Crankbaits and Jerkbaits: Every Type, How Deep It Runs, and How to Fish It

A crankbait is a hard-bodied fishing lure with a plastic or metal lip that makes it dive and wobble when you reel it. The lip sets the depth: a short square one keeps a squarebill within 6 ft (1.8 m) of the surface, and a long one takes a Strike King 10XD to 25 ft (7.6 m). The body, a hard plastic or balsa plug, sets the wobble and the sound. Reel it so it bumps stumps, rocks and the bottom, because that bump triggers many of the strikes.

A crankbait runs deepest about two-thirds of the way back to the boat. So Paul Elias, who won the 1982 Bassmaster Classic on deep-running crankbaits, casts about 25 yards past the spot he wants it to hit.

Start here

• Squarebill crankbait: the shallow bait, 0–6 ft, that deflects off wood and rock instead of snagging.
• Deep diving crankbaits: the long-lipped baits for 12–25 ft, the depth of ten models, and how to get them down.
• Lipless crankbait: the sinking, rattling bait for grass and cold pre-spawn water, its sizes and six retrieves.
• Jerkbaits: the cold-water bait, the cadence of pauses, and how to make one suspend.

What makes a crankbait dive and wobble?

Water pushes on the lip, and the lip turns that push into two things: a dive and a side-to-side wobble. Everything else on the bait tunes those two.

• Lip length and angle set the depth. A long lip angled forward is a diving plane that digs. A short, square, flat-fronted lip hits a stump broadside, stalls, and the body rolls off before the hooks arrive. That is the whole squarebill.
• The lip’s corners set the deflection. Sharp corners, like the Strike King KVD 1.5’s, kick out wide off cover; rounded ones, like the Bandit 100’s, slip through with less deflection.
• The body sets the wobble. Jason Sealock of Wired2Fish sorts them in two. Flat-sided and slim shad baits “wiggle more than wobble”: a tight action that works at slow speeds and in cold water. Round bodies with square bills wobble wider and “work better as the water warms up.”
• The material sets the rise. A balsa bait is more buoyant than plastic, so it floats up faster off a limb it touched. “The more buoyant they are, the easier they will come over wood and cover,” Sealock writes.
• What is inside sets the sound. A chamber of loose beads rattles on every wobble, a single heavy ball knocks once per wobble, and a silent bait has nothing inside.
• A joint widens the swim. A jointed body, such as Rapala’s Jointed Shad Rap, swings in two pieces. Rapala says its “wide swimming jointed action” and loud rattle “mimics and exaggerates the action of a wounded baitfish.”

A lipless crankbait has no lip at all. Its line tie sits on its back, it sinks, and it vibrates on a straight retrieve. A jerkbait has a lip, but a short one on a long, slim body. You twitch it and pause it instead of reeling it steadily.

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How deep does each type run?

The longer the lip, the deeper the bait. The depth classes below follow the makers’ ratings of the reference baits in each row. Retailers draw the lines a foot or two apart: Tackle Warehouse sorts by 5 ft or less, 6–10, 11–16 and 17 ft and more.

The lip sets the depth. Drawing: fishing.info.

The depth on the box is the rated depth: the most the bait reaches on the maker’s line with a full-length cast. Rapala builds the idea into the name of the DT series: Dives-To, with the depth in feet as the number, so a DT16 is rated to 16 ft.

Choose by depth first. Tackle Warehouse’s buying advice starts there: “The first variable you want to focus on when choosing a crankbait is the depth.” Find the depth of the cover or the bottom the bass are using, often with a fish finder, then pick the row that reaches it.

Why does yours run shallower than the box?

A crankbait gets only as deep as the line, the cast and the rod let it. Four things decide how much of the rated depth you see.

1. Line diameter. Thin line slices through the water and lets the lip dig; thick line drags the bait up. Sealock has run “a lot of deep divers deeper than 20 feet with a long cast on 8-pound line.” Todd Faircloth uses heavier line to limit depth and lighter line to add it.
2. Cast length. A crankbait dives for much of the retrieve. Elias finds it deepest about two-thirds of the way back; Skeet Reese says a deep diver often reaches its maximum depth halfway back. A short cast ends before the lip has done its work.
3. Rod angle. A high rod tip lifts the bait. Faircloth holds his rod at 10 or 12 o’clock to keep a 6 ft crankbait running at 4 ft. To go deeper, Elias kneels on the deck and puts as much as 7 ft of rod under water, all the way to the reel.
4. Speed. Reel at a medium pace until the bait reaches its depth. Then speed up to dig it in.

The practical rule is to overshoot. Faircloth “generally chooses a crankbait that will run 2 feet deeper than the water he is fishing,” so the bait keeps grinding the bottom. Elias wants his “digging into the bottom almost all of the time.” The deep diving crankbaits page draws one cast at two rod angles.

Tight wobble or wide wobble?

Match the wobble to the water temperature. The colder and clearer the water, the tighter the wobble; the warmer and dirtier, the wider. Mike Iaconelli sorts his crankbaits into three groups.

“The hotter the water, the wider the wobble,” Iaconelli writes. He calls the tight wobblers “the finesse worm of crankbaits” and probably the most underfished. Tackle Warehouse says the same for winter: “slow-moving, tight-wobbling flat-sided crankbaits trigger bites from cold, lethargic bass.”

Balsa or plastic?

Balsa rises faster and floats higher. Plastic swims a little slower and takes rattles. Crankbait angler Dustin Wilks uses balsa “in finesse situations, when the fish are a little finicky,” and plastic “when fish are more aggressive.” Sealock adds that balsa is silent and excels in shallow water. Plastic is more durable, and it can be built to rise slowly or suspend.

When do crankbaits work best?

For bass, the crankbait season runs from about 50 °F (10 °C) in spring to the 50s again in late fall. Sealock starts throwing them “when the water gets close to 50 degrees”; below that, he writes, a bass won’t chase one much, and the jerkbait takes over. The first six rows run from spring into summer, the last three through the fall.

The rows follow the bass water temperature page, which sets every lure family in its band. Read the temperature where the bass are, not at the surface.

Summer is the deep diver’s season. Elias cranks offshore structure all summer, while the bass school on it, until about the September full moon, when the baitfish head for the backs of the creeks. Sealock fishes crankbaits “a lot faster in the summer,” so a bass has only a split second to react.

Crankbait or jerkbait?

Reel a crankbait; twitch and pause a jerkbait. The crankbait is for active fish on cover or bottom, from about 50–55 °F up. The jerkbait is for cold, suspended fish in clear water, and the pause is the bite.

FishUSA’s walleye guide works a jerkbait from 36 to 58 °F (2–14 °C), uses a suspending model below 52 °F, and pauses it 5–8 seconds at 36–42 °F. Mike McClelland pauses 12–15 seconds for bass in early spring, sometimes 30. From about 55 °F (13 °C), Mark Menendez switches to a floating jerkbait, worked faster as a search bait. The jerkbaits page has the cadence for every band and the sink test that makes a bait suspend.

The jerkbait gear differs too. Kelley Jaye fishes a 6 ft 9 in (2.1 m) medium rod and 12–14 lb fluorocarbon, because lighter line tangles in the hooks the way he works the bait. The two reference baits are the Megabass Vision 110, which Wired2Fish calls “one of the most sought after jerkbaits of all time,” and the neutrally buoyant Rapala Husky Jerk.

What is different about a lipless crankbait?

It sinks, so it has no running depth; you count it down to the fish. It rattles hard, and its season is the cold water before the spawn, ticked over short grass and ripped free when a stalk catches. Greg Hackney’s rule: a lipless bait “will catch you really big fish when the water temperature is between 45 and 55 degrees.”

There are three ways to fish it. Reel it over grass and, when it hangs, snap it free with a sharp stroke of the rod; the jump draws a reaction strike. Yo-yo it: let it hit bottom, lift the rod, reel the slack and let it flutter back down. Most bites come on the fall. For deep winter schools, jig it vertically in 12–36 in (30–90 cm) strokes. The lipless crankbait page has six retrieves, eight models and the Guntersville grass rip step by step.

Minnow plugs. Photo: trambo / Depositphotos.

How do you fish a crankbait?

Reel it; what catches fish is where it runs and what it hits.

1. Pick the bait by depth, one rated a little deeper than the bottom or the cover you want it to hit.
2. Cast past the target. The bait is deepest well back toward the boat, so Elias casts about 25 yards beyond the spot.
3. Cast along the cover, not across it. A cast parallel to a bank, a riprap wall or a weed edge keeps the bait on the cover for the whole retrieve. Sealock angles his casts to run with the way the branches lie, so the bait climbs over them.
4. Reel at a medium pace with the rod tip low until the bait reaches its depth. Then speed up to bang it off the bottom, stopping it often.
5. Hit things. The deflection off wood, rock or bottom is the trigger. Keep reeling through it; a yank is what sets the hooks in the wood.
6. Pause after a deflection when fish follow and do not eat. The bait floating up off the cover is a second trigger.
7. Sweep, do not snap, when the rod loads. The bass has usually hooked itself on the moving bait.

How fast? Sealock starts a shallow crankbait slow before the spawn and speeds up as the water warms. Through shallow wood he “worms” it, slowly, with the rod tip high, so it crawls through the branches.

What if it snags?

Give it slack first. A floating crankbait that locks up in a limb often backs out and rises free. Fishing from the bank, Sealock carries 3/4 oz bell sinkers on big clips. He tightens the line, clips one on and slides it down the line to knock the bait loose. From shore he also picks crankbaits that float well and fishes them parallel to the bank.

A buzzbait. Photo: gsagi / Depositphotos.

Which crankbait should you tie on?

1. Wood, rock or docks within 6 ft (1.8 m): a squarebill crankbait. It deflects instead of hanging, and it is the bank angler’s bait.
2. Submerged grass: a lipless crankbait, ticked over the tops and ripped free.
3. Points, flats and weed edges at 6–12 ft (1.8–3.7 m): a medium diver such as a Shad Rap or a Deep Little N. It is the search bait when you do not know whether the bass are shallow or just off the bank.
4. Ledges, humps and shell bars at 12–25 ft (3.7–7.6 m): a deep diving crankbait rated a couple of feet deeper than the top of the structure.
5. Cold, clear water near 50 °F (10 °C): a tight-wobbling flat-sided bait, reeled slowly.
6. Below about 50 °F, fish suspended in clear water: a suspending jerkbait, twitched and paused.
7. Muddy water or wind: a wide wobble and a rattle, in a bright or solid color the bass can find.

When the fish will not chase a crankbait at all, drag a jig or a soft plastic through the same spot.

What rod, reel and line?

One soft rod covers most crankbaits, because treble hooks tear out of a jumping bass on a stiff one. The crankbait rod is a moderate action in glass or composite. Sealock’s all-round setup is a 7 ft medium-power casting rod, a baitcaster of 5:1 or 6:1, and 8–12 lb monofilament or fluorocarbon. Each bait then pulls the setup its own way.

A low gear ratio takes the pull of a big lip off your hand. Fluorocarbon sinks and runs a bait deeper than monofilament, which floats; the fluorocarbon vs monofilament page has the numbers.

Tie on with a loop. The Rapala brothers recommended a loop knot, the Rapala knot, so their lures could move freely; a knot cinched tight on the eye pins the lure and flattens the wobble. Keep the trebles sharp, and check them after every rock. Elias swaps the stock No. 2 trebles on his deep divers for No. 1s, one size up.

Which color?

Pick by water clarity first, then by light and forage. Kevin VanDam’s rule, by how far you can see into the water:

• Clear: natural, translucent shad colors such as Clear Sexy Shad and Ghost Minnow.
• 18 in to 2 ft (45–60 cm) of visibility: Chartreuse Sexy Shad, for a little more flash.
• Stained or muddy: bold colors such as Chartreuse Shad or a chartreuse crawfish, so the bass has a target it can see.

Then the light. Kelly Jordon brings deep divers down to a white or shad pattern and a chartreuse one. Chartreuse works early, late and in off-color water. “Once the sun gets up, a white one will outcatch a chartreuse 10 to 1,” he says, so white or shad is the color once the sun is high.

Then the forage, the way Iaconelli sorts it. Browns, tans and reds imitate crawfish, especially in spring. Whites, silvers and pearls match shad, shiners and herring. Yellows, chartreuse and olive copy sunfish and perch. His last rule: “the clearer the water, the smaller the bait and the more natural the color.”

In practice, a red craw before the spawn and a shad pattern from summer into fall cover most of the year; the squarebill and lipless pages set the colors season by season.

Does a crankbait float or sink?

Most lipped crankbaits float. In Sealock’s words, they “will float when paused or suspend and slowly rise.” That is why a stopped crankbait backs out of a snag, and why balsa, the most buoyant, clears cover best.

The exceptions are built in. A lipless crankbait sinks. A suspending jerkbait hangs where you stop it. Rapala’s CountDown is weighted balsa that sinks about a foot a second, so a count of ten puts it about 10 ft down.

So a crankbait needs no sinker. Water pushing on the lip makes it dig, as Iaconelli puts it; for more depth, choose a longer lip, thinner line or a longer cast, and leave the weight to the sinking baits that have it built in.

Why does a crankbait run to one side or roll over?

Usually the line tie is bent. FishUSA’s tuning guide lists the signs: the bait “rolls to one side, dives erratically, or puts a twist in your line.” It names high-speed trolling and casting in turbulent water among the causes, so slow down first. Then pull the bait through the water and watch it. Carolina Sportsman’s rule: “If bent to the right, the lure will run to the right — and vice-versa.” Bend the eye back with needle-nose pliers, gently, a little at a time, until it sits straight in line with the body, and test again. Rapala hand-tunes and tank-tests every lure before it ships, so on its baits tuning is a repair after a snag or a fish, not a setup step.

Crankbaits and minnow plugs. Photo: zorandim / Depositphotos.

Are crankbaits only for bass?

No. The same baits are trolled for walleye, pike and catfish, cast for trout, and scaled up for salt water.

• Walleye: from about 60 to 76 °F (16–24 °C), walleye hold on the thermocline edge, deep weedlines, humps and points, and crankbaits trolled at 1.5–2.5 mph (2.4–4 km/h) cover that water. The balsa Shad Rap is the classic; its larger sizes, the SR08 and SR09, run 8–15 ft (2.4–4.6 m). The walleye water temperature page has the bands.
• Pike: in the 60s °F, cast or troll crankbaits along the weed edge. As the water passes 70 °F (21 °C) the big pike slide deeper, and crankbaits trolled on the break, then deep, follow them. The best pike lures page has the sizes.
• Trout: Leland’s Lures writes that cranks and jerkbaits “can be effective for trout too, especially bigger trout,” pulled fast to find the active fish. The trout hub covers the rest.
• Catfish: In-Fisherman’s Doug Stange describes a Wisconsin River guide who trolls Rebel Crawdads and Storm Wiggle Warts over rock lips and humps for channel cats, keeping them shallower than about 8 ft (2.4 m). Crankbaits work for cats mainly in summer and into fall, he writes.
• Salt water: the lipped plug is the same idea. On the Atlantic coast, The Tackle Room lists big swimming plugs such as the Daiwa SP Minnow and the Bomber Long A among the top striper lures; the striped bass hub has the season. In Louisiana, Louisiana Sportsman reports, anglers cast shallow-running crankbaits for redfish in the ponds on a high tide, reeled steadily with the rod tip parallel to the water. The lures hub translates the freshwater families into their saltwater names.

Lure boxes and a rod on the pier. Photo: nblxer / Depositphotos.

What does a crankbait cost?

Most cost $5–11. A Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap sells for $5–9, the Strike King KVD 1.5 squarebill lists at $9.99, a Norman DD22 at $8.99 and a balsa Rapala DT12 at $11.99 (prices October 2026). The biggest deep divers and the Japanese jerkbaits cost more: a Strike King 10XD is $18.99 at Tackle Warehouse, a Megabass Vision 110 $24.99. Five baits in a small tackle box, a squarebill, a medium diver, a DD22, a lipless bait and a jerkbait, cover the water from the bank to about 17 ft (5.2 m).

Two trebles make a crankbait look easy to lose, yet Sealock writes that good crankbait anglers “hardly ever lose them.” A floating bait backs out of a snag on slack line, and a sinker on a clip knocks most of the rest free.

Where did the crankbait come from?

About 1915, the Creek Chub Bait Company of Garrett, Indiana, built the Wiggler: a wooden bass lure with a metal diving lip. Bernie Schultz, writing for Bassmaster, credits it as the first crankbait. The metal lip was marketed from 1916, and the patent came in 1920.

Lauri Rapala carved his first floating minnow from cork in Finland in 1936. A Life magazine story in August 1962 spiked American demand, and Rapala opened its first factory at Vääksy that year. The balsa Shad Rap followed in 1982.

The squarebill began as a hand-carved balsa bait. Fred Young of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, whittled his Big O, and Cotton Cordell put a plastic version in his 1973–74 catalog. The Rat-L-Trap came from Bill Lewis in Louisiana around 1970. It was not the first lipless plug: Ronald F. Dodson fished Heddon’s Sonic and the Cordell Hot Spot before it, and the new thing, he writes, was the Trap’s rattle.

Deep cranking won the 1982 Bassmaster Classic. Elias knelt on the deck and pushed his rod under water to get his crankbaits down on Lake Montgomery, Alabama, and won with 32 lb 8 oz over three days.

At first and last light from about 65 °F (18 °C) up, the topwater baits take over; the lures hub sets crankbaits beside every other family.

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