Squarebill crankbait
A squarebill crankbait is a small bait fished in the top few feet. At 3/8-3/4 oz on a treble hook it wants a rod that is middling in stiffness and bends through its middle, printed as medium. At its best along shallow banks with hard cover in stained water, where deflection off a target does most of the work.
A shallow crankbait with a flat, square lip that makes it deflect hard off whatever it hits instead of hanging on it. The deflection is the point — the erratic kick after contact triggers the strike, so a squarebill fished through open water is a squarebill wasted. It runs a few feet down and belongs against banks, fallen timber and rock.
How to Fish It
Cast tight to hard cover and reel steadily, keeping the bait in contact with wood or rock, and do not slow down when it deflects.
Rated for stained and muddy water only. In clear water at 1-6 ft a fish gets a long look at 2-3" of bait.
1-6 ft is the band it fishes, working from the moment it lands; below 6 ft a different bait is the answer, because this one is absent and not merely slow.
It is sold 2-3", and length and weight move independently: though the range is narrow enough that weight is the one you are really choosing.
When to Throw It
At its best along shallow banks with hard cover in stained water, where deflection off a target does most of the work.
Wrong over open flats or clean bottom, where nothing makes it change direction and it becomes a bait swimming in a straight line.
Keeping Trebles Pinned
Two or three small points ride on the outside of a 3/8-3/4 oz body, each holding in hard tissue by a fraction of an inch. None of them needs driving; what they need is that the pressure never spikes, so the rod bends down its length, because a stiff one levers small hooks straight out on a head shake.
3/8-3/4 oz rules a rod in or out before anything else does, and one profile here covers it: 7'0" medium, moderate action casting, whose card says what it is bad at.
7'0" medium, moderate action casting
- Length
- 7'0"
- Power
- medium
- Action
- moderate
- Casts
- 3/8-7/8 oz
- Line
- 10-17 lb
A specialist that exists for one reason: keeping small hooks in a fish. Its 3/8-7/8 oz window takes that weight without being at either end of it.
Cannot drive a buried single hook, because the tip gives before the point moves.
The One Fish It Catches
Largemouth Bass
- Water
- freshwater
- Mouth
- bony
- Line floor
- 10 lb
Largemouth Bass pull harder than their weight suggests, so the line under this bait starts at about 10 lb. Largemouth bass are the reason most North American anglers own more than one rod.
Everything else this fish is caught on is on its lures page. This bait is one entry there, and not always the first one to try.
The Method It Belongs To
Crankbait Fishing
- Where it sits
- mid-water
- Power
- medium or medium-heavy
- Action
- moderate or moderate-fast
- Difficulty
- beginner
A moderate rod flexes deeply through the cast for a bait with wind resistance. More importantly, it keeps small treble hooks pinned when a fish shakes at the boat.
Fishing a crankbait on a fast-action rod, which rips trebles out of the hard tissue around the jaw.
Where This Decision Goes Next
Medium-diving crankbait
Fished the same way in clear and stained water at 1/2-7/8 oz. The swap to make when the water changes, not when the plan does.
Find a rod that throws a squarebill crankbait
Five questions, four of them skippable. Answer them and you get the rods that cast this weight for the fish you are after — or, if you name a rod you own, whether it is one of them.