This is the time of year that David Fritts lives for and, naturally, it's a period when crankbaits really shine.
Right now, bass in many parts of the country have finished the spawn and are gradually shifting into summer gear. Everything on the food chain is in full swing, most vegetation is mature (as in thick, but not impenetrable), cold fronts are fewer and less severe, and bass have one last definable urge to feed before settling into their summer patterns. The only problem is finding fish when they're moving around so dang much. Enter the crankbait.
"A lot depends on what area (of the country) you're in, but anytime around the middle of May through the middle of June, the fish start moving out and schooling up on little points and flats," Fritts said. "They're starting to recover fully from the spawn, they're hungry, and a little easier to catch."
He added: "This is when I love to go out and find fish on crankbaits. I take out my (Rapala) DT16 and try to find schools of fish that are moving out onto flats and long points. You never know where they're at. You just have to go out and find them."
At last month's Kentucky Lake FLW, he found enough fish to lead after each of the first 3 days, and if not for a couple of lost heavies on the final day, he may very well have won the tournament (eh finished 4th). Aside from the big fish that came off, he said the lake was about a week or two away from a really good crankbait bite: "I was still catching pre-spawners, so there weren't a lot of fish moving out yet." Nonetheless, when he found them, he caught them, mostly late in the day.
The Ultimate Search Bait
Although some bass will remain in and around shallow cover and structure all summer long, most are moving away from the bank and onto flats, dropoffs, channel ledges and other offshore locales. Some fish are there right now, some are on the way, and some are still shallow much of the time. In any case, it usually takes covering a lot of water to find them.
"There's nothing better than a crankbait to search for fish," Fritts said. "Though it may bypass some fish that a (soft-plastic plastic bait) would catch, it quadruples your effectiveness at covering different depths fast and efficiently. There are days when another bait might catch them better, like a monster worm, an 8-inch lizard, jigs or drop baits. But I always find them with crankbaits first, and then catch them with whatever they want."
Location-wise, he keeps it simple. "I like to attack long, flat points and flats, and usually they're in conjunction with a creek or river channel. I look for cover and bait, and it's usually on the edge of something. I want to find something invisible rather than what everyone can see."
'Finessing' Bites
To no one's surprise, Fritts says that this time of year, he's got a crankbait rod in his hands "at least 80 percent of the time," and can almost always get a fish to hit a crank. But sometimes that takes some serious cajoling.
"I know at Kentucky Lake, a lot of times I would sit there and make 100 casts to one stump before they would bite it," he said. "You've got to trigger the fish into biting. It can be a hundred different things, and a lot of times it's some tiny difference, like the way you move your rod tip or the way you're winding. Sometimes you need to jerk (the bait) a little, stop it, pause it, or wind it slower or faster."
But more than anything, angle is the key: "The fish is looking a certain way and probably isn't moving, so that bait's got to come at him a certain way to make him bite it. (The proper angle) is always different, so you have to move your boat around a little bit, making the same cast but from a different angle until you've hit all sides."
He defies conventional wisdom in that he rarely tries to bump the bottom with his baits, especially during post-spawn/early summer. "Rather than dig into the bottom, I like to hit the high spots," he said. "I definitely catch more off the bottom than on it. It's just the way they get (this time of year). They're looking up and feeding up. It's the way they act when they're bunched up and suspended."
Hook Revolution?
Fritts has always acknowledged that it's easy to miss or lose fish on crankbaits, even for the master himself. He said: "It's almost impossible to get a 100 percent hook-up ratio with crankbaits. Most times, if you get 10 bites you'll catch about 6, if you're lucky. A glass rod may get you 2 more."
But Fritts and VMC have been working on some prototype crankbait hooks that he believes may finally close that gap. "These hooks could be the biggest development in crankbait fishing since the glass rod," he said.
While he couldn't go into too much detail (the hooks aren't yet in mass production), he said the new VMC "Scorpion" treble hook consists of one large hook and two smaller ones – "a 1/0 down in front and No. 4's riding up in the back. The big hook serves to hook a little deeper in the mouth. And if (the fish) hits funny, it'll turn that hook.
"Another thing is, the hooks aren't turned in like most crankbait hooks. Turned hooks do hold fish better, as long as he bites it hard. But if they just knock it or swat at it, you won't catch but one in 10. What we've done is build the best of both worlds," meaning the new hook holds just as well as traditional turned-in hooks, but capitalizes on strikes that turned-in hooks miss.
He used these hooks for the first 3 days at Kentucky Lake, but had lost all of the baits with those hooks by day 4, when he lost a 4 and two 3s, and wound up finishing 4th.
"(The new hook) is a real meat-grabber," he said. "I'm always trying to find ways to keep fish on a crankbait, and this may be the best thing I've ever created."
Gear Notes
Fritts' cranking gear consists of:
> Rods – American Rodsmiths 100 percent E-glass rods in 7, 7'6", and 7'11". ("They're the same rods that Fenwick used to make," he said.)
> Reels – Bass Pro Shops David Fritts Signature Series, 4.7:1 ratio. ("At 21 inches per turn, it's dead on for how I like to wind it, which is medium to medium-fast. I don't burn it and I don't let it float. You've got to pull it fast enough to feel it."
> Line – Rapala Crankbait Line in 10- and 12-pound test. ("It's a low-stretch copolymer that's really sensitive, and it's got a really tough shell. Unless I'm around a lot of rocks, I can go all day without retying."
> Baits – Rapala DT ("Dives To") Series, which he designed.
