It’s big deep-diving crankbait time in many parts of the country now, but we’re still finding some shallow cranking fish in different fisheries we hit. And we’ve stumbled on to a little crankbait that is a regional killer that may bloom a bit bigger than its Georgia roots.
The Little Earl was a handcarved crankbait made by Earl Suddeth, a legendary crankbait maker from Georgia. It’s a fish catcher our angling friends from those parts told us and we’ve wanted to get our hands on some for quite some time.
The company was sold by Suddeth and is now owned by Joey Baskins. Since the changing of hands, the baits have gone through some tweaks and modifications and also added some new colors and sizes with various actions. They feel confident they’ve got the quality, colors and volumen now to get it off the ground and we were pretty excited to get our hands on them. Now they have five different crankbait models and at least 36 unique colors.
The Little Earl is a small 1/4-ounce crankbait that measures 3 1/4 inches but will run 7-10 feet deep on 8 to 10-pound line. The Little Earl crankbait is small but we were able to cast it on our Denali Michael Murphy Signature Series topwater/jerkbait rod that we often double as a small crankbait rod. We loaded our Revo STX with 8-pound Sunline Super Natural Mono and fished the crankbait around wood, rock, grass, gravel, concrete and more.
We were getting 25 to 30-yard casts on baitcasting tackle and a bit further on spinning tackle. We also threw the Fat Earl, a wider wobbling larger cousin to the Little Earl. The Little Earl has a medium wiggle where the Fat Earl is much wider and more erratic. They also make a Little Boss Hawg that is a tight wiggling crankbait for cold water and around grass, and a Potbelly Hawg that has a medium wobble but a bit different than the Little Earl.
We tried several colors but liked Betty Jean, Rootbeer, Chartreuse Rootbeer, Sexy Earl and a few others as well. We caught some bass to 3-pounds. Never got a real big bite to see what a big set of crunchers might do to the baits, but the other fish didn’t tear these little gems up at all. They come with bronze hooks that we swapped for Mustad KVD Elite Trebles and Trokar Trebles.
The baits ran well out of the package for the most part. We had a couple we had to tune but they were working pretty well after a slight adjustment. One thing you’ll find unique about the crankbaits is that they offer each model in a floating or sinking model. We took a permanent marker and wrote either an F or a S on the bait as there was no way to tell one from the other after you removed them from their packaging. But it’s cool to have an option to fish a sinking one a little deeper or a more buoyant one to bounce off of cover.
Right now availability is limited and ordering direct at blademasterluresusa.com might be the easiest way to get them. We actually like when crankbaits aren’t widely available because that means the fish haven’t seen many of them. The five models of crankbaits will run from 1 to 12 feet and offer tight, medium or wide wobbles depending on the models you choose.
To check them out, visit blademasterluresusa.com. They will retail from $7.49 to $8.59 again depending on the models you choose.
