Read My Lips: Breaking Down How Crankbaits Behave

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This article was first published in the May 2025 issue of In-Fisherman. 

A crankbait’s lip rules its moves.

The angler is the engine that makes it go by winding the reel. But the size, shape, and position of its bill create all the wiggling, rolling, and diving actions we find in today’s vast array of “plugs.” The creativity of garage whittlers and CAD machine operators has gifted us with crankbait bodies of many shapes and sizes, not to mention materials. When matched with a bill of a particular shape, size, and angle, it can yield all sorts of magic. Or not.

The Lure of the Squarebill

The first “plugs” of the early part of the 20th century sported short round lips of steel that were screwed to the lure’s nose to provide a wobbling action in rather shallow water. Among modern cranks, one of the oldest and most popular categories is the squarebill, a well-named bait that runs about 3 to 6 feet, banging into everything in is way and cleanly bouncing off hard objects.

A major breakthrough came about when home-based crankbait creators carved their own wide-body baits with square-shaped lips, often made from circuit-board material, such as the original Big-O, carved of balsa by Tennessee angler Fred Young in 1970. The newly emerging cadre of bass pros of that era discovered the versatility and fish-catching power of this style of crankbait and the squarebill became a key category, and it remains so today. Rick Clunn first recognized its effectiveness when he drew Young as a co-angler in a Bassmaster tournament and marveled as he used a Big-O to load the boat.

These baits are masters at covering expansive shallow flats that feature scattered rock, stump fields, or clumps of vegetation. These zones are ideal bass cover before and after the spawn, and year-round in some systems, particularly those with dingier water color. They stand out for their ability to fish through cover, bouncing off stumps and limbs with minimal hangups when fished with a delicate touch and moderate-speed retrieve. They’re deadly at times with a speedy retrieve, but also tease bites from cold-water bass as they slowly probe cover.

The original Big-O was made of balsa, which provided great buoyancy. Today, nearly all models are hard plastic, with the exception of custom hand-made models such as Phil Huntley’s, and Rapala’s Rocco 5 in the Ott’s Garage (OG) series. Pro staffer Ott DeFoe traces his crankbait roots to his high school days in East Tennessee where he learned to carve baits by hand. Given Rapala’s traditional use of balsa, it has a beautiful fluttering action enhanced with a squared-off circuit-board lip.

Diving Bills

Flaps on the stern planes of a submarine — similar to those on the wings of an airplane — determine its diving angle. No designers have figured out how to add such a feature to a crankbait, so we have numerous boxes of baits built to dive to depths from 1 to 25-plus feet, depending on the size, shape, and angle of their lips.

Scratching the Surface: Some of my most exciting crankbait fishing has come within a foot or two of the surface. In stained water, big bass are at home in 2- to 4-foot depths where baits with short lips set at angles close to 90 degrees are deadly all summer. Short precise casts put a wakebait in harm’s way as it ruffles the surface, just begging to be eaten.

Mann’s 1-Minus was the original with its wide body and miniature cupped lip that gave it a wild sashaying action. Other popular models also include Rapala’s DT Fat 01, Lucky Craft Fat CB SSR, Megabass Funky Flipper, and Ima Roumba. In the right situation, they all work.

Dredging the Depths: At the other end of the depth profile spectrum, we have a long list of big-billed baits designed to fish deep structure. Back in 1987, Mann’s Bait Company released the 20+ and 15+, the first depth-designated crankbaits. They soon added a 30+ and 10+ as anglers embraced the concept.

Fast forward 30 years and we find David Fritts’ final contribution to the deep-diver scene, the Dredger series he designed for Berkley with models built to hit 8.5, 10.5, 14.5, 20.5, and 25.5 feet. He studied water flow in Berkley’s test tanks and used a V-shape back to increase dive angle, along with a metal disc fused into the bill like he’d used when tweaking Rapala’s Dives To (DT) series to hit 20 feet. These balsa baits — six models rated from 4 to 20 feet remain very popular.

“Their shape, as well as the metal tab in their bill, makes Dredgers dive fast,” Fritts says. “After retrieving 30 feet of line, the 25.5 model reaches 15 feet; after 15 yards, it’s close to 20 feet. No other floating crankbait dives that quickly.”

They’re also moderate-sized for their depth ranges, with the 8.5 weighing just 5/16 ounce and the 25.5 at 3.5 inches and 11⁄8-ounce.

Today, most major hardbait companies offer fine deep-divers. Strike King’s XD (Extra Deep) series has accounted for countless tournament wins and trophy catches, while 6th Sense’s ever-expanding line of versatile divers has made it a household brand in the market. The Cloud 9 Series includes models from 1/2 to 1.9 ounces designed to dive from 4 to 27 feet, while the Pressure Series lineup aims for the 2- to 16-foot depths, with baits from 3/8 to 1 1/4 ounces. Crush DD models are all deep runners, shooting for 14 to 27 feet, in weights from 1 to 1 3/4 ounces.

Mid-depth Diggers: Likely the largest crankbait category includes baits designed to run from 4 to 8 or 9 feet, which covers a wide swath of bass habitat year-round. They bang off rock and riprap banks in reservoirs and rivers, and shoot among stalks of vegetation along breaklines. This category includes many of the most beloved go-to baits over the decades: Bandit 200, Bomber 7A, Rapala DT-6, Luhr Jensen Speed Trap, Salmo Hornet, Norman Deep Little N, and Storm Wiggle Wart. Their running range can be fine-tuned by retrieve speed and cadence, casting distance, rod angle, and by using lines of different thicknesses.

Bent Lips

Given the changes in lure action produced by bills of different shapes and angles, imaginative designers have created offbeat bills that are curved, cupped, or connected loosely to the lure’s nose. One of the first super-deep divers was Tom Seward’s Hot Lips Express, designed to reach 15 feet on a long cast with thin line. Its bill was large and had flanges on each side to catch more water and dive deeper. After bending the tip of the bill upward in the heat of a cigarette lighter, he offered the “Bent Lip” Hot Lips that achieved another foot or two of depth. That feature remained when rights were sold to Luhr Jensen, although they’re now out of production. Filing the lower edge of a plastic bill is another trick for added depth, though using such baits around rock can be futile. On the other hand, narrowing a bill by filing it narrows its wobble.

Rapala changed the game with a broad curved lip on its Scatter Rap, shaped a bit like an potato chip. Its origins reportedly come from European designers building baits for predators like pike, zander, and European perch. This lip gives the lure a hunting action, constantly swimming off to one side, then the other. Several Rapala models target depths from 4 to 9 feet in a shad-shaped and minnow-style body. This erratic motion has made them a favorite among trollers as well.

To achieve a different erratic motion, 13 Fishing and 6th Sense each offered a square-bill with a lip that pivots from side-to-side — the Jabber Jaw (no longer in production) and the Axis Metal 2.0, respectively. This bill keeps the bait tracking true, while hunting with a side-to-side action.

L-shaped bills have also won over fans in the bass market, though Rapala has offered this design for years in their Shallow Shad Rap and Super Shad Rap. Strike King’s Hybrid Hunter has joined the mix, designed for spring fishing over weedy flats with hydrilla, milfoil, and other vegetation, where rattlebaits have ruled. Its chubby body, low dive angle, and deflective bill help it navigate weedy waters. The 6th Sense Swank Crank is a more elongated L-bill design, also with loud rattles, in 1/2- and 3/4-ounce weights.

The latest turn in bill tweaking comes on Evergreen’s DXV-18 with an elongated shad-shape body with a long bill of moderate width that’s sharply turned down at the tip, said to enhance its dive angle to reach at least 18 feet on a cast. It carries both a fixed weight and a sliding weight-transfer system — pushing it past one ounce — for long and accurate casts, with three treble hooks to take care of business. Typical for Evergreen, it sports a fine-scaled finish and multi-hue airbrushed treatments for lifelike appearance. I look forward to trying them out early this year.

Material Matters

Though metal lips were extremely durable, they’ve largely been replaced by Lexan or other hard plastics that can be mass-produced. Custom baits and certain specialty brands, such as Rapala’s OG Series, are equipped with bills of circuit-board material, sometimes called “chip lips.” This series, designed by DeFoe, matches a balsa body with the thin and delicate lip of this material. DeFoe notes that the minimal weight and flexible texture of circuit board helps produce the lure’s optimal action. Since it’s more flexible than Lexan or ABS plastic, it doesn’t work on deep divers that require a hard cutting edge.

Today, the most common plastic for bills is Acrylononitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), which is extremely durable and stiff. It’s attractive for manufacturers as it’s cheap and relatively easy to manufacture and can be melted down and reused. Many earlier models used Lexan, a polycarbonate resin thermoplastic that comes in sheets. It’s tested tough enough to stop bullets. It proved a great material for thin crankbait bills. For example, Jim Bagley switched from plexiglass to Lexan on his divers in 1980 after customer complaints of bills breaking.

Tackle company representatives have assured me that today’s crankbait market is “soft,” meaning sales have been weaker than normal. It’s likely that the surge of interest and new products in the jighead minnow category, typically used with forward-facing sonar systems, has tipped the balance of angler dollars from hardbaits to soft ones.

Such trends in tackle have risen and fallen like the tides, and I fully expect crankbaits to regain their hold. They’re simply too effective and too much fun to fish to be ignored. Moreover, no less a crankbait guru than Kevin Van Dam has told me how he incorporates crankbaits with his Humminbird MEGA Live system by watching the reaction of bass to retrieve speed and cadence on the screen and altering it to draw more strikes.

Steve Quinn, former longtime In-Fisherman Senior Editor and now Field Editor, has been writing articles for In-Fisherman publications for over three decades. He’s been inducted into the Bass Fishing and National Fresh Water Fishing halls of fame.

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