Although there are hundreds of crankbaits in the market, there are 3 main categories that ALL of these crankbaits can be classified into. Each style of crankbait has a specific action and purpose, so Benjamin breaks down each style and where they'll all perform best!

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Video transcript:

What is going on everyone, my name is Benjamin Nowak with MONSTERBASS. In today's video, we're going to talk about the three different types of crankbaits. Now if you go to Bass Pro Shops, Cabelas, wherever you buy your tackle from, you're going to go to the crankbait aisle and you're going to notice that there are hundreds of different crankbaits to choose from. But all of those baits fall into one of these three categories. And I'm going to go over how to fish these baits and where they're going to be most successful so that you guys can be effective on the water.

The first one we're going to talk about is a lipless crankbait. Now, now by virtue of the name, there is no lip on this crank crankbait, there is no bill that comes off the front of this bait. So you would say to yourself or assume that since there is no bill, this is going to dive the shallowest.  That's actually not true. The depth of this bait is controlled by the retrieve that you put on it. It weighs one half of an ounce. So if you choose not to retrieve it right away, it's going to dive at a certain speed so it's going to fall into the water column at whatever depth you choose to retrieve the bait.  This is nice in some situations, because you can either fish it on the bottom, you can fish it up in the water column, or you can fish in mid column depending on how quickly or the way that you want to retrieve this bait. You can let it sink and yo-yo it use like a pop retrieve to keep it up above the grass, you can let it bury down in the grass and rip free - there's a ton of different ways to fish this bait.

Of the crankbaits, lipless crankbaits are probably the most versatile. There's so many different ways that you can fish this bait. Now, this is the most iconic lipless crank bed on the market. It's a Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap. You'll hear people call all these lipless crankbaits “traps” and it's because of this Bill Lewis rattle trap right here. The Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap gave all lipless crankbaits the stigma of being a trap. That is what this bait is right here. So lipless crankbaits by virtue of the way this bass sinks are the most versatile crankbait style on the market.

Now, if you want a bait that's going to have a set diving depth, you're going to want a bait with a bill on it like this one right here.  This is called a square bill because if you look at the front of that bait, it has a square shape to bill on it, but it's a shallow diving bait because of the bill of this bait is so short and it's at a very shallow angle.

It's going to dive relatively shallow as well. This bait, here's a Strike King KVD 2.5 crankbait. It's gonna dive about five feet of water. Now what's nice about these baits is because they have that square bill and the flat face, it's going to deflect over cover really well. It's also extremely buoyant. What that means is when it bounces into cover, you can stop your retrieve. It's going to back up and it's going to float up out of cover because it's so lightweight because there's so much air inside the body of this bait. It's going to want to float up out of cover really well. Now, this is a plastic or ABS style body, but you also have balsa bodies like this right here, which is a Rapala DT 10 and that balsa bait is actually going to be more buoyant than these airtight bodies, but regardless, squarebills are meant to be fished in and around cover.

If you want to fish shallow water, you go with a square bill because you can deflect off various types of cover.

Let’s make a point about body shape. Here are two different square bill crankbaits. If you'll notice, however, this crankbait here has a rounder body than the crankbait in my left hand on your right. This is a 6th Sense Lures flat sided crankbait - because of the flat sides, it's actually going to have a tighter wobble than your standard round body crankbait. Now this is something that is true for all style of baits. The flatter the sides, the flatter the body, the tighter the action is going to be coming through the water.

So this is going to be a really wide hunting action versus the flat side is going to be a tighter wobble, gonna stay truer, straighter coming back to the boat.

Finally, we're going to go to the last probably the most common style of crankbait and that is a medium or deep diving build crankbait with a round bill. These baits are going to get down to depth because of this bill. Now a lot of them float. There are some that have metal chips in the in the nose that are going to help this bait dive, but essentially when you cast this bait out, it's going to dive to a certain depth based on the line size and the length of the bill. And so you're going to choose a bait off of the shelf designed or based on how deep you want to fish that bait.

So if you want to fish 10 foot of water, you're gonna find a billed bait that dives to that depth of water, 15 foot of water, same thing, all the way up to like 25 to 30 foot of water. They have crankbaits with bills big enough to dive to those depths now in the market.

So you have your three types, your standard round bill crankbait, a square bill crankbait for fishing, shallower water, heavier cover, and a lipless crankbait, which is going to come through grass really well - super versatile, you can fish it in all types of the water column depending on your retrieve. So those are the three basic types of crankbaits on the market that all crankbaits fall into.

If you guys have any questions or comments, please let us know in the comment section below and I’ll be responding to each of those personally. And if you're not already, hit subscribe to the MONSTERBASS channel and I'll catch you guys next time.