Fenwick’s Elite Tech Bass Series now includes 23 models, crafted to match the requirements of 16 techniques using various materials, reel seats, and handle styles to increase fishing efficiency and comfort. For the first time, they’ve been designed using Fenwick’s 50-year database of rod research.

Crankin’ Sticks: Crankbait fishing is hot, with a greater array of depth-specific baits, and rod companies have also focused on this category. In their Team All Star series, All Star has added 4 Cranking Rods, covering ­applications from light shallow runners to big divers, for which the 7-foot 10-inch Big Crankin’ Stick was designed.

For 2009, Quantum offers the Tour Kevin VanDam rods, designed by the cranking whiz kid himself. Daiwa’s new STEEZ SVF Fle-X-Lite Rods are designed for different cranking and jerkbait applications, using blends of new SVF (Super High Volume Fiber) Graphite. Unidirectional graphite fibers provide strength and flexibility for cranking, while keeping weight down. Three casting models and 2 spinning are available. G. Loomis’ additions include a 7-foot 1-inch GLX model for maximum feel and a 61⁄2-footer of blended graphite for accurate casting.

The Hot Bait

Phenomenon

Plastic worms and other softbaits continue to be the most used and most successful lures. They’re not going away, and new designs, materials, and colors continually make them more effective. But a few other categories can be considered hot baits for 2009. ­Certainly swimbaits fit this bill. Check the feature “Tackling Up for Swimbaits” in this Bass Guide for more specifics on lures, riggings, and rods. And crankbaits continue to develop, with greater sophistication in depth control, sound production, and action components. A look at a couple of smaller but no less exciting categories follows.

The Spoon Thing: When ­In-Fisherman TV portrayed techniques for catching big bass on casting spoons, starring Editor In Chief Doug Stange and Lake Fork legend Rick Loomis, our phones rang off the hook and anglers went to great lengths to obtain these lures. While spooning originated, it seems, at Fork, it has proven successful on hill-land reservoirs across the land, both in summer and winter.

Joe Spaits at Weedless Lures sells all the Big Joe Spoons he can make, and other companies have gone into production. Check Nichols’ new 4- and 5-inch Lake Fork Flutter Spoons, available in the company’s patented 3-D Metal Flake hues, Blue Shad and Bar Fish, as well as a new Shattered Glass Hologram finish. In their Talon Series of Custom Lures, Leadhead Lures introduces the Big Dandy Custom Lake Fork Spoon, designed with input from Texas pro Ben Matsubu. Sixteen natural baitfish colors are available in the shorter and heavier 4-inch 400 Series and in the longer, thinner 5-inch 500 Series.

Since Strike King has added the Sexy Spoon, they haven’t been able to keep up with demand for the 51⁄4-incher weighing 11⁄4 ounce and the 4-inch 3/4-ounce model, both available in 5 colors, including Sexy Shad, a VanDam creation. And don’t forget an old favorite for pike, the 1-ounce Len Thompson spoon, as it’s great for this tactic as well.

Funky Frogs: Although frog lures date back almost as far as spoons, fake amphibians also have been the rage the past couple of years. They’re fun to fish and often get bites from the biggest and meanest bass around. Professional frog phenom Dean Rojas had a hand in designing the Bronzeye line for SPRO, while winning hundreds of thousands of dollars fishing them around the country.

Late last summer, he won with a prototype of SPRO’s Bronzeye Pop, fishing it in New York’s Erie Canal, of all places. This 1/2-ouncer has a cupped face to spit water, and also walks around and through cover, while doubling as an open-water lure. This bait brings SPRO’s frog family to three members.

Snag Proof has added the Bass Kicker, a hollow-body frog like their classic Tournament Frog, but instead of skirt legs, this frog has a pair of ­paddle feet to buzz across the surface. Since it floats and can be paused in a pocket, it works for both fast and slow presentations. Along with some hot new colors in Bobby’s Perfect Frog (including the amazing Fred’s Frog finish) and Bleeding Frogs, Snag Proof offers The Frog Works, a kit for customizing all sorts of floating frogs, including Scent Wax, hooks, skirts, weights, rattles, and more.

Southern Lures, makers of the famous Scum Frog, also has a hybrid called BigFoot Frog, with a hollow body and paddle feet, available in 2 sizes. The latest is Crawdaddy, shaped more like a crawfish than a frog, but with a hollow body and paddling feet. It comes with steel balls of different weights, to be inserted in the head to make it run deeper, with a wild kicking action.

Optimum Baits, a company on the cusp of lure development and importation of Japanese baits, adds Basirisky, a frog-shaped topwater, in their Deps line. It’s rear-weighted with a single hook and features a pair of curved legs that make it sashay across the surface like a Jitterbug.

Soft-body frogs have been highly successful, too, and several new ones merit a look. One of the hottest baits at lake Guntersville and other grassy reservoirs last fall was Stanley’s Buzz Frog, incorporating a buzzbait blade in front of a Ribbit. Secret Lures released the Chubby Frog with clear paddle feet for a subtle look. Canyon Plastics has added 2 sizes of Weedless Frog, a hollow-bodied high floater. The Three Legged Frog from Gene Larew has an extra appendage for increased action. And in their new Rage Tail line-up, Strike King offers the Rage Toad, a 4-inch frog with specially designed legs that buzz and spit water on the retrieve.

While most frogs today are either hollow floaters rendered weedless with a big double hook tucked tight to the abdomen or soft-bodied surface kickers, an innovative hard-body frog also is making ripples on the pond. The Maxx-Rev Original Frog Lure from Revere Maxx-Fishing is a unique design that simulates a frog diving below the surface to escape. It has outstretched legs, as though the critter is high-­tailing it for the bottom where frogs bury to hide. A prop at the rear gives a burst of bubbles when you jerk the lure below the surface, then it glides back on top. Twelve colors are available in this 1/2-ounce, 5-inch bait.