Baitcasting with Crankbait Lures

Crankbait lures, or fishing plugs as they're also known, are shaped and decorated to look like small baitfish. Their bodies are usually hard-moulded plastic or resin, although some wooden-bodied crankbaits (balsa or a hardwood such as beech) can still be found.

As their name might suggest, crankbaits are intended primarily for use with a baitcasting outfit, although larger versions can also be used effectively as trolling lures.

They're attractive items, often appealing to anglers through their aesthetic appearance rather than their fish-catching design qualities. A wise angler will stick with crankbait lures from a manufacturer he's familiar with, or those recommended by other fishermen.

Construction of Crankbait Lures

The most robust crankbaits will be constructed with the hooks and leader connection points connected together as shown here, rather than having them screwed in individually.

Crankbaits are usually one-piece lures, but some are jointed to provide a tail-wriggling action

Floating/Sinking Diving Crankbait Lures

Whether they float or sink comes down to their buoyancy. Heavier than water, they'll float - and lighter than water, they'll sink. In both cases the diving ability comes from the vane - or lip - that protrudes from the lure's, er, chin. On retrieve the water flows over the lip and pushes the lure deeper below the surface.

Which version you choose will be down to the depth of water you're fishing in. Casting from the shore into shallow water, a floating/diving version will allow you to get the lure to rise - maybe to avoid an obstruction - by slowing down the retrieve rate a little.

The lip will be made of aluminium, stainless steel or clear plastic.

Crankbaits with moulded plastic lips (like the one on the left) won't need adjustment, the lip being more robustly attached to the body of the lure.

Crankbaits with metal vanes (as the lower one) will need occasional adjustment as they can be knocked out of alignment, which will make the lure to run erratically or capsize.

If the lure veers off to one side or the other, gently bend the nose ring to the same side.

Continue to check and adjust until it runs straight and true, taking care not to over-adjust.

Generally, the faster you retrieve the lure the deeper it will dive. The maximum depth the crankbait will achieve is limited by:~

• The angle of the line between the crankbait and the rod tip.

Clearly as the lure gets closer to the rod, this angle will increase and the lure will be pulled up by the rod by a greater force than the lip is forcing it down.

• The size and shape of the lip.

A Deep Diving Crankbait
more details ...

The greater its surface area the more force it will exert, and the closer the lip is to the horizontal the deeper it will dive.

So deep diving crankbaits will have a large, almost horizontal lip and shallow diving crankbaits will have smaller, steeply raked lips.

Suspending Crankbait Lures

Suspending crankbaits have neutral buoyancy, which means they weigh the same as the volume of water they displace.

The result of this is that they neither sink nor float, but dive to a predetermined depth and stay there - even if you stop the retrieve for a moment or two. A

Many anglers will tell you that this is when most sub-surface predators will strike, with the crankbait suspended motionless just where they'd expect to find it.

Click Here for a selection of Crankbaits ...

Lipless Crankbait Lures

Not all crankbaits have the lip get them below the surface. Lipless crankbaits have three key features:~

• The connecting eye is on top of the lure, which causes the lure to take up a nose-down attitude on the retrieve.


• The top of the crankbait's head is flat which, much in the same way as a lip, forces the lure to dive.


• The have internal weights to make them sink. These are normally steel balls which rattle around an great fish-attracting vibrations.

Topwater Crankbait Lures

These 'Surface Poppers' are lipless unweighted crankbait lures that always operate on the surface.

Their identifying feature is their blunt face which creates the fish-attracting popping, bubbling bow wave.

Yo-Zuri Lures Patented Magnet Weight Transfer System

Yo-Zuri Lures have designed some clever internals which enables exceptionally long casts to be made.

In Tail-First Casting Position ...

Their patented MWTS system uses internal steel balls which take up position toward the back end of the lure which makes it cast tail-first like a bullet.

On splashdown in this position though, the lure would hand tail-down in the water and on retrieval be completely ignored by even the dumbest fish, were it not for Yo-Zuri's ingenious solution.

In Nose-Down Fish-Catching Position ...

Which is? Incorporate a magnet at the front of the crankbait which pulls the balls forward, making the lure take up the usual nose-down, fish-catching position!

Clever stuff!

Jerkbaits

Jerkbaits are crankbaits with a difference. They tend to be longer and slimmer than crank bait fishing lures and are worked in a different way.

Normally used in relatively shallow water, they are retrieved by series of jerks through a hefty sweep of the rod - rather more so than the more delicate twitches that are used to such good effect with some crankbait lures.