Which Expensive Lures are Worth the Cost?
When I was working at Dave’s Bait and Tackle in Crystal Lake, Illinois, I learned to evaluate customers the second they walked through the door. Over the years, I got so good at this that I could diagnose what people needed before they asked.
Mom driving a BWM X5 with two 5-year-olds: “Night crawlers are behind the counter and yes, I can show you how to set up a bobber.”
Mid-30s guy with a mullet, Tom Petty tee and 1990 rusted Ford Ranger: “Stink bait in on the first island in the back room. No, we don’t sell beer.”
Although I worked with a broad spectrum of customers, none were more enjoyable than the yuppie-angler.
Their Tommy Bahama Hawaiian apparel and $60,000+ tow vehicles always gave them away.While a willingness to try new lures, fat wallets and passion for fishing made them the ideal consumers. If I told them a lure worked, they’d buy it. If I said I THOUGHT a lure might work under certain conditions, they’d buy it (regardless of price) and send reports back to me.
These weekend warriors became a great resource, because they allowed me to filter through top-shelf lures without dropping hundreds of dollars.
Spro, Lucky Craft, Castaic and Strike King were all subject to this informal review and produced a variety of results. Although most of the $15-$40 lures weren’t that different from their cheaper competitors, there were a few that blew me, and my yuppie testers, away.
1) Spro, BBZ-1: The Spro BBZ-1 shad (4″) and it’s larger companion the BBZ-1 swimbait (8″) are hands down the best looking hard-bodied swimbaits I’ve ever used. The $25 (for the 4″) and $50 (for the 8″) price tags can be extremely intimidating, but if you take the leap, the pay-offs are immediate. The 8″ slow-sink has quickly become my favorite late-spring muskie lure, while the 4″ recently produced a 40 bass day for me. If your favorite body of water has submerged weeds in 3-5ft of water, you need this lure.
My Buddy with a Beautiful Smallmouth on a Lucky Craft Pointer 100
2) Lucky Craft, Pointer 100: I used to doubt this lure’s potential because I couldn’t justify spending $16 on a non-muskie jerkbait. My doubt has been erased. The Lucky Craft Pointer does something that no other jerkbait does – run 5ft deep and maintain neutral buoyancy without compromising action. Before, if I wanted to target fish suspending on secondary drop offs, I’d have to count down husky jerks or x-raps, but the pointer speeds the process up. On lakes that don’t allow trolling, these jerkbaits work wonders. They allow you to target negative, suspending fish precisely without the need for live bait.
3) Titan Series, Optimum Swimbaits: The 6″ Optimum Titan speaks for
Optimum Swimbait Double
itself.Go find your favorite 8-14ft weed-edge or submerged structure, reel slowly and hold on. Big bass love these things (unfortunately, pike do too, so I’d suggest a strong leader). I have a box full of these in the boat at any given time.
4) Strike King, King Shad: Want to cover a lot of water on spawning flats while fish are staging? Then the King Shad is your man. Again, the $19 tag is scary, but you’ll be loving it when everyone else is throwing spinnerbaits and you’re catching all the fish.
So there it is, your all-star roster. Just try to not get snagged, it can really ruin your day.