Rapala CrushCity: A New Line of Soft Baits
Lures | November 29, 2024
SAIL
October 18, 2024
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Your favourite Sail store’s shelves are filled with thousands of lures, all looking equally attractive to any angler strolling the aisles. Learning about what lures bass like best and when to use them will help you put more fish in the boat the next time you hit the water.
Be sure to pick up the following lures when shopping and make this bass season your best one yet.
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There are many varieties of soft lures on the market designed to catch bass. Manufactured to appeal to both smallmouth and largemouth bass, soft plastic lures appear life-like in the water due to their movement and supple construction.
The soft stick bait, commonly called a Senko, has a proven track record for catching both species of bass. Rigged a variety of ways, either wacky, Texas-style, on a finesse jig head or drop shot rig, this bait can be cast in open water weed edges, to lay downs and docks, or across lily pads.
Tubes are another great bass catcher, especially when targeting smallmouth bass. A three to four-inch tube rigged with a concealed jig head can be deadly when jigged or dragged along rock or sandy bottomed structure on any of your favourite Ontario or Quebec bass lakes.
Tossing a creature bait to heavy cover, such as weed mats, submerged trees, docks, or pad beds, is a fantastic way to catch any largemouth bass that may be lurking underneath. These ‘crazy’ looking lures, with a myriad of wild appendages, are best rigged Texas-style with a pegged worm weight or as a trailer for your favourite flipping jig.
Soft swimbaits excel at perfectly replicating the movement and look of a baitfish. A bait between three and five-inches in length, rigged on a weighted swimbait hook, can be deadly for large and smallmouth bass when cast along and over weed clumps and submerged stumps, across rocky shorelines, and in open water when bass are schooled up.
The CrushCity Heavy Hitter Soft Swimbait from Rapala gets our nod in the soft swimbait category. Measuring four-inches in length and constructed with a premium paddle tail, the Heavy Hitter produces a life-like action in the water with a tail ‘thump’ that drives bass mad.
Available in six eye-catching colours, the Heavy Hitter can be cast on either spinning or casting gear, and makes a great search bait when covering water to connect with cruising or hunkered down bass.
Be sure to check out the Z-Man Zinkerz when choosing a soft stick bait. Built super-tough and salt-impregnated, these stick baits sink slow and tantalizingly through the water column – triggering a reaction bite from hungry smallmouth and largemouth bass.
Both equally adept at covering water as a search bait, spinnerbaits and chatterbaits are similar in design but offer up variable and different uses.
A spinnerbait is easily recognizable by its wire frame – one end connected to a weighted head, skirt, and hook and the other to a single blade or multiples. Designed to mimic a small school of baitfish, produced by the flashy blades, these baits trigger a reaction bite from both species of bass. Blade shape and design produce different vibration, flash, and fall rates, but you can never go wrong with a double willow-leaf blade or single Colorado. Toss them anywhere bass lurk – over weed flats, adjacent to weed clumps, over stump fields, and through rocky and sand shorelines.
Chatterbaits, also called bladed jigs, incorporate a vibrating blade attached to the head of a skirted body, producing a very loud ‘chattering’ sound when reeled in. Designed to be rigged with a soft plastic swimbait, this bait attracts fish from afar with its attractive sound and life-like flash. Cast these lures to the same areas you would a spinnerbait, choosing a heavier version (my favourite is 1/2 ounce!) in order to cover deeper water.
The Berkley Power Blade Compact CC Double Blade Spinnerbait is worth a look when choosing a spinnerbait. With its compact design, hidden-weight head, hand-tied Powerbait silicone skirt, and conical bait keeper, this beauty is built with premium components that simply can’t be beat.
Available in 3/8 and 1/2 ounce versions and four fish-catching colours.
Our pick for a chatterbait is the Z-Man Jack Hammer. Built with premium components and a vibrating sound that is top notch, these lures start running quickly and offer up a high hookup ratio.
If there is one lure that can mimic the action of a minnow or baitfish perfectly it would have to be the jerkbait. Thin in shape and design and the spitting image of a fish, the jerkbait is designed to take on the illusion of a fleeing or dying baitfish when worked through the water.
With an attached lip on the nose of the bait, the angle dictating the depth the lure will dive, jerkbaits are best worked in a ‘jerk, reel, reel, pause’ manner. Bass will often clubber these hard baits on the pause so be prepared to set the hook!
Both species of bass love to eat jerkbaits so casting them to likely spots such as shorelines, humps, weed edges and clumps, are your best bet to get bit.
When choosing a jerkbait it is always wise to ‘match the hatch.’ Go with a colour that closely resembles the baitfish swimming in the water you fish, choosing brighter hues the more dirty or stained the lake or river is.
The Rapala Husky Jerk is a proven bait that excels on the water. This jerkbait will suspend on the pause (which is key to getting bit!) and is designed with an internal rattle chamber for amped up sound with a durable outer plastic body.
Cast this bait in the open water and over any likely structure bass are known to frequent. With exposed treble hooks, this bait doesn’t work well in weeds so keep that in mind when tossing it.
You can’t go wrong with the four-inch version for both smallmouth and largemouth bass.
Having a bass smash a surface lure is hands-down the most exciting way to catch one. Nothing beats a calm morning or evening out in the boat or on shore, watching a bait get attacked with such ferocity it often leaves an angler suffering heart palpitations!
Here’s a rundown of some tried and true surface lures.
The popper features a concave head on a hard body. When jerked on the surface, water and bubbles are propelled forward and upward, signalling a dinner bell to any hungry smallmouth or largemouth bass. A perfect bait to toss around open water, especially on large expansive flats or over submerged structure, such as wood or weed clumps.
Prop baits cause a surface disruption due to a propeller at the nose or tail, or both, of the bait. Like a windmill churning, these hard crankbait-style lures are designed to be retrieved straight and constant.
Ideally suited for open water with no surface weeds, toss these baits anywhere you think a bass might be holding.
A hollow-bodied frog excels when working cover for bass, mainly largemouth. Dragged or jerked over lily pads, slop mats, or across open weed pockets is where frogs dominate. Fish love to pounce on these baits then quickly turn, which means an angler should always wait a second before setting the hook to ensure the bait is firmly in the throat of the fish.
The Berkley Bullet Pop 70 is a winner when it comes to getting topwater strikes. With a sleek tail-weighted design and classic cupped mouth for excellent spitting action, this bait is guaranteed to call smallmouth and largemouth in and up.
Available in six colours.
If looking for a winning prop bait, the Berkley Choppo 90 is one to pick up. Simple to use and with a durable cupped propeller tail, the Choppo 90 leaves a trail of surface disruption that bass simply can’t resist.
We love the Scum Frog Launch Frog for working lily pads and surface slop. With a realistic finish, a soft but durable body, and sticky sharp hooks, this frog is a winner when bass are feeding on top.
Crankbaits are designed to mimic a shad or sunfish, with a more round and robust profile than that of a slender jerkbait. Most crankbait bodies are designed similar, but it is the length and angle of the lip that dictates the depth the lure will dive to.
It is advantageous to carry a selection of different crankbaits that can dive to various depths. For instance, picking up a style that will go down 1 to 3 feet deep, another to cover water 3 to 6 feet deep, and finally a deeper diving bait, one that will work water 10 to 20 feet down. This will allow you to cover the entire water column, changing up baits depending on the depth of water you are targeting.
Crankbaits work equally well on both smallmouth and largemouth bass and are best cast into areas free of cover, such as open water flats, over humps, along rocky shorelines, and adjacent to dock or stumps. Let the wobbling action of the bait do the work and lure the fish in.
For a crankbait that dives three to six feet deep, the Strike King KVD Square Bill 1.5 oz 3 in. gets our approval. With a unique action and a silent approach due to no internal rattles, the lip designs allows the bait to easily deflect off of cover when it comes into contact. Take your pick of 7 fish-catching colours.
Running down to eight-feet deep, the Rapala Dives-To 2 in. Crankbait is an excellent choice for covering mid-range depths. Made with balsa wood and with an internal rattle chamber, this crankbait offers up the perfect swimming action and realistic look. Choose from seven realistic colour schemes.
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