Hard baits: Choosing a hard bait: mechanism, depth, season

Situation	Bait	Why
Shallow wood and rock, stained water	Squarebill	Deflects instead of hanging
Points and riprap, 1.5–3.5 m	Medium-diving crankbait	Ticks the bottom at the depth most fish use
Offshore ledges, 4–7 m, summer	Deep-diving crankbait	The only hard bait that reaches them fast
Grass flats, spring; schooling fish, fall	Lipless crankbait	Rips free of grass; casts far
Clear cold water, slow fish	Suspending jerkbait	Hangs in their face
Warm shallow water, over grass	Floating jerkbait	Rises off the cover
Suspended fish in 3–6 m	Deep jerkbait	Suspends at their depth
Big fish, clear water, follows	Glide bait	The turn triggers the follower
Bait schools, docks, slow steady swim	Hard swimbait	Swims itself
Pressured, clear, suspended, nothing else works	Spybait	Almost no vibration

Water temperature	First bait	Retrieve
Under 8 °C (46 °F)	Suspending jerkbait, flat-sided crankbait	Long pauses, slow
8–15 °C (46–59 °F)	Lipless over grass, medium crankbait, jerkbait	Medium
15–24 °C (59–75 °F)	Squarebill, deep crankbait offshore, glide and swimbaits	Steady, bump cover
Over 24 °C (75 °F)	Deep crankbait, lipless burned, spybait for suspended fish	Fast, or dead slow for spybait

Pick the mechanism for the cover, the depth for the fish, and the size for the forage; colour last.

← Spybaits

Hard baits

Sub-surface hard baits by what makes them move: crankbaits with a lip (squarebill, medium, deep, flat-sided), lipless crankbaits, jerkbaits (suspending, floating, deep), hard swimbaits (glide baits with one joint, multi-jointed swimbaits), spybaits, and the topwater hard baits: poppers, walking baits, prop baits, wake baits.

Hard baits