Summer Bass Crush Crankbaits — Do This

Deep diving crankbaits, one of my favorite ways to fish in the summertime.

Crankbait fishing in the summertime doesn't have to be all deep, but we'll get into that in a minute.

This is John Crews with BassResource, and we're going to give you the skinny on the summertime crankbaits.

Deep down. I mentioned the deep divers, but let's go shallow first.

Shallow in the summertime. Way overlooked. Way overlooked. But here's two ingredients that you need to make that happen. You need stained water and you need baitfish presence just. Because it goes into the summertime does not mean that all the bait fish are going to go out into the main channel or on the main river or the main ledges and you'll be able to deep crank them up. That is not always the case.

A lot of shallower rivers, shallower stained water type reservoirs. You find those areas shallow. That those fish and we can go square billing. Maybe we can go square billing. It's a lot of fun.

This is the Baby Fat John, one of my absolute favorite shallow water crankbaits, and it is. It runs about two feet deep, has a lot of hunting action. In that summertime period, you want something with some hard thump so you can go bigger with your square bills. This is probably my number one option in that summer stained water, shallow water.

We're talking again, we're talking rivers. Tidal rivers way back in creeks, there's fish that don't make that huge migration or huge move out to the main lake. They're gonna they're, they love shallow water. They love living where they live in the backs of these creeks because bait fish are going to be there pretty much all year. This is one of my absolute favorites right here. You can throw it has that good hunting action.

I typically throw it on 14 LB Sunline Crank FC, Cashion Square Bill Rod, Seviin GF model. Real great little combination right here. Just caught a pile of fish. On it, but you want to make sure you have a rod that has some give to it, but our square bill rod, you want to make sure it has enough power. To where you can still, you know, lean into them and get a good hook set, but it's still more of that moderate type action.

So what are we going to look for in that summertime? Isolated wood is really big in that summer. Super shallow lay downs are big bait fish must be present, but just covering a lot of water. It's summertime, the fish are active, they're hungry. You can cover water, make long cast and have a lot of fun. And a lot of times you can go in those super shallow areas in that summer and fish for fish that a lot of anglers are not fishing for so that that part of it can be be a lot of fun.

But let's get back into the deep crankbait fishing. A lot of those bigger fish, they moved out in the brush piles, they moved on to the points. Everybody else loves dinking little tiny worms around, but we're not doing that because we're real men. We're going to throw crankbaits and we're going to make them bite it because crankbaits are an amazing way to trigger bigger bites even in that summertime period.

This is a Spro Outsider crankbait. This is the medium runner, the deep runner, the medium runner, Spro Little John DD 70, the DD 70s, probably my number one choice here. The DD70 I've caught literally thousands of fish on and that is no exaggeration. I've caught hundreds on a single crankbait before. But this is this is a good example of a deeper running crankbait right here.

This is kind of like the the minimum that I would consider a deep crank bait because if you have brush piles that let's say top out and you know like 6 or 8 feet of water, you don't want to throw that 20 foot diving crankbait because you'll just immediately snag it. You want to have something that just touches the top of that crankbait. Or just touches the top of that point sometimes.

This one, this one runs about 7 to 9 feet deep. You could probably get it down to 10 feet, but I'm going to throw that on Crank FC. 10 or 12 LB test 12 is probably my number one. Sometimes you might go down to 10 if you're trying to get that bait really deep. 12 LB Crank FC. I use a lot of it during the summer time and that's why I'm going to have it on the deep crankbait rod. Make a really long cast, 7 foot 10 inch rod that longer rod helps you cast that deeper crankbait further, and then you want to have a good smooth casting reel. This is the Seviin GS model, 7.3 to 1.

I like that faster gear ratio in the summertime because you were trying to trigger strikes, whether you're banging it on the bottom on that point or on that ledge, or you're smacking it into that brush pile.

The summertime crankbait fishing, I'll just put it to you this way. It is a game of speed and what I mean by that. Is that in that summertime period you want to you want to have that crankbait going as fast as possible. But try not to get hung up because if you crank around like 100 miles an hour all the time, you will stay hung up all of the time.

The key is to pay attention to what that crankbait is doing as you're reeling it. Because the second that you feel, because you'll, if you're paying attention to your good fluorocarbon, you can feel the cover hit your line before it hits the bait. Most of the time that's what you'll feel. You'll feel something. A little spongy right before the bait and if you do you think, oh hold on, you've slowed up just. Just a little bit, let that crank bait kind of slow down. Just stop just a little bit. You can bang it through that, still bang it through that cover, but not hang it up.

And that's the game fast as possible. You're going to trigger more bites. You're going to just trigger so many more fish. It's crazy. It is absolutely crazy how many more fish that you're going to catch.

I'll tell you one quick story on on doing that. I was filming a TV show with a good friend, Charlie Ingram, and I was that we found the school. Fish Kentucky Lake Classic deep cranking spot. I had figured out that you have to crank really fast on these fish to get them to bite. So I thought it was funny. I caught like eight in a row. Charlie had not gotten a bite. We're throwing the exact same bait. And then finally I was like, all right, I'll let Charlie in on the deal. I'm like, Charlie, you gotta speed it up. And he said what I was like, throw the crankbait out there, get it to the bottom and then crank it as basically as fast as you can.

And he looked at me with, you know, kind of cocked his head. He's. Really. And I said, yeah, do it. Not kidding you. First cast throws out there, gets it down. I said, now you're down at the bottom. I said, now speed it up. They speed it up like that. And then all of a sudden it just stopped. He goes, Oh my God, I got one! Sure enough, he we, you know, we went fish for fish the rest of the day after that. But I did have a little fun with him because I had him down 8 to nothing starting off.

But that is a perfect example of speed triggering those summertime bass on those deep crank places. But you take those tips, go out there and catch you a bunch of bass in the summertime because it is a lot of fun.