A well-anchored boat is often an advantage when fishing a crankbait around shallow brush and wood.

To get a feel for the latest trends in bass-catching high tech crankbaits, I spent a day with skilled Pennsylvania bass angler Deron Eck.

Between casts we discussed some of the most current movements, ones most likely to benefit anglers.

Cranking the shallow coverMost bass anglers would shudder at the thought of throwing an expensive crankbait — one that might have cost as much as a fishing rod 20 years ago — into a shoreline laydown. If you want to fish a moving bait around such cover you use a spinnerbait, right?Not so much anymore. Shallow running crankbaits like Lucky Craft’s RC 1.5 and Strike King’s KVD 1.5 give anglers the option of showing brush-dwelling bass a crankbait with minimal chance of a hang-up.“Baits like these have a moderate wobble,” explained Eck. “They come through the cover as well as a spinnerbait. They are very buoyant and deflect off of cover well, providing an erratic action when coming through the brush.“They also work well around weeds, where you make contact with the cover, and then rip the bait free, allowing it to float up away from the vegetation. That’s when you’ll get most of your strikes, after the baits clears the cover and floats up.”Eck said it’s the square shape of the bill that keeps these types of baits from hanging up in brush. They fish well on heavy line. He typically uses 17-pound test.“The square bill flares out,” he said. “When it hits a piece of wood, the bill kicks the baits away from the snag.”When fishing shallow wood cover, Eck often employs a shallow water anchor system — essentially hydraulically driven spikes employed from the transom — to quietly hold the boat in position for precise presentations.

Distance runningA few years ago, Rapala introduced a long cast minnowbait that used an internal weight system to rocket a fairly light lure a long distance. More recently, Japan-based lure maker Jackall has made use of similar technology in some of its baits, including its Bling 55.“The weight transfer system consists of an internal ball bearing,” said Eck. “The ball is magnetized. When you make a cast, the ball seats itself to a magnet located in the tail of the lure, which is the best position for a long cast. When the lure hits the water, the ball bearing breaks free and is re-seating in the center of bait for the correct balance.”Eck said the extra long casting distance is particularly beneficial when covering extensive areas such as large weed flats, where the bait is fancast over the tops of the emerging cover.Besides crankbaits, this internal weighting system can be found in jerkbaits like Jackall’s Soul Shad.

Sound checkSound can be an important feature of a crankbait. Perhaps the most famous of the noise baits is the original Ratt-L-Trap, a sinking lipless crankbait that helped spawn an abundance of hardbaits that use some type of internal rattle to (hopefully) attract bass.Both lipped and lipless crankbaits are now available with internal rattles, baits that tend to be productive in dirty water, where bass rely more heavily on sound and vibration. More recent lipless models like Rapala’s Clackin’ Rap and Xcalibur’s One Knocker produce sounds outside the “normal” range of such bait designs.“Bass are becoming accustomed to the sound produced by rattles inside of baits,” noted Eck. “A new bait — the Jackall Aragon — uses the hinged motion of a jointed bait to produce a different sound. The sides slap together as it’s moving through the water. The tail section actually makes a ‘clack.’ It’s a new sound and people catch bass on it.”And as with many things related to bass fishing, for every yin there’s a yang. Though rattles are pretty much a staple in lipless crankbaits, Sebile’s Flatt Shadd is a non-rattling lipless crankbait. The lure accounted for some dandy Conneaut Lake largemouth bass when tested in that clear body of water during a recent fall trip by a group of writers.

How low (deep) can you go?Though most bass anglers reach for a heavy jig or Carolina rig when fishing deeper structure, it’s a zone reachable with ultra-deep diving crankbaits. Deep divers aren’t particularly new. But it’s still a work in progress.“One of the new things with deep divers is the use of circuit board material in the making of the diving bill,” reported Eck. “The material is really thin, as well as durable.”The use of circuit board bills isn’t exclusive to deep divers. The material is also being used in the making of shallow and medium divers, citing the unique action of such billed lures as being the advantage. Circuit board material is also used in handcrafted baits.Diving bill material and angle can only make a lure dive so deep. Rapala’s DT 20 uses the weight of a metal disk — which is embedded in the diving lip — to help it reach depths that approach 20 feet.

Lake Arthur findingsPennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission fisheries managers Al Woomer and Tim Wilson, as well as Executive Director John Arway, are slated to attend the October meeting of the Moraine Musky Association.The officials will explain the findings of the agency’s fish population survey of the lake.The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 3, at the Mt. Zion Church Social Hall, located just off of Route 528 next to Lake Arthur’s “Church Launch.”Results of the Commission survey can be viewed at:http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/reports/2011bio/1x07_29arthur.pdf

Jeff Knapp is a fishing columnist for the Butler Eagle