When you head into a tackle shop to buy a crankbait, hear a report of the walleyes crushing Flicker Shads, or that your Yakima Mag Lips are doing the job on steelhead all day long, it’s not just because someone made a mold, slapped a coat of paint on the resulting lure body, added a couple of hooks and crossed their fingers that the fish (and the fishermen) would like them.

I’m also sure that “lure engineers” cringe when they see an article about how to “tweak” their lures to make them better. I don’t often tweak the Flicker Shads that I use, but if I thought a slight or even a major alteration to one of them would make them better, I’d do it.

Hooks

One thing that I often do with Flicker Shads (as well as many other crankbaits) is upsize/upgrade the hooks. At 3 1/2 inches in length, the #9 Flicker Shad is the same size and the same general shape as the alewives that Great Lakes salmon and trout eat regularly.

But Flicker Shads weren’t designed with Great Lakes salmon and steelhead in mind. Sure, it’s possible to catch some of the biggest specimens in the lakes with straight-out-of-the-box Flicker Shads (or other similarly sized plugs). The Fusion 19 trebles standard on Flicker Shads are sharp and well made, but are they up to the strike of a teener Skamania or the dogged determination of a mature Chinook?

Actually, you’ll catch most of the fish that bite your Flicker Shad (or other fresh out of the box crankbaits), but you’ll lose some due to bent-out trebles or some that just come loose—a sign that the smaller hook didn’t stick around the big fish’s jawbone. The reason many saltwater plugs come with only a single hook, or that hooks or plugs made specifically for salmon (like J-Plugs) normally have hooks in ‘ought’ sizes, is to make sure that the large hook latches securely around the jawbones, not just in the skin covering them.

I look at every crankbait that I use when targeting big, tough salmon and trout, and if the hooks don’t look to be strong or large enough, I swap them out. I’ve found that, most of the time, moving up a few sizes—like going to a size 2 treble instead of the standard size 4 on a #9 Flicker Shad, and choosing hooks marked 2X or 3X strong, will keep them from bending during the fight of a strong fish.

I keep a small selection of hooks on the boat along with one of those inexpensive, flat, metal split ring pliers to quickly swap out a bent hook. Speaking of split rings….

All split rings are not created equal. That goes double for the split rings that go on crankbaits “normally” used for catching “lesser” fish.

It’s not that the makers of these baits are trying to crank them out on the cheap. The last thing they want to do is get a reputation for making weakling lures. But remember, many of these lures aren’t designed for the size and strength of the fish in the Great Lakes. They are designed to be used around stumps, submerged brush and other underwater structure, so attaching the hooks with small-gauge split rings can be a lure saver. When I’m bass fishing with a squarebill crank around stumps or clumps, I’m happy when I can pull a hook off one of those ten-buck baits when it gets hung up, instead of losing the whole lure.

There seems to be no industry standards when it comes to split rings. A size two from one manufacturer could be a size four from another. For salmon and steelhead, look for rings touted to be heavy-duty, double-strength or have some other indication that they are built stronger. Many of the “name brand” companies like Owner and VMC advertise their rings with a “pound-test” rating.

Tuning

If there’s only one tweak to do with your crankbaits, it should be to make sure that they are swimming true. That holds whether they are being cast or trolled and regardless of whether they are targeting panfish or the biggest fish in the lake. It’s easy to learn to bend the nose loop or line tie a smidge to the left or right to make sure the cranker swims with the top up and the bottom down. Pro anglers check every crankbait they use, every time they pull it out of the tackle box, and then again after every fish is caught with it.

I make a special effort to check the “tune” on any of the crankbaits that I beef up with larger or stronger hooks and split rings. It’s rare that a split ring upgrade makes much of a difference, but upsizing hooks is a different story. It may take a bit of trial-and-error to find an upgrade that will work without upsetting the balance or significantly dampening the lure’s action.

Cosmetic tweaks

I once found an “overstock” bin in a tackle shop packed full of Storm Wiggle Warts in assorted colors, each at a bargain basement price. I couldn’t resist. I picked up several in what looked to me to be good colors, including both solid fluorescent red as well as fluorescent red with black stripes on the sides, reminiscent of rib bones. I used both the solid red and ribbed-red models for a few weeks and came to the realization that, while both the solid red and ribbed-red Warts caught fish, the ones with the ribs outproduced the solid-red model.

With use, my supply of the ribbed-red Warts dwindled. But instead of heading back to the store for a resupply, I found a Sharpie and inked some rib-looking stripes on my solid-red Warts. My artwork was less artistic than the factory-applied rib marks, but the fish didn’t seem to be that picky.

Let your talents and imagination run wild. Whether it’s a Sharpie, an assortment of model car paint colors or an airbrush setup with a wild rainbow of colors, customizing crankbaits to suit your fancy—and hopefully to attract more fish—is an interesting hobby.

Millions of fish have been caught with crankbaits right out of the box, with the original paint, with no change of hooks or any other user-applied tweak. The lure “engineers” designed them to work that way. But, I believe, it’s possible to make a good thing even better. Just give it a little tweak.

Looking for more ways to increase your catch rate? You’ll find plenty of suggestions in every issue of MidWest Outdoors. Subscribe on our website.