When Do You Throw a Black Crankbait?
Veteran pro Clark Reehm has a Louisiana mailing address and spends a ton of time at Sam Rayburn, but he also put in a lot of time on Arkansas waters during his formative fishing years. While he was there, he learned one of the region’s worst concealed killer lures.
“A black Bandit 200 is an Arkansas River deal,” he said. “Everybody thinks it’s a secret, but everybody knows about it.”
He’s also learned that it excels in many if not most rivers with stained water. He’s earned checks with it on not only the Arkansas River, but also the Red River closer to home and the Upper Mississippi out of LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
“There’s something about that silhouette,” he added. “It’s why we use a black and blue jig, or why some of the swimbait guys go with a solid black lure. I’ve heard people say that they throw them at night, but that all-black crankbait can be good in stained water, any time it’s fairly shallow.”
Unlike his black jigs, which typically have some blue or another color or colors mixed in, the crankbait is usually solid black. It’s moving fast so he doesn’t “believe in fancy.” He’ll take a Sharpie and alter a plug that came in another color to get it right. That’s also a money-saving technique: when he finds a square bill that he likes in the clearance bin, he’ll snatch them up and get to work with the marking pen. It doesn’t matter how they started out.
If you’d rather buy your black crankbaits “off the rack,” here are a few options:
Reehm’s Shallow Cranking Tackle
Seaguar AbrazX – usually 15-17 pound test, but occasionally as high as 25.
A 6.3:1 gear ratio baitcasting reel. “A 7:1 overworks the lure a lot of times, but you’re covering water so you don’t want something slow.
