Finesse Cranking Fussy Largemouth

By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan

When largemouth get tight-lipped, there seems to be a natural tendency for anglers to downsize their soft plastics. Just as finesse strategies apply when casting, flipping or pitching plastics, the same is also true when winding a crankbait. The allure of finesse cranking in cold water is that it requires the angler to taunt the fish into striking instead of giving it a chance to decide.

Greg Hackney, the 2014 Elite Series Angler of the Year and former Forrest Wood Cup champion, has finesse-cranked since before his days on the Bassmaster circuit. Anglers such as Hackney, Ott DeFoe, and Brandon Palaniuk have diversified their game fishing niche plugs, realizing that under difficult conditions, key fish can be fooled. FLW Tour veteran Wesley Strader is also so taken with finesse plugging that he went ahead and designed one.

Hack Focuses on Depth

Hackney knows the only way he’s going to get bit during certain times of the year is by finesse cranking.

In the early spring, after it warms up and the largemouth get aggressive, a severe cold front can blow through for a few days, slowing the bite considerably – much like the effect the dead of winter has on bass.

Hackney says the natural action of the Strike King Lucky Shad can entice the most reluctant fish to bite. A lipless bait isn’t an option – a slow retrieve won’t work – nor does it exhibit the triggering qualities of the Lucky Shad, which is built with a subtle internal rattle.

“Many times you’re hitting bottom or a stump, and the only time you get much rattle out of it is when you deflect it off something,” he said. “It’s another key deal for getting those fish to bite.”

He’s cranked hydrilla and coon tail at Toledo Bend and caught them at Sam Rayburn when a cold front dropped the water temps from 50 degrees to 45 and ruined the lipless bite.

“There’ll be 10 guys throwing lipless cranks and not getting a bite and I’ll just light them up,” he said.

He’s caught fish, depending on the lake, anywhere from 60 down to 35-degree water temperature.

“It has such a unique wobble that it really mimics the action of a shad or baitfish when the water is that cold,” Hackney added.

Natural shad is his favorite color – it has the actual imprint of a shad body on the bait.

During late winter and early spring, highland reservoirs experience drawdowns, meaning much of the productive shallow cover is on shore. In those scenarios, Hackney seeks out channel swings, creek channels, a bluff or a ditch where those fish have access to deep water but are semi-suspended close to the shoreline. Sometimes he’ll even retreat as “far back in the creek as the last deep water kisses in on something.”

Using Garmin Panoptix, he’ll track down suspended fish or find brush piles, stumps or schools of shad.

“I can look down a creek ditch and see if there are fish suspended in it and how deep they are,” he said. “My LakeVü Map inside my Garmin units, once I find the right bottom contour, I can pattern it all over the lake.”

Once those fish exit the creeks, Hackney looks for another group that have moved up even shallower in February than they did in December mainly because the water is so cold, so deep, that it hits the mid-30s throughout.

A bright, sunny day might slightly warm the surface temp enough to entice those fish on bottom in 38 feet of water to move up. He rarely targets structure. Most often it's a water depth with access to deep water.

“Many times, fish relate to cover when they’re aggressive and setting up to ambush,” Hackney said. “During winter, their mindset isn’t to eat. Largemouth can go months without eating because they fed up all fall.”

Hackney believes largemouth suspend during this time of year in search of better water quality, especially when the sun is overhead and the wind non-existent.

The 2016 Bassmaster Classic taught him a cruel lesson. During practice, he never caught a fish more than 3 feet down in the water column. The water was dirty and 36 degrees the first day of practice.

“They got high because the conditions were better and to warm themselves,” he said.

He’d been catching fish on an out-of-production flat-sided crank. The Lucky Shad ran too deep and heavier line deadened its action. In practice, he’d caught his fish on 12-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon but switched to 10-pound for the first two days of competition hoping to trigger more bites. He was wrong.

“I went back to 12 the last day and I caught them to death,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I fished under them before that. In cold water, you need to hit them on the head.”

Hackney uses a medium retrieve, but slows down in dirtier water. In clear water, his goal is to annoy non-feeding fish into biting.

A 7-foot medium-action Quantum Tour KVD cranking rod paired with a Quantum Smoke HD200 (6.6:1 ratio) and 8- to 12-pound Gamma Edge is his preferred tackle for this technique. The Smoke HD’s wider spool launches the lighter bait well, holds more line and keeps the gear ratio high even when he is deeper into the spool.

The quicker gear ratio helps hook fish that are swimming at him. If he dropped down, he’s not sure he’d hook much of anything. Largemouth don't eat the bait well in cold water.

“The water is super cold and their body is hard as a rock,” he noted. “Those coming out of warm water, their body is mushy. I want my hooks as sharp as possible. It’s inevitable you’re going to catch some of them outside the mouth.”

Whether he’s fishing a lowland reservoir or a natural lake, all that changes is the habitat.

“I grew up in southeast Arkansas and I crushed them cranking cypress trees in the dead of winter when the water was in the high 30s to low 40s,” he recalled. “Once the water gets much colder than 38, those fish go completely dormant.”

Firetiger hues did not resemble anything living in the system, but worked well in the off-color water.

“When they relate to a piece of wood like that, where I got them pegged, I just keep putting that bait on them,” he said.

Ricocheting the bait off structure, ripping it out of hydrilla or stopping it on a piece of cover, are all tricks Hackney uses to trigger bites.

DeFoe’s Coldwater Wisdom

DeFoe knows the potential that finesse cranking has to put money in his bank account. The technique helped him win the 2011 Elite Series All-Star Championship and place 3rd the following year.

Once the water temperature dips below 55 degrees, it’s prime time.

DeFoe grew up fishing highland reservoirs and classifies lakes like Table Rock in Missouri and Cherokee near his home in Tennessee as such. Kentucky Lake, some of the rivers on the Coosa chain, Ross Barnett Reservoir and Toledo Bend are all lowland type reservoirs. They’re all players.

He’ll target some form of rock like rip-rap, natural rock or rock transitions where it changes from mud to gravel, from gravel to chunk rock or chunk rock to boulders. Finding the sweet spot is key. Whether it be on a transition, a channel swing where a bank goes from a 45- to a 60-degree bank or a 60- to a 90-degree or anywhere those channels are coming in tighter or they’re getting away from the bank, those areas are prime. He won’t fish the whole bank, just the most productive area and try and replicate the setting on his Lakemaster mapping.

Once he’s near the sweet spot, he’ll drop his Minn Kota Ultrex with Humminbird's 360 Imaging to dial in the area as he fishes it.

“In the last few years, it’s taken a lot of my shallow side-imaging time away,” he said. “If you’re idling, you aren’t fishing.”

During the cold-water period, DeFoe believes it is the subdued and natural action of specific crankbaits that draw key bites.

“The way that bait moves through the water, the amount of vibration it has, and for cold water, there has to be a tight wobble,” DeFoe said. “A Rapala Shad Rap is hands down the perfect bait for this.”

He’ll rotate between crawdad and baitfish patterns until he can figure out what food source to best imitate.

If the fish are biting on a craw color, but are hooked on the back hook, in the head or the chin, it tells DeFoe that they aren’t biting it well. Less success with another color tells him that craw is the ticket, it just needs to be tweaked. He’ll hope for a fish to spit up forage in his livewell to get an idea of that. Keeping Sharpie markers handy helps him doctor baits quickly.

Cold-water situations call for a smaller baits, too.

“Those fish aren’t needing a big meal,” he said. “If you upsize that bait, you’ll go from fishing for 10 to 12 bites to two or three bites a day.”

His favorite size is the No. 6 as it casts the best and works best with a little wind. When targeting 3 to 5 feet of water and the water is very still, little wind, or on post-frontal tough days when the bite is tough, the No. 5 can produce giants. The No. 7 is best saved for fish holding deeper in 6 to 8 feet. The larger bill makes casting tricky, though.

DeFoe prefers the original pattern crawdad and shad patterns that he has stashed away. He mentioned the Helsinki Shad has its place, as do the newer colors coming to market. In off-colored water, like he fished at the 2016 Classic on Grand Lake with 4 to 6 inches of visibility in 42-degree water, he threw a No. 5 in the gaudy demon color to put fish in the boat.

With most techniques involving finesse, a spinning set-up is the deal and the finesse crank is no different for DeFoe.

He prefers the smaller spooled Pflueger Patriarch XT 30 series spinning reel because it takes up less line and keeps him from overfishing the bait. A medium retrieve is optimal in 48- to 50-degree water, and he won’t twitch the bait either.

“As you stop reeling, the rod unloads and the bait comes to you with that wiggling action,” he noted. “When you start up again, it comes to you before it starts wiggling again.”

He’ll swap out the stock hooks with VMC 9650 trebles. Not only does it keep the bait from rising quickly but upsizing helps lock-up fish that are slapping at the bait. On a No. 5 Shad Rap, a No. 6 treble hook gets the nod, a No. 6 receives a No. 5 hook, and the No. 7 Shad Rap gets No. 6 hooks.

A 6-foot, 10-inch Fenwick Aetos rod works best for pinpoint casts with a No. 5 while the 7-foot model is great for covering water. In cold water, 8-pound Berkley Trilene XL monofilament line is easier to use and more abrasion-resistant but, two-thirds of the time he’ll use 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon XL.

Palaniuk’s Technical Tricks

When water temps range from the low 40s to mid 50s and the water has a little bit of stain, Palaniuk finesse-cranks.

“It positions the fish a little bit shallower, which helps a lot,” he said. “A little bit of stain is going to make that crankbait seem more realistic.”

Like DeFoe, his first choice is a Rapala Shad Rap.

“Typically, finesse crankbaits that have flatter sides and a more elongated, thinner profile with a thinner bill are going to create a more realistic, subtle action in the colder water,” he said.

When faced with lethargic bass and dirty water, he’ll opt for a Storm Arashi Flat 7.

“It’s a little louder, but still has a fairly subtle, tight action to it, just barely more aggressive,” he added.

Once the water warms up, those fish will push shallow.

“There will be a small area where those fish will be grouped up,” he said. “I’ll look for one bigger boulder, or a laydown, and I’ll pick all those places apart within that area. It can even be where you can see that transition from gravel to mud, chunk rock to gravel, and key on those places.”

Palaniuk knows people typically associate cold-water conditions with slower presentations of soft plastics. He prefers hard baits almost every time.

“The hard-bait bite is better before the soft-plastic bite ever is because of the way the fish are positioned,” he said.

Rocks are a key piece to the puzzle and transitions are also critical. It could be a point with a transition, where grass and rock meet, bigger chunk rock or a pea gravel point. Largemouth will gravitate toward these, especially if there’s quick access to deep water.

“They’ll also sit on that 4- to 7-foot break before it dumps into a creek channel where you have rock transition,” he said.

He’ll use the side-imaging on his Humminbird Onyx 10’s to cover the most water, but will use his 360 to dial in a spot and make precise casts.

“Those fish being more lethargic, the more precise your casts need to be the more you are going to be in the strike zone,” he said.

He’ll cast past the intended target, allowing it time to dive to the bottom and crawl along with a slow, straight retrieve. Bottom contact is key, even if it’s clay.

If he hits a larger boulder, he might slowly pause and keep the line tight so that he can crawl it over one rock and down the other. Mixing up the retrieve can trigger bites.

He’ll fish 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon spooled on an Abu Garcia MGX 30 and paired with a 7-foot medium-action Abu Garcia Ike Delay Series rod. For the larger No. 7 Shad Rap, a baitcaster works best.

Palaniuk will add SuspenDots to manipulate the action of the bait.

“I’ll weight them to the point that the bait barely creeps off the bottom, almost suspending but not quite,” he said. “The further back you place the weight, the more it will kill the action. If you add the weight to the back, then it gets really slow. You can change the weight and the pivot point of the bait where it rotates on the axis.”

He’ll also upsize the front hook to get the plug deeper while doing the same to the rear will make it run shallower and “slow the kick of the bait and act as a longer keel.”

Don’t expect any bone-jarring strikes fishing this way, Palaniuk warns. The bites feel like mush.

“The first fish coming up are pasty, white, pale, and just came up from deep water,” he said. “Those fish just aren’t that aggressive.”

Watch for your rod to load or the line to go suddenly slack. Palaniuk never backs his drag off, should it slip, he feels like he’s losing the ability to drive the hooks all the way.

“A lighter rod takes the brunt of the fish’s power so I can set my drag tighter but I’ll loosen it if need be,” he said.

Strader’s Custom Approach

Strader’s finesse-cranking game plan kicks into action once water temps dip below 60 degrees during the spring and the fall.

“In a cold water fishing deal, I’m targeting rocks because fish tend to gravitate towards rock in the late fall and early spring,” he said. “That is where the radiant heat is from the sun and those rocks hold the most heat.”

Those spots could include creek channel bends, flats with rocks on them, rip-rap, bluff ends, transitional changes and everything in between. Strader is pretty picky when it comes choosing a bait to throw in these scenarios. He’s worked with Phil Hunt, who owns PH Lures, for several years now on the development of new balsa baits.

Strader describes this signature series “W series” crankbaits as a “flat-sided balsa plug with a circuit board bill in it.”

The W1 runs 0 to 4 feet, the W2 through the middle range, and the W3 works the deeper 6- to 10-foot contour lines. Depending on which stage the fish are in – if they are shallower or deeper – dictates lure choice. Sexy shad, Alabama shad, chartreuse coach dog and Louisiana Shad are all great choices in stained water, but clear water means red coach dog gets the nod.

“These crankbaits have a searching action,” Strader said. “They’ll run straight and then they’ll dart left to right. Phil has taken my bait that I’ve used for years and duplicated it and made it available to the public.”

When fish aren’t eating the bait well, he’ll use No. 4 Lazer TroKar round-bend trebles. If they’re chewing, he’ll use an EWG TroKar on the front and round-bend on the rear.

Fishing those baits on a 6-foot, 10-inch Powell Max 3D CB casting rod paired with a Lew’s Magnesium reel with 6.8:1 gearing and spooled with 10-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon, he’ll fish a steady retrieve, citing the bait does most of the work.

The Tennessee River has the flats and drains he needs to make this deal work in the spring. On lakes that don’t have much rock, concentrate on the irregular features. He admitted his baits get hung on wood easily.

His other preferred method for late summer and early fall occurs when the largemouth mood swing is in full effect.

“That’s when the shad are 1 1/4 nches long and the fish are real lethargic,” he said. “There’s an overabundance of baitfish around them.”

He’ll fish the Tiny Hunter PH instead.

“It’s a bitty balsa wood square-bill crankbait and that won’t get hung up in the wood,” he said, noting that the money, chartreuse with brown or black, and shad patterns all work.

He’ll upsize to 12-pound Gamma especially when fishing Kerr Lake, where he’ll make 40 to 50 casts to the same piece of wood for one bite.