Which Crankbaits to Buy?

I am in the market for a bunch of cranks that I am going to use on Lake Vermilion in August. Can anybody suggest the best brands and/or styles to use? All I have right now are Shad Raps and am looking for more variety. Thanks

Tony

Whadda ya fishin’ for??? Personally I’ve been having a lot fo fun with the suspending husky jerk, but the original floatign raps in both brown trout and shad color have been cood too. I think you should buy some of those white glass shad raps too, people just seem to love them, although I have a couple I haven’t hooked into anything yet. I’m kind of partial to the bomber A’s too… Oh heck I don’t think I could go fishing with out a jointed shad in the firetiger color… How much do you wanna spend

I’m sorry I didn’t say it in my original post but I will be fishing for walleyes on Vermilion. I’m open to buying any kind of crank as long as it catches eye’s. Thanks

Tony

Every lake is different. You might want to wait till closer to August before buying a truck load just for that trip. I would call up there. Either a bait shop or the place you are staying. I can’t tell you how many times I have traveled to far away lakes with lures/colors I “guessed” would work only to find they were hot on something else. Now I have about everything so it’s not as big a problem but it still happens. I would say a good start would be Shad Raps and jointed Shad Raps in many colors and sizes. After that it get’s to personal to choose without offending people. Well just one. I now have confidence in the Grapplers since they worked this weekend. Nice lures.

I wish i could wait but I’m goin on vacation until prefishing for that tournament so I have to buy everything now. Thanks for the input.

Tony

I wish I could help you more but I would just be guessing.
BUY EVERYTHING! Seriously a couple weeks ago silver #5 jointed worked best for us on Rainy. I think there are two silver type lures. One looks like a small bass and the other a shad. Crayfish may be hot in Aug and there are at least 3 colorations of that lure. I hear bigger better late in season so #7’s might be the ticket. Again those Grappler Shads seem to be a real nice lure. 2 sizes. Cover your basics too. Last Sunday on Pepin the old standby regular blue/white Shadrap was king and I was caught without. Fortunately Crossin Eyes had some and the new glass shad in blue worked as well, which I had ONE. Grappler in blue also worked.(I had ONE) I think a blue crayon on a hook may have worked!!
Good luck. Hopefully you get some useful information from others. Maybe the lake forum here or that “other” site would help. PM me if you need other internet info…

I wasn’t overly impressed with the grappler shad’s…….fished em on the wing dams on monday and had a few problems……….first one of the hooks was bent in right out of the box……..then the tip of one of the hooks busted off (I don’t even remember getting it caught on anything)…….then it got all screwed up the first time I ran it hard through the rocks and I couldn’t get it to run straight after that

anybody else have these problems???

I am probably the lone person here who doesn’t fish Rapalas. For the price, Wally Divers can’t be beat. I used a Grappler Shad this weekend – no luck, but it ran true out of the box. I also have never had a Bomber run bad.

Jake,

The Grappler Shads have been a good crank for me both on the river and Mille Lacs when applied to the right conditions. What I have found wiht the Grapplers is that it excels as a high speed trolling crank. Most all of the cranks I have had right out of the box have run true as blue. I have encountered a couple of them lately that have had some tuning issues.
These issues cannot be left unsaid. IF you have any issues with these cranks please let them know first hand of your concerns or issues with them so they can address a particular process that may be need to be looked at.

Sending returns back
Direct contact phone number to contact; 479-782-8971

I use to fish Vermilion years ago and the best cranks I have had success with was the wally divers (like nubbinbuck said) and the Bomber 5A and 6A models. The bombers excell when pulled through the rocks and contact is made. These work wonders for provoking strikes. Come August, the water temps will be at the peak high and speed may become your best ally for producing strikes. I only wish I had the Grappler Shads back in the day I was up there.

Hope this helps and anyone else that has an issue with a Grappler Shad not running good out of the box or a quality concern, please contact me or the above phone number and we will get it addressed and resolved. They will most likely need to see the original lure to evaluate what happened to correctly narrow their investigation.

Thanks guys and good luck fishing!

Thanks for all the great replies. I will have to pick up some grappler shads, but otherwise I should be set. Thanks again.

Tony

I realize this is getting a little side-tracked from the original thread but I thought I would put out a question to the IDA crew… I am getting quite a pile of Wally Divers that cannot be tuned because the eye screw in the plastic bill is loose and slips both ways from ‘straight’… Some of these are loose right out of the box – does anybody have a method to tighten them up in the plastic bill so they can be tuned (super glue, heat, etc)?? Will Cotton Cordell replace em’?? I have tried a handful of the Grapplers and they seem to run much better than the Wally Divers – imho….
Thanks,
barc

barc,

How old are your wally divers? They was a slight tweak needed on the mold process about a year in a half ago that seemed to clear up the problems with lures running good right out of the box.

I am quite sure Cotton Cordell will replace them. I have used superglue on other lures in the past to help anchor the eye screw a bit so it will stay tuned. I have forwarded this email right to Cotton Cordell and it will be looked into. For now use the information I have attached in my above post for returning product back!

Hope this works for you. I have noticed that Cotton Cordell is very pro-active in investigating issues like this. You can be rest assured that your concern will be looked into and corrected if need be ASAP.

Thanks for the heads up!
Good luck fishing!

Thanks for the info Steve…. I probably have 30-40 hanging in my B&B crank box besides the bunch that are in the junkyard for the loose eye screw…. Looked at the return policy and I can tell ya I don’t have the original packaging or invoice for the new ones I bought last week let alone the ones in the junkyard… I would say they are anywhere between the ages of 0-2 years if I had to make a guess…
barc