Winter Medium Diving Crankbait Patterns & Techniques

The crankbait is a powerful tool for catching bass year-round, and that is no exception when the temperatures drop. For this article, we’re going to focus on targeting winter bass with medium diving crankbaits that run in the 0-8ft range. From there we like to break them up into two groups - tight-wobbling flatside crankbaits in shad and craw patterns, and their wide-wobbling, craw-imitating counterparts in craw colors. Look for wood and rock, and play around with your retrieve, you may just have a great day despite the weather.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t catch a great bag with a deep crankbait in the winter. In fact, you absolutely can, and it is a great way to catch huge fish year around. You can check out our deep cranking tips. It’s focused more on Fall, but the fundamentals remain the same.

Hit the water with a 7’2-7’6 glass or graphite crankbait rod with a moderate action that bends all the way down to the first guide. That action is essential in ensuring the rod stays loaded when you’re hooked up with a fish so it can more easily absorb headshakes and help prevent them from throwing your treble hooks. Depending on the weight of the crankbait, try a rod with a Medium to Medium Heavy action. You can't go wrong with a split grip or a full grip handle when fishing medium diving crankbaits. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

With some notable exceptions, winter is the time to slow your presentations down, tempting lethargic bass with an easy meal they simply can’t pass up. A casting reel sporting a 6.3:1 – 7.1:1 gear ratio will help you creep your plug back to the boat, while also providing some extra winching power to muscle bass away from cover. Some anglers even prefer a reel in the 5:1 range to help them really slow down, while maintaining consistent winding pressure.

Your preferred fluorocarbon line from 10-16lb test fits the bill nicely for this approach thanks to its sinking properties and near invisibility. While 12lb is a great place to start and can handle almost every scenario, it is important to remember that thinner line, such as 10lb fluoro will help your crankbait dive deeper to get to those hard to reach bass. You can also go as heavy as 16lb for some extra abrasion-resistance when fishing around wood and other abrasive cover.

Upgrading your hooks can be beneficial with a lot of crankbaits on the market. This is even more critical when the water is cold and thus the mouths of bass are not as soft as they are in late spring through the fall. Another option is adding suspend dots or strips to help your crankbaits suspend on the pause for a different presentation, or even dive slightly deeper than their original engineered depth.

Never leave the dock without your trusty plug-knocker, they can save a LOT of frustration – and money. Also, make sure to vary your retrieve speed and cadence to find out how the fish want it. Sometimes it may necessitate crawling your bait over cover painfully slow, or conversely burning and pausing it is a technique called speed reeling. Also, many bites come when your crankbait deflects off of an underwater object before coming back to center, so let it pause for a second. A lot of times they’ll kill it as soon as you get the bait moving again.

The two most prevalent color styles are craw patterns and baitfish patterns. As mentioned above, a flat-sided crankbait tends to mimic a fleeing baitfish as well as a craw, while the wider wobbling baits like a Wiggle Wart or Rk Crawler generally mimic a crawfish. Experiment with more natural baitfish and crawfish colors when bouncing your crank along in clear water, and switch to solid colors in darker water. If you’re plunging your plug into particularly stained water, cranks with bright highlights can help bass to locate your bait in murky conditions.

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