[Crankbait]

For those cutting their herring and smelts and hitting the water this week on their lake X,, make sure to check the weather and pick the side of the lake where waves are coming at you or washing the shore. Shelf's will be very productive, structure that graduates from 1 through 6 feet deep over a long casting distance. Bait without a weight will help considerably, just pick up the incoming slack from the wind push,, not too tight a line and definitely no P-Rigs. You want your bait to move with the wave action, bumping and rolling along the bottom. Herring fillets are best as they have a flimsiness that gets attention. You can even clip the skin of the fillet to your leader clip and then the hook for more flapping and less balling of the bait.

You'll be essentially fly-fishing with big bait in your regular rod. The bait and leader alone is more than enough weight to cast. I notice that the P-Rigs crowd tend to over use weight that their rods aren't set for, same goes for matching line at, but that's another story.

Have fun.

Keg, if you go weightless, Chuck it out into the flow, feed your line until your bait ends up in a sweet backflow area, then wait.