On pressured lakes, plastics generally rule for smallmouth bass. But wicked storms stirred up some cloudy water last year. Several days afterward, the bite seemed dead. I reached for my crank box and ripped Rapala’s new DT Thug along a reef. The first strike was violent. The rest was easy.

A smallmouth living in clear water becomes Mr. Magoo when things cloud up. Baitfish become tough to find. Crankbaits crack into rocks, flash bright colors, and push vibration through the water. In both lakes and rivers, crankbaits rule in cloudy water. But cranks that work best for smallmouths in rivers aren’t necessarily the same as those that work best in lakes, though the two styles morph into one when rivers drop and clear, or at the other end of the spectrum when wind, waves, and rain draw the curtains in lakes.

Lake cranks tend to be smaller and duller, more realistic, and more translucent than river cranks. Lake versions are less aggressive, meaning less thump, less flash, and less noise in most conditions. A lake crank is more sinuous. It whispers, while the river crank screams to be heard through rushing water.

A photographic history of crankbaits looks like the evolutionary chart of man, from shambling ape to the upright, quasi-civilized, comparatively hairless versions of today. Bulbous, opaque, rattling ancestors have gradually given way to more slender, graceful, and realistic versions. The difference, in this analogy, is that old-school, Neanderthal crankbaits continue to hang around and catch bass.

Crankbaits today are sleek and stylish. The best have more of what it takes to catch fish drawn into the blueprints, streamlined for dynamics and efficiency, not just for looks. Because it’s always better to be good than to look good.

River Cranks

River smallmouths push against current and develop muscles seldom used by lake-dwelling cousins. They typically move farther to spawn and to find optimal seasonal habitat. All of which adds up to calories spent. Water clarity in a river can change drastically in a matter of hours during a heavy rain, and clarity ranges further in both directions in a river, from ultra-clear to muddy, over the course of a year. Water levels change more drastically, too. All of which makes it more difficult to identify the perfect river crank. What’s perfect this week could be worthless the next, and that’s seldom the case in lakes.

For river cranks, rattles are generally more important. Smallmouth rivers tend to be cloudy and noisy compared to lakes. If bass can hear a bait over the ambient din of water rolling over logs or rushing through rocks, and if they can see it from at least three feet away, the odds of a strike rise dramatically. The endless conveyor of the river is about to carry that meal away forever and the oppressive need for calories urges an aggressive response. Chasing bait and fighting current to regain a prime foraging position burns too many calories. When aggressive river bass have the opportunity to hit something invading their strike window, they often take it.

Baits that perform best in rivers at normal to high flow tend to be round and resistant, with thicker bills, opaque sides and aggressive colors. The rounder the shape, the more water it pushes—and the wider the bill, the wider the wobble.

In rivers experiencing very high flows, cranks to try first score high on the aggressiveness chart. Examples include the Storm Wiggle Wart and the Cotton Cordell Wiggle O. Warts and Wiggle O’s are round, wide-wobbling, aggressive, thumping baits that call long distance to fish way out there in the flow.

In moderate to high flows, moderated action is best. Examples include the Rapala DT10 and DT6 and Bomber’s 6A. The Rapala DT baits and the Bomber 6A are easily-tuned racing machines that work better around wood, throw farther and work faster than almost any other cranks on the market—the precise blend of characteristics required when the river is high, scattering bass but also making them more aggressive.

Smaller versions of baits that work in high water, like the Baby Wiggle O, Rapala DT4, and Bomber 4A tend to produce dramatically better results when the river is dropping to normal levels or below. Those baits retain the aggressive actions of the larger versions, but size reduction dials down the amount of thump, noise, vibration, and flash. As waters drop and clear, the Baby Wiggle O gives place to subtle cranks with thin bills, like Sebile’s Rattsler or a Salmo Hornet. As those patterns lose effectiveness, reverse the process and try aggressive colorations and sizes in less aggressive cranks like the Yo-Zuri Hardcore Shad Series.

As a river drops, current slows and it becomes more like a lake. Smallmouths are free to roam and suspend, less restricted by current. Prime spots widen from a few feet across at flood stage until, at the river’s lowest ebb, they run bank-to-bank. This allows a smallmouth to track things, if it wants to. It can follow and watch. The water is clearer, too, so a lure has to make fewer mistakes and present fewer flaws.