Curse you Chris Granrud

Okay so the subject line is totally in jest. After spending the spring reading Chris’ posts our pocketbooks are a little weaker

Just got back from Rainy from 2/1-2/9. We fished the north arm with an 80% focus on pike. Here’s one post trying some new (to us) lures or techniques. I’ll put up a separate one for the empty wallet due to BFish’n plastics.

Max Raps: I’m not going to buy one, I’m not going to buy one, Oh look the Sportsman’s has the last one in stock and it’s in purple ghost. It’s only $20 right, so I walk out with a shiny new lure nicknamed ghostie.

Both of us gave this a pretty good effort in the first several days of our trip. After working hard on technique we were able to land some fish. Snap, snap, pause, repeat was the favorite but sometimes a slower twitch, twitch, twitch, long pause was the ticket.

Pros: One night we put it head to head against other lures that were working that day and it was magic. After getting my butt totally kicked by my partner’s flake green Max Rap I finally had to grab ghostie. Popped four fish in very short order before the sun set. Other times we could get neutral fish to trigger after running search baits like bucktails over an area.

Cons: Other days it was just another overpriced bait. Another odd con is that when it is working the pike absolutely lunch this thing making hook outs very difficult. They always seem to hit on the pause and take the bait weird or very deep.

This was one of the few lures that we did not catch walleye on. Likely due to throwing this is in traditional pike spots.

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Okay so the subject line is totally in jest. After spending the spring reading Chris’ posts our pocketbooks are a little weaker

Just got back from Rainy from 2/1-2/9. We fished the north arm with an 80% focus on pike. Here’s one post trying some new (to us) lures or techniques. I’ll put up a separate one for the empty wallet due to BFish’n plastics.

Max Raps: I’m not going to buy one, I’m not going to buy one, Oh look the Sportsman’s has the last one in stock and it’s in purple ghost. It’s only $20 right, so I walk out with a shiny new lure nicknamed ghostie.

Both of us gave this a pretty good effort in the first several days of our trip. After working hard on technique we were able to land some fish. Snap, snap, pause, repeat was the favorite but sometimes a slower twitch, twitch, twitch, long pause was the ticket.

Pros: One night we put it head to head against other lures that were working that day and it was magic. After getting my butt totally kicked by my partner’s flake green Max Rap I finally had to grab ghostie. Popped four fish in very short order before the sun set. Other times we could get neutral fish to trigger after running search baits like bucktails over an area.

Cons: Other days it was just another overpriced bait. Another odd con is that when it is working the pike absolutely lunch this thing making hook outs very difficult. They always seem to hit on the pause and take the bait weird or very deep.

This was one of the few lures that we did not catch walleye on. Likely due to throwing this is in traditional pike spots.

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LOVED the Read! The Max Rap continues to be my #1 producer for Walleyes. Yesterday we even managed our 12 fish limit of 15-16.75 inch eaters on this bait. These guys had never fished Walleyes, A spinning reel or a a stickbait. Here is something to consider; As you’ve pointed out, Walleyes need to be present of course to be caught. Still things such as leader material also can be a critical component to catching or just casting. A fluoro lead will greatly enhance strikes from Walleyes. Also Pike tends to destroy a Max Rap where a Walleye will most always peck at the backside hooks making tight line in a braid such as the Suffix 832 paramount for success.

Patk,

I was in the same boat as you on the Max Rap…

I was NOT going to spend the $$$ on a crank bait… NO WAY !!!

Well,,, after $$$ on three of them I came to realize this was the best investment I had made on this trip to Rainy Lake and the Spring House Boat Trip !!!

Green was by far the best color for our boat with silver being the close second.. (40″ class pike stole it from me)

I would have never go all the fish we did with out these baits… AND if i were running the #13 Original Floating Rapalas like the previous year I would be out 5 more of those due to the abuse they can not take !!!

I have hung my Green Flake MR on the trophy wall… This lure is amazing and I look forward to playing the game with them on more lakes for Pike,Smallies and Eyes !!!

Great read Patk !!

ps.. the BfishN Tackle Moxies and PulseR’s were lights out as well… We could have spent another full week up there just to play the full gambit of lure choices !!

One correction to my earlier post and an update on the leader topic.

The trip needed sunscreen not augers. 6/1-6/9 were the correct dates.

Leaders and setups: We started using our baitcasting setups with steel leaders. Didn’t take too long and the switch was made to our heavier(6’6mh) spinning rods as they seemed easier for the retrieves.
Second change was from a steel leader to a pre-packaged flouro leader, 80lb test with a large clasp. This helped the bait not turn immediately nose down on the pause but did drop too fast.
Third change was to a section of 30lb fluoro and fixed by a sleeve, no clasp. My buddy went direct off of 12lb mono and just risked losing the lure. Both worked very well at maintaining neutral.

Notes
1. Didn’t seem to make a huge difference between being direct on the store bought leader to the homemade. Possibly due to the reasonably quick retrieve sequence or the homemade leader wasn’t ready until a day after it was the hot bait.
2. 30lb leader did stand up to grating across a 4lb pike. I bought this hours before Chris posted that he uses 50 for his guests. Might have purchased 40lb in hindsight.
3. I had ADD when it comes to baits and switch frequently. For this reason I attached the loop from the homeade leader to the pre-made fluoro leader. Ugly but didn’t seem to deter fish. Don’t know if this would matter if targeting walleyes.
4. Line – We are fans of mono (Trilene XT or Suffix Siege) on our pike setups. Can’t speak to whether a Suffix 832 would help or not. I suspect it would but didn’t have any with to test.
5. Color didn’t seem to matter. Flake green, purple ghost, and discontinued blue/pink belly

Miscellaneous – after getting the hang of the retrieve I started using it with other stick baits like Husky Jerks. No real success but for that part of the week the Max Rap wasn’t really working either.