I read an article on using a heavy weight, swivel, long leader and shallow floating crank to work offshore structure slowly.  Sounds like it would work.  Has anyone had any success with this?

I haven't used a crank but have used an original rapala and a yo-zuri crystal minnow. This works better if you weight the rear end slightly to make it float horizontally instead of nose down.Guess what I'll be doing when I get the bass resource lure relay lure

ok.....so we know who is going to be the first to lose it...lol

I've done it before and had some luck. It was down in about 45 feet of water and with a 1/2 ounce carolina rig. 1st cast caught a 3 lber. Haven't thrown it all that much though, once or twice.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.............

And use a square billed....

My first bass was caught this way when I first started fishing. My first lure was a size 5 Rapala floating minnow and back then I was greener than a dollar bill.  I was trying to figure out how to cast it farther (being shorebound) so I put a weight in front and attached the lure to about a 20" leader.

It wasn't until I started learning more about bass fishing that what I devised was in essence a Carolina rig. It works, no doubt.

X2 on the Shhhhhh.

Size 5 and 7 floating rapala minnows work great for this...  expect some fouled casts.  I wild roundhouse/side arm type cast will usually go w/o fouling... just takes a little getting used to.

Also if you have bluff banks- you can parallel them with this and set it on the different ledges.  You can really catch a lot of fish with this technique, if you get near a school.

I believe a version of this rig is our Administrator's "Secret Weapon!"

8-)

i does work, i sorta did the same thing except i used those crimp type bullet weights bout 15-20" in front of a Mann's baby minus crank. i like that crank alot but i wanted it to go deeper cause i was fishing amistad that's why i tried that. then if i wanted to go shallow i just removed the weights. it worked for me in the summer..

I employ an old striper fishermens trick.

I use the old hell bender to get my cranks down deeper.    

Remove the hooks from the old hellbender and replace the front hook with egg sinker, experiement for the best weight set up as to what your trailing with.     Place leader on the back hook with spoon tied on the back.   This is something striperfishermen like to do when trolling.   But works well if you can make long casts, and thats not a problem with my long cranking rods.

   Best way I know of getting a bait down deep and very successfull rig.    

   Your hellbender will get alot of hits, but that spoon trailing will get the job done.

it works well with lipless cranks too.