If there was one bait I love nothing more to throw on Summersville in November it would be the crankbait. I have had so much success and some of the best crankbait days in my life tossing one around for the pesky little smallmouth there.

But I don’t want to talk about my success with it, but rather spotlight two guys who rallied on nothing but a crankbait for two days to finish up 7th in the 2022 Marshall Fishing Cup. I was fortunate enough to cover Cole Sowards and father Mike Sowards for a couple of hours on both days of The Cup and capture some pretty neat crankbait catches on camera. And they were willing to share some tips on how they caught their fish on Summersville.

Mike and Cole on Day 1 would weigh in a five-bass limit totaling 7.62-pounds and would squeak them inside the Top 10 to fish on Day 2. On Day 2 they caught another limit that went 6.99-pounds but was one of the seven teams that caught a limit on Day 2. All those bass would come on three crankbaits a Rapala DT6, a Rapala DT8, and Spro RockCrawler.

“What I have found, cranking on Summersville can be kind of difficult. But over the last few years, I have found that the deeper it dives and the smaller profile of the bait the better off you are,” Cole explained. “If you look hard enough you can find some different brands that make great crankbaits that fit into that category.”

Although while keeping the bait secret Cole and Mike did most of their damage on a smaller crankbait they claimed they could throw on spinning gear.

“I was throwing my little crankbait on a 6’10 medium with a Shimano Stradic 1000 size reel. I had 15-pound braid to an 8-pound leader. It makes catching them a lot more stressful on those light setups but to make long casts there isn’t any other way you can throw it.”

Cole claimed while they did ‘decent’ in The Cup, they weren’t catching a lot of numbers, but catching the quality fish was key for them.
“I would say we caught around 15 to 20 fish for the three days if you count practice. The first tournament day we only had six bites, and the second day we had had nine bites, but only landed six of those,” Cole said.

A huge key for Cole and Mike was not only the crankbait but how they approached the lake he claimed was the biggest key for them.

“Keeping my boat in about the same depth that my crankbait would dive to and stay in that strike zone longer was a major factor for us. But after the wind blew its head off Saturday it changed the color of the water in our main area but we still had bites in the semi-stained water and the clear,” said Cole. “We weren’t running anything, in particular, our main goal was just to have a line in the water as much as possible. There was no reason for us to be running around like crazy.”