Entry 142-3
Randy Dearman's Five Favorite Fishing Tactics
Love to Crank
Editor's Note: In 1983, Randy Dearman of Onalaska, Texas, started fishing the BASS circuit and also became a Strike King Pro. According to Dearman, "Strike King was my first sponsor, and I plan to stay with Strike King as long as I'm a professional fisherman. Strike King has always had great products, and over the years, the company has allowed me to help develop products for them. They consistently come up with new products, and I feel fortunate to be able to work with a company like Strike King."
Like the spinner bait, the crankbait is a great search bait. By using different sizes of crankbaits, you can cover plenty of water and many depths of water. Many times I'll use a big, deep-diving crankbait on really-big line in very-shallow water. Heavy-pound-test line will help you float a big spinner bait higher in the water. I've found that you can control the depth to which a crankbait dives to better by changing line, instead of switching the size of the crankbait you're fishing. If you want to get a crankbait down really deep, use 6- to 8-pound-test line. But if you want that same crankbait to swim closer to the surface, use 20- or 30-pound-test line.
My favorite crankbait is the Strike King No. 4 Series, and I like to fish that big crankbait on 10-pound-test line. If I only can pick one color to fish year-round, I'll have to fish the watermelon-shad color. I'll fish this crankbait around any cover that's available, including grass edges. I'll also crash it into wood or bounce it off the rocks.
I use several different types of actions to trigger strikes with crankbaits. On some days, I'll reel the crankbait very fast. Then when it hits the cover, I just keep on reeling. That bait bouncing off the cover and continuing to move gives the bait a very-erratic action that often will cause bass to bite. If that technique doesn't work, I'll bounce the crankbait off the cover, let the crankbait float up some and then start my retrieve again.
There's so many different ways you can fish a crankbait and so many depths where you can fish a crankbait successfully that the crankbait is a very-versatile lure. If you really want to become a versatile bass fisherman, then get you a bag full of various sizes and colors of Strike King's crankbaits, go out onto a lake, and see just how many different ways you can fish those crankbaits.
Determine not to leave the lake until you've fished a crankbait every way it can possibly be fished. If you'll try this learning technique for fishing a crankbait, then when you have an opportunity to fish a crankbait, you can present it in enough different ways that one of those techniques probably will make a bass bite.
Contents:
- Part 1: My Four Most-Favorite Techniques - Flipping
- Part 2: I Still Love a Spinner Bait
- Part 3: Love to Crank
- Part 4: Wanta Add Some Excitement to Your Fishing - Get a Buzz
- Part 5: All It Does Is Catch Bass
