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'Missouri' style cranks


Bterrill

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Al Agnew's lure presentation at the ISA Blowout got me thinking. Lots of favorites on there, but a couple strangers too.

 

 

Looks like they throw a small spinnerbait skirt on the belly treble of their crankbaits. Anyone ever do this? Advantages/disadvantages?

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I've got an original Shannon Twin spin around the house. I was going to give it to Al at the banquet but couldn't find it. If I do anyone interested in using it to make copies before I send it to Al?

 

Hate to say it but I thought this was a thread about my favorite Missouri "crank" Gary.

 

I think I'll be switching the trebles around on some of my Rapala X Rap Shad Raps though and but the feathered one up front.

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Hate to say it but I thought this was a thread about my favorite Missouri "crank" Gary.

 

Hey, you talkin bout me! I'm just a happy go lucky guy and not a cranky bone in my body. They must use them on the rivers cause they sure don't use they on the lakes. Wiggle Warts and Jerkbaits get the most use on the lake.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry I didn't get around to talking more about this during the presentation...

 

The thing about the skirt on the belly hook is that on a few lures, including my homemade one and a couple that you can still buy, the skirt is absolutely necessary to make them work as shallow crankbaits. On these lures, the skirt acts as a balance point and changes the lure from a very irregular wobbler than MUST be fished very slowly to work at all, to a wide but fairly consistent wobbler that can be fished fast or slow. But on most normal crankbaits, the skirt tends to kill the wobble. I can make many deep diving crankbaits work well as long as the skirt is very sparse, and on some I've taken the rear treble off and moved the belly treble to a point about midway between where the two trebles were originally, and got them to wobble well. I think they do better than an unskirted crank, maybe simply because the fish haven't seen them like that much.

 

I've also experimented with putting twin tail spinnerbait trailers on the belly hook of various crankbaits. Seems to work pretty well, but to make it work right you need to replace the treble with those ones that have the eye turned so that when you put it on the typical split ring, one hook points straight down and the other two lie evenly against the belly of the lure. You put the trailer on the hook pointing down, and it's perfectly balanced. Otherwise, it's always off center on normal trebles that are attached with split rings, and it makes the lure run erratically.

 

The two lures that NEED the skirt: the Midge-oreno and the Baby Lucky 13, two very old lures that are still available but not always easy to find. One lure that works pretty well with the skirt even though it slightly kills the action--Mann's Baby One-Minus. Another old lure that you may stumble upon that works pretty well with the skirt is the Lazy Ike.

 

One other thing...there IS a reason, other than those I just spoke of, why a skirt or something on the belly hook might work well. Think back on all the fish you've caught on crankbaits. How many of them were hooked on the belly treble? I'd bet most of them were. I've seen, both in the water and on underwater footage on TV, bass taking crankbaits by very precisely biting the swinging belly treble ONLY. By adding some attraction to the belly hook, you might be giving the fish a more attractive target.

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