Any New Hot Lures For You this Year

I also think that the magdraft or similar large swimbait is something that very few fish have seen here thus far. They’ve been prevalent in the south and west for many years, but I don’t see many bass anglers using them here. New presentations come along and sometimes the key, especially with pressured fish, is to throw something at them they haven’t seen. Muskie anglers are familiar with this. The same old tried and true lures will still work but when you toss something they haven’t seen before, it often triggers curiosity and then a bite.

Ha-ha… someone gave me the heads up I was MIA on IDO! Well, rumors of my demise I guess are at least a little premature.. Yes, I’m still here in Minn after an eventful winter/spring in Florida. Heart event, stent, wife broke her back playing pickleball. You know the usual stuff!

Still playing catch up, but getting there… In fact I was just out on Koronis yesterday. No new lures to report, but dam that Carolina rig still works. Got a 20 inch smallmouth on a Berkley Power Blade spinnerbait too.

Life is good, see you guys around

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Glad things are starting to move in the right direction for you again! Thanks for reminding me of how jealous I get from your pics!

A ‘heart event’, Fry?? That sounds strangely similiar to a heart attack. Geez… Glad you’re still with us…and terrorizing the bass around MN.

And remind me not to play pickleball against your wife. Sounds like she’s an intense player!

Snagged a few of the fat impact swings to give a go. Hopefully have a new PB to post.

Wacky rigging docks put us in first again tonight and biggest fish. Nothing and I mean nothing hit deep.

Dang you guys are cleaning house!

Bearcat89 wrote:

Wacky rigging docks put us in first again tonight and biggest fish. Nothing and I mean nothing hit deep.

It’s been odd. I haven’t caught much out deep the last few weeks either.

Youbetcha wrote:

Dang you guys are cleaning house!

The boys are on a solid roll. They have been pumped, fishing against some fancy rigs and 2 teams sponsored by Frankie’s. First got them new rods last night and biggest fish got a new tackle box with a bunch of goodies in it. It has been a good season for my nephew and his buddy. And it’s been fun pushing me to fish lakes that I normally won’t, like coon lake last night

Bearcat89 wrote:

fishing against some fancy rigs and 2 teams sponsored by Frankie’s.

Ha, I bet that feels a little better for you considering how much I know you like that place.

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Carter Johnson wrote:</div>
Dang you guys are cleaning house!

The boys are on a solid roll. They have been pumped, fishing against some fancy rigs and 2 teams sponsored by Frankie’s. First got them new rods last night and biggest fish got a new tackle box with a bunch of goodies in it. It has been a good season for my nephew and his buddy. And it’s been fun pushing me to fish lakes that I normally won’t, like coon lake last night

Thats nice to show them it boils down to the angler not the gear.

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Carter Johnson wrote:</div>
Dang you guys are cleaning house!

The boys are on a solid roll. They have been pumped, fishing against some fancy rigs and 2 teams sponsored by Frankie’s. First got them new rods last night and biggest fish got a new tackle box with a bunch of goodies in it. It has been a good season for my nephew and his buddy. And it’s been fun pushing me to fish lakes that I normally won’t, like coon lake last night

That can be a fun lake. Very on or off though. I know Greenhorn league had a 20+ lb bag out there a couple weeks ago. I bet those boys are jacked up about how they are doing. That’s awesome.

I might be falling headfirst down a new rabbit hole.

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I have a few glide baits but only caught pike with then. I should bust them back out

mahtofire14 wrote:

I might be falling headfirst down a new rabbit hole.

Do you have that $1,000 one on order yet?

Hell no! I got these on sale for less that $20 each. Sadly while these Savage Gear glide baits have good reviews, there are also a lot that say it sinks way too fast to be really effective. I’m hoping mine aren’t a waste.

I think you need to add one of these if you really want to catch big ones
https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Manifold_Deniro_Yugo_Frame_550_Glide_Bait/descpage-MDGBS.html?from=gpmax&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq8T7grqqgAMVDgytBh2jCgGDEAQYASABEgIc1PD_BwE

When the Summer got super hot and fishing got tougher… I had already been experimenting with 4 “new Lures” (to me) this year. The heat spell gave me the opportunity to really dial in on these new techniques and see which are worth the hype.

Some were hot and some were not. Below is the first lure review and grade ~

SHIMANO WORLD POP 69F POPPER

I can’t remember a Popper that got more hype in recent years than this one. When it was first released they were selling as high as $50 on eBay. They came down to $20 at most online stores so I finally picked one up. Its still on backorder many places…

Its unique to most poppers with its FLASH BOOST TECHNOLOGY “which creates a continuous flash that mimics a wounded baitfish, this innovative and proprietary concept suspends a piece of foil on micro springs within the lure to reflect light and flicker naturally, even when paused.”

It is supposed to really shine in gin clear water where the “flash” can be seen from several yards away and draw fish in, even when the lure stands still, the foil keeps moving and flashing.

I was with a friend recently where we both fished this popper in a clear northern Minnesota lake known for big smallmouth. His first cast, he caught a solid 19 inch largemouth. This of course was the kiss of death to get bit on a first cast.

And it was. Between he and I , we didn’t get a sniff the rest of the weekend on this lure. The lure seemed to struggle whether it wanted to be a chug and spit popper or a walk-the-dog topwater. It didn’t excel at either and we eventually lost our enthusiasm for the lure – and caught plenty of fish on other topwater and sub-surface lures.

Its a beautiful lure and the flash technology seems cool, but the functionality or lack thereof earns it an overall A-F GRADE of a “D”

Lure #2 review coming tomorrow ~

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Lure #2 Review

YAMAMOTO YAMATANUKI STICK BAIT

I picked up two sizes of the Yamatanuki – in 2.5 and 3.5 inches. These are dense, heavy pieces of plastic that are traditionally Texas-rigged and cast very well. They are thick in the body and have the unique thinner tip kind of like a bowling pin.

The 2.5 can also be rigged on a Ned head. I did this with my BFS set up and it was fun to cast. The larger, 3.5 can be skipped really well under docks. It’s heavy and smooth so you can skip it way under, but has no exposed lead like a jig that can KLANG off a pontoon or dock post.

The smaller version fished similar to a Ned and the larger version kind of like a tube. Both of those lures are really good at times, but the biggest plus with the Yamatanuki is that is can be Texas-rigged and brought through cover much easier.

A downside is that if you are around smaller fish, they will bite the tip off. Other than that they are fairly durable and I caught approx 2-3 fish per bait. Also, it does not swim backwards like a similarly dense plastic – the Fat Ika.

Again, an overall solid lure and even though it does fish similar to other popular lures, it looks different and sometimes that can be the key.

Overall Grade: B

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My recent go to:
Dives 2-4′
Throwing to shore and pulling out. Between docks, around docks, over rip rap arms jutting into the lake. Has rattles in it, square bill with a little “fold” on the bill so it wobbles nicely.

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Oh, it’s a Strike Kind product.
Scheels was out this week, none at fleet farm, Only place that had them was Cabelas. THey come in two sizes. My second best fish ever I caught on the smaller of the two sizes.

I bought some Strike King wake baits in the spring and Umy you just reminded me I need to start throwing those. I have a feeling they will be really good this fall.

Fry, when are you going to review the hairy cube?

I’ve heard it’s actually really good.

Not new, but I went back to using tubes on the river. I stopped for awhile because I kinda consider it cheating it works so well. But I am going to find some new jig heads that I don’t have to retie to replace my tube, and that are weedless.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Fry, when are you going to review the hairy cube?

I’ve heard it’s actually really good.

Watch the spell check on hairy cubes – Google said something like they went out of style in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Well, check this thread tomorrow as we move up to the “A” level review category.

Lure #3 Review

POOP BAITS

I tend to resist the trendy/goofy lures but picked up a pack of Deps Cover Scats earlier this year as a joke to send one of my buddies. I was going to put it on his lawn and tell him to clean up after his dog.

Then, about a month ago I was fishing with another friend on a lake that we fish a lot together. The heat wave had hit and we only caught a couple small fish on the usual high percentage spots. So I rigged up a 3.5 inch Cover Scat… he laughed. I cast it out (the thing sails!). It had that familiar “plop” when it hit the water, and then I let it sink to the bottom in 10 feet of water for about 15 seconds. Just then I looked down and saw my slack line jump and said “Oh CRAP, something hit my lure.” I set the hook and the next thing you know, my rod bent over and the drag squeeled. He thought I was kidding until a 20 inch largemouth broke the surface. He netted the fish for me, and said “Well SH!T now you have to buy more of that crap.

And I did – I bought the 2.5 and 3.5 Cover Scats and the 3 inch Fish Arrow “Heavy Poop.” The 2.5 inch Deps is great on a BFS set up, and the 3 inch Fish Arrow in “Pumpkin/Shart” has been about the perfect size and color for smallmouth. But the 3.5 Deps has been lights out for largies. They float down horizontally like a wacky worm (only faster) and once on the bottom you can twitch and dart them like a fleeing crayfish. They are usually Texas rigged and fairly weedless. Skip like a dream under docks…

The downside to the poop category is that most offerings are JDM and very expensive – about a “deuce” per bait. They last maybe 3-4 fish unless you bring some Mend-it. The good news is that the Missile Baits “Bomba” will be pinched out and released later this Fall on Omnia and TW. They are about half the price of the JDM defecants. Haven’t fished them yet, so I don’t know if they work as well, but $5.69 a bag sounds much better. Hope they smell as good/bad(?) as the Deps special added “Taste & Flavor.” Gulp ~

Overall Grade: A

One final review coming soon…

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FryDog62 wrote:

I was going to put it on his lawn and tell him to clean up after his dog.

Lure #4

FREE RIG

This rig is somewhere between a drop-shot, Carolina Rig and a Texas Rig. You have to watch a few videos to see how its rigged and fished, but it isn’t rocket science. My big deal is when the heat wave hit and the fishing slowed, a lot of guys were having some luck on drop-shots. As some of you know, I hate drop-shotting but will do it if necessary. Free-rigging is a more power-oriented approach to drop-shotting, it fishes a little faster, bigger baits, bigger line, different on the fall (where half the bites come unlike drop-shotting), and its something many of the fish haven’t seen. I prefer baitcasting, but you can use spinning too.

I knew this was the real deal when I fished for the first time on a local lake on a 95 degree day, hit all the high percentage spots and caught only one 14 inch fish. Mostly off-shore rock piles. Football jigs didn’t work, nor did my beloved Carolina-Rig. Downsizing to a Ned only resulted in the one bite. I thought I have nothing to lose and went back and hit those same half dozen spots again with a Free Rig. And I absolutely destroyed ‘em!

I started off using an OSP DoLive Beaver (first photo below – stuck in the fish’s mouth), but when I went to deeper spots I decided to try a 3.8 Geecrack Bellows Gill. I had bought those things a couple years ago – first time out on a Texas Rig and I caught a few good fish, then blanked on them the next 3-4 times out and gave up on them. I had 3 packs sitting in my storage compartment all this time smelling up my boat like a bunch of bags of burnt Fritos. So what the heck, I decided to see if I can get rid of them. While casting them out on a Free Rig, many times they wouldn’t even get to the bottom – the fish absolutely snarfed them and I went through the 3 bags in an hour and a half!

The Geecrack has been crazy good for largemouth, the Dolive Beaver has been great for smallies. Last week – after it being nearly 100 degrees, we went way North of Grand Rapids to a couple well known big brown bass lakes – just in time for a cold front where the air temps dropped over 30 degrees in two days (49 at the launch one morning). To say fishing was slow is an understatement. We tried all the usual spots with the lures that worked every year prior – topwater, jigs, swimbaits, flukes, Neds… and nada – no bites. Switched over to the Free rig and got a decent bag of fat 17-20 inch tanks throughout the day on largely the same spots.

The JDM lures for free-rigging (OSP DoLive, Geecrack, etc.) work great but they are quite expensive. The good news is that I started using other cheaper options that seemed to work as well. The plastics that don’t work are those with long appendages and curly flaps… when the sinker hits the bottom on the way down, those baits just kind of droop. Beaver/glide style plastics work well – Sweet Beavers, Muscle Back Finesse Craw, Berkley Jester, Maxscent Creature Hawg, etc. I got a bunch of Jesters on clearance for $3/bag at Durham Tackle.

Mahtofire turned us all on to the Neko rig a couple years ago – and as we know it really works. I’m gulping the Kool-Aid on this one right now… and resisting the urge to rename it the “Fry-Rig” Lol…

Overall Grade: A+

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Is the chicken rig next Fry???

mahtofire14 wrote:

Is the chicken rig next Fry???

Four reviews are my limit… been awhile since you did the deep-dive on Neko so – tag, you’re it on the Chicken Rig or hairy cube!