Pro angler David Walker is from Tennessee. That means at least two things. One: He can fish. Two: He can crank. If there’s any one state in the United States that can lay a claim to being the epicenter of cranking, it’s Tennessee. This is the land of garage carvers, basement air-brushers and fisheries that present a limitless length of stump-bumping, wood-rubbing, billed bait bliss. So, it’s only natural that he fishes heavily with all sizes and sorts of cranks — even small ones.
Shallow cranking took a big turn about a decade ago, when the squarebill craze first took hold. And since that time, squarebills have definitely pushed smaller crankbaits to the side. Whenever something like that happens in bass fishing — when one style of bait supplants another — the losing bait will usually earn its way back to the top in a renaissance of sorts. Whether that happens or not, Walker won’t hesitate to throw a small crank anytime he’s fishing shallow water. He has one tied on everywhere he goes.
Whenever Walker talks about small cranks, he’s referring to baits that run about 6 feet deep or less. And to get more specific, he’s “really talking about baits that run 3 to 5 feet.” “Some of these can be really small, like micro crappie cranks,” he says. “I have boxes and boxes of crankbaits.
They all work, but they all have a situational time when they work, and small crankbaits especially. One I’m using lately is the Yearling Baitball Series from LiveTarget. It comes in a 45, 50 and 60, and the 60 is about the size of a 1.5 (squarebill). The 50 is just below a Bandit size, and the 45 is about the size of the 0.5. The 50’s my favorite because it’s on the smaller side but still has a weight-transfer system."
