Fishing tip of the week

Fishing Tip of the Week

Wednesday, 30 April 2025 09:15

Crankbaits have a Downside
by Mike Gerry

Crankbaits can be some of the best and most fun baits to fish with, they ignite the bite, the fish generally crush the bait with an aggressive reaction bite and it’s a fun bait to fish as it generally causes fish to school up and compete over the bait. There is a downside however as many of us have lost fish on a crankbait for various reasons as they generally choke the bait down deep and it causes nicks and tears in your fluorocarbon line forcing you to have to re-tie after every caught fish; if you don’t your line probably breaks, and you not only lose the fish
but you lose an expensive crank bait.

Another reason that many fishermen lose fish on a crankbait is your drag setting, I know many fishermen believe that if you tighten down your drag to much while fishing a crank bait
it will cause you to have a fish get off. I contend just the opposite; tightening your drag is the only way to keep in contact with the fish if it jumps or changes direction while retrieving the fish. If you think about how a drag works on a reel its mainly a delaying tactic for your reel to slow the fish down, but the delay in the drag can give the fish a split second of relief from the hooks and when the fish turns or jumps it causes the fish crankbait to release from the fish where if you had constant pressure it might have stayed hooked.

I also believe that the hook set can cause you to lose a fish on a crankbait. Most people that are inexperienced will revert to an upward hookset because that is how you hook a fish on soft plastic. A crankbait, however, is made differently and it does not turn the hooks up to the top of the mouth the way a worm hook does. If you set the hook upward, you’re actually driving the back side of the crank bait where there is no hooks into the mouth of the fish and removing the hooks from hooking the fish. So, set the hook sideways so you drive the hooks into the mouth and not the back side of the bait. Be smart, be creative and don’t lose fish with mistakes!

Captain Mike