Four-Wheel Drive Crankbaits That Go… Anywhere!
When the Trophy Fish Live Back in the Woods, You Need
A Snagproof Crankbait That Fearlessly Goes In After Them!
Imagine you are attending a fishing seminar and the guest speaker asks the crowd of anglers, “What bait would you would throw into the gnarliest, densest, underwater jungles?” It is likely the audience would suggest a jig or a Texas-rigged worm. Why? Because with a little finessing you can work these snagless baits through brush, laydowns, and submerged tree tops, and feel fairly confident you’re going to be able to bring them back to the boat.
Now imagine one of the attendees in the back of the audience yells out “Crankbait!” Among the raised eyebrows, chuckles, murmurs, and startled looks, a few attendees may even strain their necks to see “…who would be foolish enough to throw a crankbait into dense wood and branches?”
His name is… JR Ince. And this master angler is the designer and manufacturer of some of the most unique crankbaits on the market today. What makes these baits stand out at first glance is the conspicuous absence of treble hooks – a customary feature on most crankbaits. Instead, the lures are constructed with a single Sickle hook extending upward from the back and rear of the bait. Much like a jig, this solo hook is protected by a stainless steel weedguard.
FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE CRANKBAIT
It is as though a mad scientist figured out how to mate a standard crankbait with a jig, creating an unnatural offspring that often startles first-time observers. For some traditional anglers, the whole concept is a little bit “disturbing” …until the ‘advantages’ of its unique DNA begin to seep into the angler’s imagination. And then the brilliance of the invention comes to light; it is basically a four-wheel drive crankbait – one that a fisherman can throw anywhere!
Even though the unveiling of JR’s baits to the public has been fairly recent, (2004), these crankbaits are not new or untried. JR Ince and a couple of his tournament buddies have been quietly making and successfully fishing these crankbaits for several decades. And they have memories and picture albums full of trophy fish to prove it.
LONG-HAIRED ANGLING ANALYSTS
The evolution of the snagless crankbait began back in the early 1970’s when JR and his fishing buddy Rob Ricci were a couple of “long-haired” teenage boomers attending Southern Illinois University. Though they should have been studying the college curriculum, their analytical powers had been turned instead to understanding the secrets of catching monster bass in nearby lakes such as Devil’s Kitchen, Little Grassy, and Crab Orchard.
“We took our fishing very seriously,” recalls Ince. “We refused to accept the idea of fishing but not catching anything. So we would come home and talk about what we did right and what we did wrong – we would just analyze the heck out of every fishing trip.”
The first byproduct of their creative efforts was a spinnerbait. “The common baits of choice back then were a 3/8 ounce spinnerbait for bass,” JR remembers, “and perhaps some rogue angler might have thrown a ½ ounce spinnerbait.”
JR and Rob, however, would not be satisfied to fish the shallow surface waters of Crab Orchard; they needed something heavier to get down to reach the big fish they suspected lurked in the deeper clear water impoundment of Devil’s Kitchen. Pouring their own lead and making their own one ounce baits, they were some of the first anglers in 1972 to fish 8, 12, 16, even 25 feet deep with spinnerbaits.
Ince recalls, “And what we were doing was catching 6, 7, 8, and 9 pound fish - not just once in a while, but with frequency, way down deep.” When these two ‘hippies’ won all the money at the first Devil’s Kitchen tournament they entered, the locals were stunned. “But we had figured it out,” said JR, “All we had to do is throw the bass a little bit bigger bait… or as we put it ‘You just gotta give them a little meat and potatoes, rather than just a snack.’” Little did they know at the time this phrase would decades later lead to the “Meat and Potatoes Tackle Company.”
FOCUS ON CRANKBAITS
It didn’t take these young men long to realize that an angler could not be successful day in and day out by throwing a single bait. So their attention turned to plastics and later to crankbaits.
The more involved JR and Rob got into competitive fishing, the more they realized that with limited time in a tournament “…you’ve got to cover a lot of water quick! In a tournament you are trying to find fish that will show themselves, rather than spending hour after hour chasing fish that won’t. In a competition you’re casting to aggressive fish as often and as fast as you can. Naturally the crankbait is a great search bait in tournaments.”
As JR investigated and stretched the limitations of what crankbaits could do, one of his favorite outdoor laboratories, (Devil’s Kitchen), was a deep impoundment with lots of submerged wood in it. Using the existing crankbaits of that time, Ince recollects, “So we started getting pretty darn good at finessing a crankbait through the wood, and catching monster fish – again, 6, 7, 8, 9 pound fish on these crankbaits; sometimes we’d be on our knees in the boat with our 7 foot rods fully extended down into the water so we could get the depth we needed.”
As Ince and his partners began to fish more team tournaments, their territory began to expand to Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake. “Back in the 80’s and 90’s one of the key patterns was fishing drops with stumps on them. The crankbait was a great bait for scuffing and running along the bottom in 2 to 3 deep water and then plunging into 20 feet depths beyond the drop off.”
CONTACT!
The more the lads experimented, the more they awakened to the secret of fishing crankbaits. “It became clear, profoundly clear to me,” insists JR, “that a crankbait really isn’t doing what it needs to be doing unless it is scuffing along the bottom or hitting cover. It doesn’t matter if the contact is with a stump, boulder, tree, or an old tire; a crankbait really is at it’s best when it’s hitting something. Sure, you can catch fish out in open water with a deep diving crankbait, but more often than not, you want to be hitting something, scooting along a sandy or gravelly bottom, bumping into a stump, bumping into an old car – whatever; the more deflection the better.”
Why the need for contact? JR explains, “Because it is this crazy crankbait’s erratic behavior that causes a predator like a bass or muskie to say ‘this is all wrong – this thing is crazy or sick – I’m going to go kill it!’ Predators do that. They observe something that is weak, or doing something that is abnormal, and they feel compelled to kill it. So after discovering that it is a crankbait’s ‘contact with cover’ that causes these violent strikes and instinctive reactions, I started experimenting in the early 80’s with the single top-hook design. I wanted to make it easier to get through the cover without having to hold your breathe, fearing the trebles would snag.”
To those skeptical anglers who have never thrown one of his snagless single-hook baits, JR tells them “Imagine a day when you can go out and purposely find the snaggiest, nasty bush, stump pile, or lay-down tree, and gleefully (with a smile on your face) throw the lure beyond it with the explicit intent of pulling the lure back through that garbage! Think about how freeing a snagless crankbait really is – how much more fun your fishing is when you don’t have to hold your breathe waiting for the moment when you are going to have either go get it with a lure retriever, or break off and lose the bait.”
THE TERMITE.
It is no accident that his lipless crankbait is called “The Termite” – it loves wood! This patented ¾ ounce shad imitator is 2 ¾ long and resembles the body shape of most lipless cranks except that an angler doesn’t have to be afraid as to where they throw it - it can be cast anywhere.
But note: Ince, wants Termite users to understand that “Sooner or later, I don’t care how good you are… an angler cannot fish wood all day long without sooner or later getting hung up. Yes, you can have fun amazing the uninformed (as you pull these baits cleanly through brush pile after brush pile) - but sooner or later an angler is going to get hung up. Even a jig can get hung in the trees if it rolls on its side or the line gets caught in the bark… stuff like that happens. But with this bait you’re going to have to work hard to get it hung up.”
DEAD STICKING AND DRAGGING
JR has caught countless trophy bass with the Termite. Interestingly enough, some came as a result of using a couple of presentations usually restricted to plastics: dead-sticking and dragging. Typically dead-sticking is dropping soft-plastic baits to the bottom and allowing them to sit motionless for a long period of time. This gives predator fish, (that might not be active enough to chase down a fast moving bait), the time to slowly mosey over to inspect it. Requiring little energy output, a bass simply flairs it’s gills and sucks in the dead-sticked plastic offering …or, instinctively strikes it when the bait finally gets twitched by the angler. JR does the same with his crankbait, The Termite.
“Ninety nine percent of the anglers I meet think that if they throw a lipless crankbait – the ‘law’ says you must immediately begin a fast retrieve. But there is no such law, or if there is, I won’t hesitate to break it. When fishing is tough in the dog days of summer, why can’t I let The Termite sink to the bottom? If an angler is ‘on fish’, those predators will have noticed the bait’s presence. In fact, some of them may have followed the lure down and they’re sitting there with their nose pointing at that bait wondering ‘What the heck is this thing?’ And the moment The Termite suddenly jumps off the bottom, a strike can often be triggered. Dead-sticking a Termite is a great option during tough fishing conditions.”
JR says the same applies to ‘dragging’. When a hardbait is designed to be snagproof, there are many times when dragging it slowly on the bottom will produce when faster presentations won’t. And dragging tends to keep the crankbait in the strike zone 100% of the time.
“A lot of times,” says Ince, “when I am fishing a lake I am not familiar with, I’ll get out on a channel lip that may go on for miles. Then I’ll slowly move the boat with the electric trolling motor along the top of that channel mound while dragging my crankbait. Occasionally I’ll ease off over open water, and then drift back over on top of that channel lip again. I’m letting the crankbait scuff along the bottom for miles.” Naturally other crankbaits won’t allow an angler to do this.
KEEL WEIGHT
Under the belly of The Termite is a small red, tenth-of-an-ounce, lead ‘keel weight.’ Its job is to keep the bait vertical in the water, especially as it comes through cover. Ince designed it so that as the bait slides over some blown down timber, it stands back up and starts wiggling again.
Most anglers are unaware, that the trebles that hang from the belly of a normal lipless crankbait produce a small but significant drag force in the water that tends to keep the lure remaining stable and upright. With the trebles eliminated, The Termite’s keel weight now fulfills that function.
This keel weight is not round like a bell sinker; it’s shaped like a knife, (like a wedge), and it’s installed so that the knife edge is facing forward. As the bait travels through the water, this shape causes the weight to slap around or bang against the side of the bait in a random pattern. JR explains, “The sound is not just ‘click, click, click, click’. The keel weight is randomly going ‘clickity, clickity, click, click, click, clickity’, ….that sort of thing. (Which I think is far superior to steady knocking).”
SUBTLE RATTLES
Internally, The Termite has just a couple of BB’s. “I’m into a more subtler rattle than most others. And lately I hear more professional anglers agreeing with me. Often they will say ‘I take the big knockers out’, or ‘The bait I use comes with 16 BB’s, and I take out all but three”.
JR is aware of the “rattle controversy”, but personally leans towards quieter baits. He smiles and says, “Show me a crawfish, or a threadfin shad, or a yellow perch, or any prey that swims along and goes ‘click, click, click, click’ …it doesn’t happen. I concede that in really, really muddy water the rattle might help. But if I fish muddy water with a lure I have a lot of confidence in - it doesn’t have to have a rattle. And I’ll still catch fish.”
Ironically, the idea of The Termite came to JR while modifying lures his fishing tournament sponsor provided. “Originally, I took Bill Lewis Rat-L-Traps and made up my Termites with them, because there is no doubt in my mind they are quality baits.” And yet for reasons unknown to Ince, when the design was offered to the Bill Lewis Lure Company, no action was taken to develop it. So JR kept making them on his kitchen table and winning tournaments with them.
THE HOTBACK
The Hotback, a 1 ounce lipped crankbait, was designed by JR Ince to reach the 13-16 foot range. Believing that contact with the bottom or cover is the key, JR can use the Hotback to “scuff” the shallows or descend to deeper water. “I can always slow-roll a crankbait and limit it’s running depth to 1 - 4 feet. But I can also get down on my knees and get the Hotback down to 16 or 17 feet or more.”
In his travels around the country, Ince has been surprised to discover that a lot of anglers don’t throw deep divers because “it’s just too much work for them. They would rather throw something that only goes 1 or 2 feet deep and they can pull it easily on light line.” But JR winks and says, “That’s fine with me. Let them hammer the shallows with everyone else – it just leaves the trophy fish in the deeper offshore water to guys like me.”
The Hotback was designed as a floater-diver, “But I purposely made it so it is a slow riser,” explains Ince. “I can’t stand a crankbait that when stopped, pops up to the surface almost flying out of the water. That is so unnatural. I wanted the bait to rise, but slowly.”
PECTORAL FINS
A unique design feature of the Hotback is a groove that circumvents the belly of the lure to hold a soft plastic removable collar. The stock collar that comes with the bait can be removed and replaced by one with pectoral fins attached that continue to wiggle or waver slightly when the bait is stopped.
“In the early 80’s I realized that after a cold front comes through, most fish became inactive,” explains JR, “and just wouldn’t bite a crankbait that was moving too fast. Even if I stopped the bait, they still tended not to bite it. But I began thinking, ‘If I stop it and it still possesses a little something wavering or wiggling ever so slightly, (not going crazy, but perhaps so subtle only a predator could see it), …that might work.”
At his next tournament JR had the chance to test his theory after a strong cold front came through. While other anglers struggled, Ince stopped his bait over a grass field, and just let the pectoral fins do their subtle dance. A few seconds later it began to move off on its own, turning out to be the ‘big fish’ of the tournament.
JR recommends using the pectoral fins only on cold front days when fishing for bass, but suggests using them regularly when fishing for pike or muskie. He says, “The muskie especially, tend to like some extra razzle-dazzle.”
THE HOOK
A black nickel Sickle shaped hook was specifically designed for these crankbaits; a 6/0 for The Termite, and a 7/0 for the Hotback. “I tend to have bigger hooks on my baits because I tend to be after bigger fish all the time… I lost too many fish in my learning years on little tiny hooks that pulled out. The new hooks are large and yet I had them manufactured in lighter wire than their regular production hooks. Why? Because I wanted the least amount of hook resistance possible. Just as treble hooks on a crankbait’s belly create a drag, so a single hook off the back and tail creates a bit of drag also. To reduce that drag, I had the factory make them in the same 6/0 or 7/0 size but using a lighter wire.”
Like a jig, the hook is molded into the body of the crankbait and so it is not replaceable. But JR insists “I’ve never heard of a hook failure, and I have caught my share of Muskies on these hooks.” A few strokes of a flat file, kept in the front of his boat, is all that Ince feels is necessary to keep the hooks sharp.”
THE HOOK SET - CROSS THE EYES!
Because Ince’s crankbaits only have the one hook protected by a stainless steel guard, the hookset must be handled differently. Regular crankbaits, with their multiple sets of treble hooks, rarely need anything more than a steady sweeping hook set. The fish basically hook themselves. But JR advises, “Treat a single hook crank like a jig. You really want to drive the hook home, which will position it right where you want it – in the corner of the mouth or in the upper jaw.”
SCENT, LINE TIE, AND SNAPS
As to adding scent to his crankbaits, “I have never proven scent to be worth my time. I may be wrong, but I’ve tried it many, many times… especially when I fished so many tournaments, because then I was always looking for an edge. But I never found scents to be worth the cost, the effort, or the mess. I personally don’t use them.”
JR ties his line directly to the eye of his bait. “I’m not sold on snaps. For me, the less terminal tackle the better; one less thing to go wrong.”
LINE
In terms of line – Ince doesn’t buy into all the hype that complicates line selection. “We’re told ‘You have to have fluorocarbon so you can’t see it’, or you must have‘redline’, etc… but if an angler puts the right lure in front of a fish, it doesn’t matter if you have 40 pound mono or 2 pound braid! That is, it doesn’t matter to the fish – he’s going to kill it! He’s going to take it. He doesn’t have the brains to put 2 and 2 together concerning line.”
As an angler who enjoys Muskie fishing, JR is quick to point out that a muskie that has followed a crankbait to the boat, can often be enticed into striking if the angler sticks his rod deep into the water making an exaggerated “figure eight” series of movements to keep the bait action going. If a long dark fishing rod flailing in the water does not distract the fish from the lure, certainly the line is not a big concern to the fish either. When it comes to crankbaits, the fish is focused on the potential meal, not the line.
“When it is time for the fish to react and bite – when it is time for him to kill, he’s going to kill! He’s not putting two and two together and say ‘Gesh! That looks so good, but what’s that line thing there?” He’s not doing that.
As to line preferences, 12 pound mono is a pretty typical choice when fishing for bass, though if JR’s fishing the gnarly stumps and root systems of Kentucky Lake he will move up to 14 or even 17 pound test, but never heavier. He will often use non-stretch braid, but prefers to do so on fiberglass crankbait rods that tend to have a little more “give” than graphite.
ROD AND REELS
Just as JR isn’t so particular about line, neither is he overly particular about rod or reel preferences. “I really like a 7 foot rod, after you get past 7 foot 6 inches, it’s starting to become a bit of a nuisance in a boat, but I like a 7 or 7 – 6 rod, for crankbaits – I can throw them a country mile.”
In terms of rod action, JR sighs and says, “I don’t worry too much about the rod action – I’ll do whatever I have to do to get the fish in the boat. I do like a little tip action because I like to watch that tip as the bait scuffs along the bottom, I can see what is happening – it’s telegraphing what is going on down there. But I can throw it on a 6 foot rod that’s designed for jig fishing too and make it work – but that’s just me.”
Likewise, JR doesn’t try to turn reel selection and gear ratios into rocket science either. “Again, if I have to crank a 3 to 1 gear ratio a little faster to get the job done – I can do it. But I recommend to someone who has decided to throw a Rat-L-Trap all summer long, to get a 5 to 1, or 6 to 1 reel. And if you have plenty of money, get one of those 7 to 1 and see what happens.”
Unlike today’s professional tournament pro-staffers who feel obliged to push their sponsor’s products, it’s refreshing to hear a fishing master sum up their equipment recommendations as simply as JR does. Chuckling, he says, “Just get a rod and reel that you are comfortable with. And just throw the darn lure and see what happens.”
BIG FISH
More important to Ince is the ability to throw the right lure into the right places on the lake. “I’m after big fish. I’m looking for a lake record, or a state record fish on every cast I throw. That means I’m not going to just come off the boat ramp and put the trolling motor down and start fishing. No, I’m going to have topomaps and I’m going to go off shore and to where I think the big fish are living. And I’m going to spend my time there.”
If anglers are looking for easy presentations to throw in easy to reach places – they may catch a few fish but they rarely find the ‘big fish’ needed to win tournaments. Trophies rarely hang out where the majority of anglers prefer to hang out. “Big fish,” says Ince, “get that way by usually being offshore, protected by cover, usually on some sunken hump, or near a channel. On Kentucky Lake there are flats that may only be a foot or two deep off the channel, while still being a quarter mile from shore. And I have no doubt that there are bass that get born, grow, and die out there without ever seeing a fisherman.”
AN ‘EDGE’ DOESN’T COME EASY
Anglers looking for an ‘edge’, rarely find it comes easy. JR insists, “Fisherman need to understand that a crankbait needs to be hitting something. It’s not just an ‘idiot bait’ that you just throw out and reel back in – you need to make it hit something. And I hate to say it, but there’s a vast majority of fisherman who think throwing a crankbait into the wood, bushes, or submerged tree tops is just too much to think about. They just want to repeatedly throw a crank out and bring it back in again. They don’t want to focus on hitting the bottom or finessing a bait through cover. They just don’t get it. And I’m amazed by that.”
Why toss a crankbait into an underwater jungle? Ince explains, “Because, if an angler keeps doing that enough, they end up catching some really big, big fish out of that wood! And that’s why you do it!”
WEEDS
Obviously the lipless Termite loves wood, but it can also easily be run over shallow weedbeds. Unfortunately, not all weedbeds are in shallow water. To use a deep diving lipped crankbait when fishing weedbeds requires some common sense and a little know how. JR claims that fishing weedbeds is an incrementally more difficult concept for some anglers to grasp than fishing wood.
“What you have to do with weeds (and it is going to take several casts to do it) is cast out there reel back until you get too much weed. Then clean it off, throw it back a little slower, or hold your rod tip higher so that you don’t get so deep in the weeds. Should you still bring some weeds back, clean it off again, and throw it back going a little slower yet, and so forth – you have to ‘dial’ into the weedtops.”
“Some weedtops are going to be 2 feet deep, or 6, or even 18 feet deep. But you have to spend a little time to dial into ‘How fast do I retrieve this lure?’, and ‘How much of my rod is in the water or above my head?’, …and you just have to learn the unique characteristics of that particular weedbed or that particular weedline. And then remember that.”
“Then you go and dial into the next weedbed. Maybe it’s a foot or two deeper. Then after you dial into several different weedbeds on this lake – you go back and do a milk run through those weedbeds, and you start clicking the tops of those weeds. That’s the key: you can’t work a crankbait any better than just ticking the top of those weeds.”
“And,” insists JR, “all you have to do is tick the top of one weed throughout the whole retrieve, and you’re going to be OK. Why? Because the fish watching that lure will sees it tick that one weed top, and that’s when he is going to jump on it. I don’t know why, but that’s when he’s going to do it.” And Ince believes that fishing weeds with a crankbait can be a hard concept to get across to some anglers. Getting an edge never comes easy – it takes work.
RESISTANCE TO NEW IDEAS
Fact is, the status quo is a hard thing for most people to discard. And yet, for the few crankbait slingers who do think outside the box, …who dare to fish cover in locations where other anglers have feared to go; 
those rare souls will eventually reap the benefits. Unfortunately the rest will let a great new tool, (like a snagless crankbait), slip by them.
From the moment JR began to market the snagproof crankbaits, he encountered people in the fishing industry resistant to the change it represented. “While introducing my baits to dealers, I first set The Termite and the Hotback down on their counter. One tackle store owner began looking at them intently, and then he turned to me and said ‘Well son, they’re pretty, but I can’t sell them’. And I said ‘Why not?’ He replied ‘Because they ain’t got no treble hooks on them.’”
EMBRACE, APPLY, and REAP THE BENEFITS
But rest assured, there are always a few anglers brave enough to explore uncharted waters and they will inevitably lead the pack in terms of fishing success. In fact, at this year’s BASSMASTER 2009 Classic, JR was pleasantly surprised by the number of pros who quietly came up and said, “You know, I’m using your baits.” It’s easy to see why those pros are at the top. When ‘an edge’ comes along, they quietly embrace it, eagerly apply it, and then reap the benefits alone until the masses discover it.
How about you? Is anyone on your favorite lake throwing a snagproof crankbait into the gnarliest of submerged cover? How many unmolested trophy fish have yet to see a crankbait come through their wood-infested neighborhoods? How many of the anglers participating in your local or regional tournaments even know a four-wheel drive crankbait exists?
Those who’ve been hesitant to throw a shad imitating hardbait into treble-grabbing cover, (for fear of losing an expensive lure), no longer can justify that fear. The Meat and Potato Tackle Company now dares anglers to try it again with a snagless single hook crankbait.
“Look for every piece of cover you can find – whether it is wood, or rock, or boat dock, or beat up sunken car or tire, make this bait hit that structure. Contact isn’t gonna hurt it!” insists JR. “So just throw it, beat it up. It’s a tool! It’s a hammer! You’re not gentle with a hammer, you beat something with a hammer. So dig into the ground, dig into the rock, if there’s some rip-rap – just use it.”
It is doubtful that JR’s unique design will be embraced by masses of traditional anglers who’s belief system was built upon the foundation that all crankbaits have must have treble hooks. A person’s culture, even a fishing culture, is hard to change.
Still, for a select few who are ‘analytical anglers’, and who see the advantages of a snagproof crankbait, this coming year could be incredibly fruitful. For 30 years, only a small group of JR’s buddies have experienced a prolific numbers of 6, 7, 8, and 9 pound bass, huge trout, trophy pike and monster muskies caught on the little known Termite and the Hotback. But the word is slowly sneaking out about a couple of four-wheel drive crankbaits that go… anywhere!
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J.R. Ince is a master fisherman who also designed and manufactures "The Termite" and the "Hotback”. His crankbaits, spinnerbaits, and other fishing tackle can be found at the Meat and Potatoes Tackle Co, http://www.meatandpotatoes.net/index.html, 1306 Palm Ridge Court, Canton, GA 30115 info@meatandpotatoes.net, 1-866-863-6328
< A Ten Pounder with a Hotback down Its Mouth
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