Crankbait fishing is one of the most versatile fishing techniques when targeting big bass. But many crankbait tips and tricks focus on deeper water tactics that are better suited for kayak or boat fishing. Oklahoma's Worst Angler breaks down his favorite crankbait techniques when fishing for winter bass in the shallows from the bank.

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Video transcript:

Alex:
Let's talk about crankbait tips and how I like to catch them later in the year. How's that for a freaking monster bass right there? Oh, dang. That's what I'm talking about. Let's get her back, though.

Alex:
What's up, guys? It's Alex with MONSTERBASS. Welcome back to the channel. I am Oklahoma's worst angler. If you are not familiar with who I am, that is who I am, Oklahoma's worst angler.

Alex:
Now, I'm going to talk to you guys today about crankbait tips, which I know, I feel like we cover crankbait tips all the freaking time. So, I want to do something different. And I thought about out and I was like, "How can I do this different and how can I talk to you guys about the best ways to use a crankbait later in the winter, or later in the year, rather?"

Alex:
So, I was thinking and I was like, "You know what? I grew up as a bank fisherman. I was a bank fisherman long before I got the boat, long before I got a kayak, anything like that." So, I want to talk about some of the best ways to really target from the bank, and I'm going to do that today. And yes, I know it seems silly. I'm on a boat and I'm going to be talking about fishing from the bank, but just bear with me, guys. Stay tuned. I promise you, you're going to want to watch and I got some good tips for you.

Alex:
When it comes to fishing crankbaits from the bank, a lot of time we're dealing with shallow water, a lot of time we may be dealing with deeper water and clear water, clean water, not a lot of structure, or a ton of structure.

Alex:
But regardless, I love to fish shallow, I like to fish open water, but one of my favorite ways to crank and one of favorite crankbaits, I'm not talking about deep cranks today. Again, this is for the guys that are fishing from the banks or that don't have access to go out on the water very often, or are not comfortable with deep water.

Alex:
So, a square bill like this Castaic 2.5, this one right here. 1.5 is another one of my favorites because it is a shallow diver. A good old square bill, something like a great little flat side crankbait, these guys right here. Or the good old lipless, which if anybody knows me, that sounds crazy that I'm talking about like, I love to fish a lipless, but I do. And, well, if you guys want to know how I caught that fish, I'm going to show you guys in just a little bit.

Alex:
He came back for it. There we go. Oh, yes sir, yes, sir. Oh my, oh my gracious. Jesus Josie. Holy moly. Holy moly. Okay, come here now. Come here now. Right in this net. Oh, oh, dang. How's about that for a monster bass? How about that for a monster bass? Red lips for the red lipless. Oh, dang. I say he came back for it. I think he may have had it the entire time. Guys, look at the freaking bucket on him. Dang. Gone.

Alex:
Okay, got that one out, and that one out. Look at that one. Buddy.

Alex:
So, we got some real shallow grass here. So now I'm 100% going to be reeling this a lot faster and keeping that rod tip up. Rod tip up is just so I can pop that up out of that grass a lot easier. This is where it's good to have a lipless that you know stays true when you are burning it and you got to pop it up over this stuff. But this is what I like to keep that rod tip up, so I can do just that right there. If I feel it starts to kind of hang up, I can pop it loose.

Alex:
It doesn't always work. Sometimes it does. Pop loose completely right there. But over patches of grass like this, it can be tough. But when you pop it like that, you can usually get that reaction bite just like that right there.

Alex:
We cut the little guy loose there. So usually up in these shallows, up in this grass like that, you're not going to get the biggest fish, but you can get a lot of bites just by doing this with a lipless right over the tops of that grass, just popping it like that.

Alex:
We had one swirling it right there. About four foot of water and the grass is probably about three foot, three and a half foot high in some spots. So, it can get tedious, but oh, dadgum, he came up for it right there. It can get tedious popping it over this grass. But again, you can get those fish to just come shooting up out of that grass for it just by popping it along right there. I'll see if he'll come back for it. He felt those hooks. He ain't going to come back.

Alex:
There's lots of ways that you can work a lipless in later parts of the year, and it is one of my favorites to catch them and just to get a good bite. Oh, we lost that guy. It is, like I said, one of my favorite ways to get it done later part of the year, but you just got to get out there and just not be afraid to kind of hang it up just a little bit and get an arm work out in.

Alex:
Let's talk about open water. So open water, less structure, less vegetation. A lot of the time what I'm going to do, fire it out there and just kind of slow roll it through. Let the lure do the work. Let the lure call them in. I don't need to be burning it. I don't need to be running it fast. Sometimes I'll yo-yo it, but a lot of the time I'm just going to bomb it out there, let it sink for, depending on your depth and how deep it is out there, let sink down in there and then just start a steady, slow to medium speed retrieve back, is what I'm going to do.

Alex:
Like I said, sometimes I'll pop it, trying to get kind of that reaction bite, like in the grass and the shallows. But a lot of the time open water, I'm just going to be doing it nice and slow. Pop it every now and then, a yo-yo maybe, but slow to medium fast retrieve and just let that rattle call them in. Let the rattle call them in and let a lipless do what a lipless does and catch you some big fish, because they will. They will catch you some monsters.

Alex:
But I'm not relying on the electronics to tell me what's out there. I'm relying on the lure to tell me what is out there. That's what I'm doing. Now, say you're fishing from the bank and you obviously have no way to know what is out in the open. Best thing I can tell you is throw a Texas rig out there. Throw the Texas rig out, bury your hook in that plastic. Use like a lead weight, something that you're not too concerned about losing or anything like that. But drag that around, see if you can find any kind of structure. See if you can see what the bottom is looking like. Just you use your Texas rig to be kind of your depth finder from the bank, and that will tell you a lot about what kind of water you're working with.

Alex:
If you don't know if you've never been on the water to see what's out there, just use something, like I said, that you're not afraid to lose in case you do happen to hang up, and then it'll help you kind of get the lay of the land for that body of water.

Alex:
So, you're not going to be throwing a lipless or a crankbait out in the open, completely blind to where you don't know what's out there. For a long time, Texas rig was my only depth finder and the only way that I could find structure or know what the bottom of a pond or a lake looked like. Even when I got on the boat, I didn't have a depth finder right away. I just was fishing blind, essentially. But that is one of the best tools in your arsenal, in your tackle box, to find out what kind of water you're dealing with and what's going to be in there.

Alex:
Now, depending on the water and where I'm fishing and what kind of water I'm fishing, that is what is going to help me choose if I want to fish at 1.5 or say a 2, 2.5 square bill. I don't want anything that's going to be much deeper than six foot. I like the 1.5, especially for the grassier waters. That's what I personally like. The 1.5 is going to dive just a little bit more shallow. Depending on the maker, they can dive anywhere from one to three for foot down to five foot. This little [inaudible 00:10:19], that's in Green Olive Shed. These guys have got extremely sharp, sticky hooks. Those are those Catana hooks.

Alex:
But fishing the grass, I want that 1.5 because I can reel that just a little bit slower and it still is going to get a lot of action. Reeling it slower is going to keep it from going too deep, as well. It also depends on the line that you're using, but it's going to keep it from going too deep. You're still going to get a really good wobble from it. It's going to be loud enough to call those fish in as well. And then just being a 1.5, especially right now, later in the year, it is so, just because it's smaller like that, is just a great bait fish and a little bait fish imitator.

Alex:
Now, I like the square bills because if I do hang up on any kind of structure, then I can just stop that retrieve and they will not just float straight up. They usually float back and up. So, they'll back up out of whatever you're hanging up on. Depending on the grass, sometimes I'll even just rip it through that grass. I'll just keep trying to rip that grass off of there. Let's see if we can hang up on some. I'll show you guys what I'm talking about here. If I'm burning that through and I start hanging up on that grass, I want to just rip it. I want to try and rip it through there. That just came right up out of the water. But I just want to kind of rip that through so it will come up out of that grass and kind of similar to a lipless reaction kind of bite, that's what that's going to do.

Alex:
So, don't be afraid to just kind of start ripping those things. Obviously, don't rip it if you're landing in any kind of brush or anything like that, because then you probably won't get that thing back. And if you're a bank angler, you know how much that sucks. It happens, though. It's fishing. But that is why I'm going to choose a 1.5 for a little more grassy waters, or a 2, 2.5 for a little more open and some rock, because then I want to get that 2.5 or that 2 size to bang on those rocks and get down deep and just start banging off all those rocks and that rip wrap and get that deflection to create that reaction bite. That is why I'm going to choose those.

Alex:
Square bill or the flat sided, that is obviously just a cold water killer because it's a very tight waddle. It's not near as much action as a traditional square bill. The fish are going to have to tell you what they're after that day. You've just got to pay attention to that.

Alex:
And another little tip for you guys on crankbaits, as far as square bills go, something that maybe some of you know and maybe some of you don't know is those silent square bills, silent crankbaits are great for more pressured waters, clear water, anything like that. But a lot of the time your silent ones are going to float back up a lot faster, which that can be a good thing and a bad thing.

Alex:
Sometimes your fish may want it in the strike zone a little bit longer, so you want that little bit of slower rise. Or, like me, you want to get back to cranking faster, so you want to back up out of that hang up or out of the snags or out of the grass. So you're going to go and throw a silent one so you know that you can get to cranking and you can get moving and just start power fishing that. And then if you start to hang up on something, you can stop it. It's going to back up out of there and get right back to it. If it hangs up again, you just do the same thing. It's just wash, rinse, repeat. Same thing over and over.

Alex:
But those silent ones will float up a lot faster, which sometimes can trigger that bite, too. If you are fishing grass, like I am right now, and you start to get hung up in it and you just stop it and back it out, a lot of the time that fish is going to see that floating up and think it's dying and want to just snatch it right up.

Alex:
Obviously, fish to your strengths. Fish to what you know, what you're comfortable with. If you're fishing from the bank, don't go out there and just buy, like, you don't have to get the most expensive stuff. You're going to get some great crankbaits in your MONSTERBASS box. A lot of them are silent that we've been sending out. So, utilize those silent crankbaits. Go through that square bill and look at the difference and feel the difference from one with a rattle to one that is silent, and see how much faster it floats up and see if that fits your needs and suits your style of fishing better.

Alex:
There we go. There's one right there. As soon as I took ticked grass and he picked it right up. And that feels like a good fish. That feels like a good fish. Get up here, dude. Where are you? Come on up. Oh, come and join the party, son. We're having a party today. It's a MONSTERBASS party and you are invited, my friend. Dang, that thing is gone. Gonezo.

Alex:
There you have him, folks. Square bill eater, crankbait eater, less than five foot of water. Ticking the grass, late time of the year, early winter, late winter, whatever you want to call it. It's freaking December. Thanks, buddy. As soon as I ticked that grass and let that thing stop, smashed it. Freaking love it.

Alex:
Some people say to slow your crankbaits down in the wintertime. Me, I do not do that. I don't do it. I want that crankbait and I want that square bill to look like a fleeing bait fish. See how I stopped that retrieve right there, letting that float right up out of that grass? Hoping for another bite. But I want to move them fast. I don't want to burn them, but I don't want them going slow. I want to look like a fleeing bait fish. I want to trigger a reaction. That's what I want, and that's what the crankbait bite is about, is getting that reaction strike. Keep hitting that same patch of grass there. Letting to float right up and getting back after it.

Alex:
That's why I like those silent ones, because they float just a little bit faster in that shallower water where you've got a lot of grass. Down towards the end of this right here, there's a lot of grass. So that's why I switched over to this guy. Only problem is there's a lot of algae, too. And algae, well, you can't really float up out of that. That's just going to stick to it.

Alex:
Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed this video from MONSTERBASS and from me, and again, I hope these tips were geared more towards the bank anglers and I hope they helped you out. And honestly, I just hope the tips helped you out in general. If you guys like this kind of video, give it a thumbs up. Hop over to my channel, check me out. Let me know what you think. Don't yell at me here. Go yell at me on my channel. It's all good. There will be a link down in the description. If you guys are not subscribed to MONSTERBASS already, hit that red button for me. Again, give it a thumbs up. I'll see you guys next time we're on the water.