If you are not cranking or throwing any type of reaction bait...you are truely missing out. I can honestly say a must have on the deck of my boat are 2 cranking rods and 1 spinnerbait rod for early spring, spring, summer, and fall cuz bass are moving up and down the water column all and everyday durring these seasons....win ter is a no brainer.
Every and anyone can finess fish a limit and hope to get lucky that a big/kicker fish will bite. But as all you tournament anglers know, a limit will not win you the tournament(most times). Ppl who go out finess fishing for a limit in hopes to get lucky that a big/kicker fish will bite will mostly never learn and improve. I see it all the time finess fishers have the same spinning rod with the same worm in the same spot they caught'em 10 years ago.
But just from my view and experience...n ot dogging anyone...yours might be different.
Depends. We don't have rock bottoms, sand and pebbles at the bottom our 30,000+ combined MN/WI lakes except up north. Most of our lakes here have thick vegetation. Most of us use reaction baits to locate fish, then finesse it. Some just fish reaction bait covering as much water as possible and I see this at tournaments all the time. These guys don't win many tournaments, if not any b/c the fish are in the thick weeds. The cranks has its days and its place but finesse fishing overall seems to be the ticket in the Northern States here b/c it penetrates to where the fishes are. The rivers are a different story.
Here's my setup: 1 Spinnerbait, 1 hollow body swimbait, 2 jigs, 1 texas rig, 1 dropshot, 1 senko and 1 crank. All on the deck.
Edit: Its funny how its totally opposite here. Reaction baits (cranks, skinny dippers..etc) will catch your limit here but finesse fishing is what actually wins most tournaments. It all depends b/c anyone can throw cranks and reaction baits around too.
