(Editor's note: "Catching Bass with Dustin Wilks" airs five times per week on Sportsman Channel – 2 p.m. ET Sunday, 4:30 a.m. Monday, 6 a.m. Tuesday, 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and 5:30 a.m. Saturday. The six-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier provides BassFans with additional insight about each episode in these submissions.)
This week’s show was shot mid-summer on a reservoir where I had really good luck cranking ledges.
If you're new to fishing, the term "ledge" has become short for an old creek or river channel on the lake basin that is now underwater with the river or creek dammed up. These areas are used by fish all year for feeding, resting and traveling. They'll spread out off of the ledge to feed more and spawn, but you can be sure that nearly year-round there will be some fish on this type of structure.
When a new lake is cleared of trees before flooding, the trees closest to the edge of the old creek channels are the hardest to get to, so often the work crew leaves these stumps or even some whole trees, offering great cover near the drop.
These types of areas are where I concentrated my efforts in the show. I fished channels that the top of the ledge was between 5 and 9 feet and the bottom of the channel between 9 and 15 feet. These were old creeks and the edges were loaded with stumps and some rock.
On the show, we sometimes catch way more fish than we can show in the allotted time, and that was the case on this day. I started cranking with a Hardcore Crank 2, which is a closely guarded secret for many pro anglers. If you like balsa baits, but need that type of action in a slightly deeper range than traditional balsa dives, then this is what you need. It hits that 5- to 6-foot range on 14-pound Yo-Zuri Top Knot or T-7. While it is not balsa, the shape and buoyancy are similar, being that it is a round body, so these are more buoyant. This lets me crank through some pretty nasty stuff without an unreasonable number of hang-ups, as the buoyancy allows for the bait to float out of trouble on the pause.
I caught a lot of fish on the Hardcore Crank 2 that day. Many were 2 to 2 1/2-pounders that quite frankly are not all that exciting for the viewer, but incredibly exciting for the person catching them, so we edited out a lot of those. What was interesting was on these shallow ledges, the fish were grouped up 100 feet away from the channel in a couple of cases. I’d see a fish break or a nervous shad and go over and start catching them as fast as I could. To clean up once they quit biting the crank, I’d use a 12-inch Culprit Worm with a 1/2-ounce Eco Pro weight.
I told my cameraman that we had to go somewhere else to make the show more interesting, so we started out on some deeper stuff. I basically picked an area that had the top of the ledge in that 8- to 9-foot range that I’m supremely confident in cranking. I’m old school in that I many times will just fish a ledge now all the way down rather than scan it and risk moving the fish. So here I go cranking away.
It took about 15 minutes and I got my first biting, losing it halfway back. That boosted my confidence. I bared down and ended up with a handful of really good fish on Hardcore Crank 3 and 4 crankbaits. These are easy cranking with slightly smaller bodies than many deep-divers, offering a different look than what everyone else is fishing. This led to my biggest fish of about 7 pounds and a couple in the 5 range. I felt like I was really getting the hang of this deep cranking.
So on this day, the bigger fish were the deeper ones ... but that is not always the case. It's always good to check all of your options on any given day.
I hope you enjoyed the show and picked up some great tips and ideas for your next adventure.
