using them with some success for a while now.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Storm_SuspenDots_80_Dots/descpage-SSD.html

Fish Hard

A-Jay

Ever try jacking a crankbait? Put a small Bullet weigh on before tying the crank on, enough weigh to just sink it. Cast, let sink, work it like a slow crank with occasional jerks/rips. I use DD22 to fish in 30' or more. I'm sure something in mid range would work for your depths. 

Adding a weight in front of a crank is something I've been doing since the 60's. We did it to get Rapalas down to the walleye. I started doing it with cranks and a pencil weight  to 'Carolina' rig cranks for trolling,great way to get a small crank to run and stay deep.  Trouble is, I'm not big on trolling and an hour later, I want to pick up something to cast.  I've weighed down cranks also. The thing I don't like about doing that is that they won't back-out of a snag the way they do when they float.

There are a couple of small cranks I've seen that will get down to 12-14ft. The Berkley dredger and the Storm Deep Wart are two I may give a try.

The Dredger 14.5  is small for a crank that dives that deep and not wear you out . If they would just come in  silent model . I plan on going tomorrow and I'll crank some . The Red Eye Shad works real good for me yo-yoing down deep .

Luhr Jensen Hot Lips

i like the dredgers.pretty small for their rated depth. rapala dt 16 seems pretty compact to me too.