The single biggest obstacle standing between most people and success with crankbaits remains that they don’t know enough about where their lures are going. Most of us are not blessed with imaginations rich enough to picture in our minds a lure swimming along at just the right depth, or flirting precariously with a weed edge or brush pile. We still spend far too much time experimenting with color, and not enough time getting a handle on control over what we might call depth and proximity.

Depending on how willing a fish is to chase down our lures (and on most days, the answer is not very), we need to swim them quite close to the fish’s holding positions in order to get a strike. If fish are suspended off bottom in an open basin that might mean the lure has to be at the right depth, and pass pretty darn close to the fish. If the fish are taking up ambush positions in cover, the lure might need to either pass close by, or even come into contact with the cover, before the fish is inspired enough to eat it. The good news is that, on some days, fish are willing to run down your lure and attack it. But as you calculate the odds of being on the water on one of those days, you see how important precise control over your lures is to consistent success.

Perhaps what makes fishing so difficult for so many of us is that, except in clear, shallow water it’s not a visual sport. You cast out and crank a lure back, or you let out line and troll along, and you can’t see the lure to confirm visually where it is in relationship to the bottom, or cover, or fish.

The bottom line: in order to catch fish, we need help, and we need practice.

Help comes in the form of research done by experts, who have tested many crankbaits and minnow plugs to see how deep they run at the average trolling speed of about 2 mph, with varying lengths of line out. The latest edition of Precision Trolling (800-353-6958) is packed with dive curves showing the running depths of many lures, including some (such as the Risto Rap and Husky Jerk) not available in earlier versions. When you have this reference book in the boat at all times most of the professional trollers on the walleye circuits do you can quickly check to see how deep any given lure in your tackle box will run. First, you decide how deep you want to fish, then you find a lure that will run to that depth, then you let out the appropriate length of line to get there.

Experts tells us that, within a speed range of 1-3 mph (and most trolling is done in this range), there is only a small degree of depth change from that found on the dive curves. That should be good news, knowing that you don ‘t have to worry about speed control beyond what gives your lure the action you want it to have, and what speed seems to trigger the most strikes.

Practice comes into the process when you spend time using the depth charts on the water. Even the authors caution against using them as untested gospel. You still have to check how deep a given lure runs, based on exactly how you fish! But these charts will get you very, very close.

And when it comes to casting (after all, not everyone trolls, and in some states and fishing tournaments, trolling is against the rules), nothing beats lots of repetitions for getting a sense of how deep your lures go. Simply getting out there and fishing gives you better command over your equipment, from controlling your boat to making better casts, to truly getting a handle on what your lures feel like coming through the water. When a bait is digging good, it has a certain feel, and when it’s off a bit (out of tune), it has a different feel. Only experience will allow you to notice the difference. At the top of this feel mountain are men like Rapala Pro Staffer David Fritts, who says he is so in touch with his lures that he can tell when a bass turns on his lure, the force of water displaced by the fish’s tail interrupting the action of his crankbait. He practically makes a living casting and retrieving the Down Deep Rattlin’ Fat Rap and Risto Rap, and spends endless hours developing and maintaining his ability to interpret their behavior in the water.

Sometimes, close is not enough. Rapala Pro Staffer Larry Dahlberg, host of the ESPN program, The Hunt for Big Fish is a strong believer in the power of his lures contacting bottom. It’s hard to argue with the number and size fish Larry catches. If I’m not ticking, he says, I’m not fishing. He qualifies this by saying that if fish are suspended, or riding high in a weed patch, it doesn’t apply. But, he says, in a huge percentage of cases, it’s important to contact bottom with your lures in order to catch lots of fish.

I don’t mean plowing a furrow, he further explains. I mean tickety-tickety-tickety. This goes for casting and trolling, he says, and also notes that when trolling he checks his lures frequently for weeds and other debris that can spoil the action. If you’re bumping bottom, the lip is going to gather sandgrass, twigs and other bottom-dwelling cover. On a lure with delicate balance, such as a Rapala, even a tiny hitchhiker can ruin the ride.

Bass casters have for years described the importance of bumping the stump or otherwise bringing their lures into contact with cover to elicit strikes from fish. So, don’t discount the value of ticking bottom while trolling or casting.

Even after you fine-tune your ability to put a given lure to a given depth, and determine what depth fish are holding in, you still have to work at improving your ability to put a lure in just the right location. If you’re trying to troll or cast down the edge of a weedline, for example, consider it good news if your lure gets fouled with weeds. Move out a foot on the next trolling pass, or the next cast. If you still get weeds, move out another foot next time. Or, you can move inward until you contact weeds, then back away just a bit.

Eventually, you’ll run your lure so tantalizingly close to the weeds that fish waiting in ambush come exploding out and take it. If you’re trolling in the open expanses of featureless basins, use a GPS plotter function to keep track of where you’ve been and where you haven’t. That way, you can systematically cover an area, knowing you are checking new ground each pass, but keeping the passes as close together as you want. After you catch fish, you can make a trolling pass that brings your lure into almost exactly the same spot. If you don’t have GPS, use the old-fashioned method of lining things up on shore to methodically cover new ground, or repeat a successful run.