(Editor's note: "Catching Bass with Dustin Wilks" airs five times per week on the Outdoor Channel – 2 p.m. ET Sunday, 4:30 a.m. Monday, 6 a.m. Tuesday, 11 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.)
Last week’s show was all about early summer crankbait fishing. One of the most publicized and productive times to catch bass and has been my weakest skill as a fishermen – until the last 5 or 6 years.
From my early days learning to fish, I was bombarded with information on deep cranking. David Fritts was the man with his Poe’s 400 crankbait and willingness to stay away from the bank and catch schools of bass. Wherever Fritts went, success followed, as not many anglers had his skill at finding where fish lived offshore, and we were all mesmerized by it.
Fast forward to today, and still not many possess his skill level, but we do possess very nice mapping on our modern GPS units that put us right on or near the best spots quickly. Modern anglers have become extremely good at offshore fishing.
This is not really a modern phenomenon, but one that took place in the early 2000s. I recognized this during my competitive years on the Bassmaster Top 150 and then on to the Elite Series as it is today. Many of the pioneers of offshore are fishing MLF now. These guys were so good, they literally knew every good spot after the first day of practice.
I spent my career fishing shallow, for the most part holding my own. The few tournaments I spent trying to match these guys offshore, I would find myself in a line of community holes that I had spent 3 full days finding, and these guys knew about them seemingly without practice. After a few events like that I just decided to fish away from everyone else. One year I even only ran a flasher unit!
So really, I’ve only just begun the offshore game, since I don’t have to compete against those guys anymore. It’s just me vs. the fish, and what I’ve learned is amazing. You can catch huge fish in huge schools easily, if you are the first to find them when they move away from the bank in the spring.
Confidence is all about experience, so you have to fish a lot and catch a lot to be confident enough to stay at a technique. Past success leads to that special stubbornness that you know you’ll run into the fish and you are using the right bait.
With a deep-diving crankbait, it’s easy to give up because it’s taxing to fish it. I’ve found a bait that solves that problem, allowing me to fish longer without stress — the Hardcore line. Mostly the Hardcore 3 and 4 but also the Hardcore Bullet Crank 5. These are much easier to reel and have much less pull than many of the old traditional baits. They also have a smaller body and cast super far with a weight transfer system.
I’ve also figured out, as many have written about, that speed is key to making them bite. Faster is usually better. Bright colors are also best, because you’re looking for reactions at fast speed in deeper water with reduced light. So your chartreuse/blue back, citrus shad and pearl/chartreuse back like I used on the show are the mainstays for color.
One thing that has really helped me is a stiffer crankbait rod. I use a Falcon Cara Deep Runner, as I often talk about. It’s a medium-heavy, much heavier than the rods of old for cranking. I can get a good hookset on a fish that bites a country mile away, which is where it seems most fish bite now with increases in fishing pressure. The farther you can stay away, the better.
You can also work wonders with line. If you watched the show, you’re probably searching for some 20-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid line to fish in 6 to 8 feet of water with a 10-foot diver. If you are using light line, you’ll have to use a smaller plug, which is not bad, but you can’t cast as far or cover as much water with that setup. So I’ll have about four or five rods set up with different pound-tests for different depths. I love the Yo-Zuri T-7 in 14-pound for overall deep cranking.
My technique is similar to beating the bank, covering miles of water with my easy-fishing Hardcore cranks. I’m usually on the edge of an old creek or river channel, a roadbed or in some cases isolated stuff I happen to see running down the lake.
If I’m fishing at 1 mph, in 10 hours I’ve fished an enormous amount of water factoring in long casts and fast retrieves. Fishing the bank, I can cover 2 or three times the amount of distance, but with shorter casts. It is work, but fun work and so exciting when you uncover that special spot. I’ll often Idle a place after I’ve exhausted it of fish to learn about what it looks like. The crazy thing is, most of the good places don’t really look special. Often they are clean with just a little cover.
Now one could argue why don’t you just idle till you see fish. I’ve tried that, and I think most of the fish are scared and aware of you by the time you’ve done all that, but there are always exceptions. I do idle at first to figure out things like how deep most of the fish are, where the thermocline is and where the channel or other structure starts that I want to fish, so I know where to begin.
The way we are trained to do it now is idle, look, don’t cast until we see fish. Works for many, but not me. By just fishing, I’m uncovering awesome, out-of-the-way stuff as well as the community holes, which I honestly don’t know are community holes.
By the time you notice everyone fishing offshore, the great fishing is already done or soon to end. So, you must be on water that others are not on, and fish when it is uncomfortable weather or before the word gets out. I’ll also stress that this does not happen on every single lake, so don’t think you can just pick up the deep crank at every lake. Usually, fertile lakes with current are best, but not always.
If you watched the show, I caught about 28 pounds with five and lots and lots of other nice fish. You saw one segment where I slowed down with an 8.5-inch Culprit Original Plus worm. The worm is my cleanup bait unless there is heavy fishing pressure and I already know where the fish are. In that case, I often start with the worm.
If you watched, I hope you gained some insights into fishing in the summer and are aware that there is no right or wrong way to fish offshore, only what works for you. For me, I fish offshore like I fish the bank — fast and keep moving until I find them. Once you’ve fished a few days like this, you’ll have a little milk run of good spots you’ve found and then you can also build on them in other areas of the lake.
