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| Dees maintains a conventional
low rod position when he wants a
crankbait to reach its maximum depth. When cranking cover, however, he can present the lure more efficiently and endure fewer snags by sweeping the rod tip slowly upward or to the side. The motion is similar to that used when retrieving a plastic worm along the bottom. The high rod helps Dees feel the cover and also stop, pause and slack line as the lure bumps over and around various objects. It's also an effective method for coaxing temperamental bass into action. "I've been doing that since I started fishing crankbaits with a 7 foot rod about 10 years ago." says Dees. "The long rod lets me control the bait better, and I can even use it to pitch into places that would be hard to hit with regular casting. A lot of guys like fiberglass rods for crankbaits, but I get better control with a medium action Berkley graphite rod." After casting and cranking the lure into the cover, Dees raises his rod tip, which pulls the crankbait down and ahead. When the lure bumps a limb, the bottom or some other object, Dees stops, drops the rod tip and takes up slack. Then he gently sweeps the rod up and repeats the process until the lure clears the cover or dupes a bass. "When you move a crankbait with with a high rod tip," says Dees, "you can feel what's happening a lot better than when your rod is pointing right at the lure. And you can move the bait to one side or the other. That helps you finagle it through cover. A change of direction also triggers bites." A neutral buoyancy crankbait matches well with this "worming" technique because it hangs in place or raises slowly during pauses. You have more control and can let the lure linger in the strike zone longer than with a highly buoyant crankbait that quickly floats up. Dees designed, and now manufactures, the crankbait that produces most of his shallower bass. Named the D Bait, this small, flat sided balsa lure features a foil finish and closely resembles a shad. "The D Bait comes up real slow when you stop it," says Dees. "That's when I get a lot of bites." Lest you think worming a crankbait is too far afield to be worthy of consideration, take note that Mark Advise employed this method when he won the 1995 Classic at North Carolina's High Rock Lake. Davis' primary targets were tall, dense brush piles 8 to 10 feet deep adorned with old fishing line. "I couldn't just hold my rod tip down and retrieve a crankbait through the brush without snagging," says Davis. "I'd reel until started to feel the lure come into a brush pile. Then I'd stop reeling and sweep the lure with the rod tip the way you work a worm." The large crankbait Davis relied on, the Excalibur Series Bomber Fat Free Shad BD7, digs as deep as 18 feet. To reduce the lure's depth, and to prevent breaking off, Davis opted for 20 pound monofilament. Because the crankbait is a floater-diver, Davis worked it with sideways sweeps of his rod to keep the lure down in the cover. "When Bomber introduced the Suspending Fat Free Shad." says Davis, "worming a crankbait got a whole lot easier. With a suspending bait, you can hold your rod tip high. There's a lot to be said for that. No. 1, you gain a lot of feel. And when you pull a bait instead of reel it, you know exactly how far and fast it's moving. It gives you more control and lets you put a lot of erratic action on the bait. You can slow it down, stop it, show the fish something they haven't seen." Davis worms a suspending crankbait most often during the extremes of hot and cold weather, because this is when bass grow lethargic and need a little extra cajoling. Once he gets the lure down in what he feels is the strike zone, he may let it hover in place for several seconds and give it short twitches. He thinks of this ploy as finesse crankbait fishing. You must be alert, just as with worm fishing , to detect strikes. "A lot of strikes feel much the same as when you're reeling a crankbait," he says. "But sometimes, when the lure is hanging in place, you feel only a little tick or peck. You may have to drop the rod tip and take up slack before setting the hook. But don't slam the hooks home like you do with a jig or worm. Just pull back firmly and maintain steady pressure." Worming a suspending crankbait also yields bass for Davis when he fishes relatively clean bottoms, such as points and ledges with scattered stumps or boulders. In this situation, Davis cranks the lure down until he feels it bump bottom. He then crawls it ahead with the rod tip, throwing in pauses and twitches. "I like to use a big crankbait, something that dives a lot deeper then the bottom. I don't want to have to work to keep the lure down," he reveals. Television personality Bill Dance, another advocate of worming a crankbait, also prefers no-nonsense bottom contact. In water 12 feet or deeper, he opts for the BD7 Fat Free Shad, which runs 14 to 18 feet deep. He drops down to the BD6, which runs 10 to 14 feet, when fishing water 6 to 11 feet deep. In water less than 6 feet deep, he goes with a BD5 that runs 8 to 10 feet. "I make four or five fast turns to get the bait started," says Dance, "then continue cranking with a slow to moderate retrieve until it hits the bottom. At that point I stop and work the crankbait about like I would a worm or a jig-and- pork. I'll twitch the rod tip from about 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock, take up slack line real quick and let the bait sit right on the bottom. It looks just like an injured bait sit right on the bottom. It looks just like an injured baitfish struggling along. I cannot tell you how effective that is. At times bass knock the fire out of it when it is just sitting still." Dance recalls an outing in Florida with his camera crew when he pulled up on a hump that dropped abruptly from 12 to 35 feet. He hopped a Texas-rigged plastic worm down over the drop several times and got a few light bites from fish that wouldn't hold the bait. He suspected they were crappies. Just to be sure, Dance fired a Suspending BD7 Fat Free Shad over the hump and cranked it down. "When I felt it hit bottom," says Dance," I stopped reeling and let it stand on its nose. I jiggled it a couple times and let it sit. I jiggled it again and, boom! A good fish nailed it but jumped off. I ran the lure right back down and jiggled it across the bottom. I caught four bass on consecutive casts that weighted from 7 to 9 pounds. Dance refers to worming a crankbait as "horizontal jigging." He often uses the method to scrape bottom, maneuver crankbaits through cover and even to tempt suspended bass, which he regards as the most difficult to catch. In most instances, believes Dance, bass that suspend above bottom and away from structure or cover are just hanging out between meals. They're in a neutral mood and won't move far or fast to take a bait. To catch them, you must dangle a lure right in their faces and needle them into striking. This is when Dance ties on a shad pattern Suspending Fat Free Shad that runs at the same depth as or a little above a school of bass he has located with his depthfinder. He makes a long cast over the school and cranks the lure down just as when fishing a bottom structure. When he figures the lure has attained it's maximum depth, he stops reeling and lets the bait hover in place. "I may let it remain in a suspended state five to ten seconds," says Dance, "then I'll 'horizontal jig' it with my rod in about the 10 o'clock position. Then I'll wait and twitch it again. If they don't like that, I'll make three quick cranks on the reel and stop it again. I keep the bait right in amongst them and try different actions until I make one bust it. Sometimes they hit it when it's dead still." When he does catch a bass, Dance remembers the nuances of the retrieve that triggered the strike, something at which he excels. He then repeats the same presentation. Strikes are often slow in coming, but Dance knows that with persis- tense, he can catch bass that would otherwise elude him. To find suspended bass, Dance starts searching near a ledge or some other structure that attracts the bass when they're in a feeding mode. If the edge of the drop breaks from, say, 15 to 30 feet of water, Dance knows the bass are likely to suspend about 15 feet deep so they can move straight to the break when the dinner bell rings. "If I can't find bass on the ledge," says Dance, I start idling slowly in a tight circle and look for them with my depthfinder. They might be only 10 feet away, or they could be more than 30 yards from that key bottom feature. I'll gradually widen my circles until I spot them. When I do, I quickly take landmarks and get to work with a Suspending Fat Free Shad. You also can use a buoy to mark the fish, but be sure and toss it to the side so you don't snag the cord with your crankbait." Even though many professional bass anglers dote on fiberglass rods for crank baits, Dance usually goes with a long, medium action graphite Quantum rod. He feels the sensitivity of graphite is especially beneficial with the horizontal jigging method because it makes strike detection easier. Dance matches the rod with a 4.4:1 gear ratio Quantum baitcasting reel. The slow gear ratio provides more power for retrieving big crankbaits and makes it easier to impart the slow to moderate speeds that allow these lures to dig as deep as possible. "I don't get them every time," says Dance, "but horizontal jigging with a Suspending Fat Free Shad works better on suspended bass than any other technique I've ever used."
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