Homemade flat sides were a well guarded secret among touring professional bass anglers for decades. But now that the cat’s out of the bag, I’ve had a lot of fun this year with one in particular from PH Custom Lures called the “Lowen’s” Dollar Bill that was designed by bass fishing professional and shallow crankbait guru Bill Lowen.

Lowen is a master at catching bass shallow on a crankbait and he’s done it with an intimate knowledge of actions and retrieves with various crankbaits from wide wobbling balsa square bills to tight running plastic crankbaits and finally got to put his stamp on a limit getting small flat sided balsa bait.