Bank Bass Fishing with Crankbaits with Drew Cook

Hey, guys. Bassmaster Elite Series Pro Drew Cook here with BassResource. And the question is how to fish a crankbait from the bank. My first answer to that question is going to be a Rat-L-Trap.

This is the Spro Aruku Shad lipless crankbait. You can stand on the bank, throw it out to 10 foot of water, let it sink to the bottom, and fish it from 10 foot all the way to 1 foot. And to be efficient from the bank throwing a crankbait, this would be my number one. And, you know, any size of this would work. This is the 50 half-ounce size. You could get bigger ones, smaller ones. Pond fishing, you know. It's a catcher. It catches bass, and it's caught bass for forever. So, the versatility of it is what makes it so loving for a pond angler.

You know, I would throw this on, you know, a 7.3 to 7.6. But it doesn't really matter. Whatever rod you have...I mean, I'm using a Dobyns Champion XP. But say if you have one 735 Dobyns cranking rod, you can throw this bait on that. You can throw a squarebill on it. Very versatile.

And that's one thing about fishing from the bank is you don't have the luxury of all these boxes like I do in my Skeeter boat right here. You have what you brought with you. So, you might have a backpack with, you know, a few baits and maybe two rods, a casting rod...or maybe three rods, a cranking rod, you know, a worm rod, and a spinning rod. Something along those lines. So you have to be efficient.

You might have one box this big that you put your hard baits in. So if I was going to build that box and I could only put two baits in there, it would be the Spro Aruku Shad, and then my next one would be the squarebill. The squarebill in a pond is just phenomenal. But it's one of those things that you can get on the bank where you're standing and throw it down the actual bank and it not be, you know, too deep.

It's funny because we are on boats fishing the bank. And when you're on the bank people feel the need to fish in the middle. So you still fish the bank, you're just fishing from the bank. So you would just stand on the edge and, you know, make a parallel cast to the bank. And the Spro Fat Papa squarebill is great for that, and it's a smaller size. So you catch a lot of fish.

And, like I said, I've got this one on a 735 Kaden Dobyns cranking rod. But you can put it on a 7-foot. You know, it doesn't matter. And if I had to put one line on one reel to go to the pond and fish off the bank for, you know, cranking reeling, I would put 14-pound Sunline Sniper. It's just a great all-around line, perfect for throwing the shallow crankbait. And for throwing the Aruku Shad. You know, this is a bait that you can throw and run it into the rocks along the dam. Or, you know, trees, laydowns that are in the water, and, you know, stumps.

And one thing that I really love about this bait, and that a bank fisherman would really appreciate, is how easily it comes unhooked, you know, unstuck. So whenever you run it into the stump or whatever it may be, the way this bait designs the buoyancy and the bill, when you pop that line it's gonna free it up and float right back up. So you can't just trolling motor over there to the stump and get your bait back whenever you're on the bank. You have to make a decision whether you're gonna break it off or you're gonna go swimming. And, you know, a lot of times you really don't want to go swimming. So that is one thing that is really great about the Fat Papa squarebill. It comes through the cover really well. And whenever you do, you know, get it hung you can a lot of the times snap it off. You know, get it snapped free and get your bait back so you can continue fishing down there.

And I would keep my colors very simple. Obviously, we are still in a box this big. So we don't have a whole lot of room for tackle. I would have something that had a little bit of chartreuse on it like a citrus shad type color here, a regular...you know, a sexy shad color, and maybe a bluegill or brimish color. Because a lot of times in ponds there's not that many shad, but there's a lot of bluegill. And sometimes you can catch some really big ones on bluegill baits, too.

Now for the Aruku shad, chrome and blue, chrome and black, can't beat it. It just catches them. Anything that resembles, you know, a baitfish of some type whether it be minnow or, you know, if you actually have shad in there. Or, you know, a color like this is the perch color, but this is a great bait I love to use, because, I mean, it looks kinda like a brim, kinda like a perch, kinda like a shad, you know. If they're eating any of those three things, they're gonna bite that bait.

And being efficient whenever you're fishing from the bank, that means a lot. But that's what I would do if I was fishing from the bank to be efficient. So make sure you check these out for your next time bank fishing.

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