Yes and I quickly realized what a exercise in futility and waste of time it is. You must be fishing MUCH sparser vegetation than I am. Some of the places I fish a crankbait would be covered in weeds/grass/algae/moss the instant it hit the water. Theres other baits better suited for such scenarios.

I have caught them out of both. One of the best crank bait days came out of the brown clumps scattered down the shore line in about 3 to 5 ft. of water. It was early in the year and that was all there was on the main lake points and secondary points. They were using it to spawn beside. The 1.5 chrome black back was killing them in the bright sun on a blue bird day.

So my point is they will use what they have. If the brown grass is deeper and the Bass want to be at that depth they are going to use it.

For the next couple of months on Athens, a creature bait with a slow fall like a Pit Boss, Texas Rigged with a 1/4oz or 3/8oz weight in that grass should be pretty lethal