A Tale of Two Crawfish Lures

[Tatsu Dave]

Guess most on here know that I tend to lean toward soft plastics for bass, I'm pretty color oriented also. I compared two different but similar crawfish imitators this summer and thought I would give my experiences with on water fishing them. Strike King rage tail craw's have a great claw flapping action and can be used to skitter over grass and pad mats as well as casting and even trolling as a finder lure. Love the coffee smell and of course a great variety of colors for the fisherman to bite on. Ended up with 6 colors when probably 2-3 (grn pump/pearl, crawdaddy, and blue craw) would cover everything. They worked best on a light 3/0 EWG hook and life was rather short as the fish key on those swimming claws. Weighted hook for below surface and weedless no weight for running on top.

BBB swimming tube craw is a large meaty looking lure with a tube design and hollow body and two large swimming arms. Solid head for rigging and just a 4" tube bait that swims. Color selection was easy junebug, secret craw, and tilapia. Those three covered it for me.

OK they both caught fish well but the secret craw BBB model was a smallmouth slayer to the max.......a 4/0 EWG heavy hook works well w/ the thicker body and acted like a keel to prevent spinning. First lure caught 12 SM with jumping and fighting before the swim legs disappeared. Still had the tube left but no swimming action, rage tail is light enough to cross about any mat and seems to really catch fish as well. However they do not last thru many fish and quickly lose the flappers trailing at the back. Both are good bets to try for sure and will do the job, still if I could only have one design and color the swimming tube craw in secret craw would be the go to. I noticed one Smallmouth had pieces of craw in his mouth when he came in and it matched the secret craw color perfect. Try them both would be my advice...they seem to have different uses, but the same results. Good Fishing!

[bowhunter63]

Love the Rage craw but really been doing good with a Zoom Z craw and the Champ craw for Smallies. Neko  rigging the champ craw when i can find them .

[T-Billy]

5 hours ago, Tatsu Dave said:

However they do not last thru many fish and quickly lose the flappers trailing at the back.

Strike King's perfect plastic is perfect for SK to sell a bunch of baits, that's for sure. It's the least durable plastic I've ever used. I tried a couple packs of rodents, and was glad I didn't buy more. 

 

[Tatsu Dave]

Yeah I've went thru one pack of rage tails already, just one swim tube second one is still on the rod. BBB has always made tough plastic's and these are no exception, sometimes action is less but not so with these.

[T-Billy]

Yeah, I'm a fan of Big Bite. I buy their YoMama, tubes, and swimmin craws in the bulk packs. Quality baits at a good price. That little 3.5" YoMama is a fish catchin machine all year long. I always have one T rigged and ready to go.

[Tatsu Dave]

Bulk pac's are the way to go when you find a lure that works for sure. I know I'll be getting these swimming tube craws.

[T-Billy]

1 minute ago, Tatsu Dave said:

Bulk pac's are the way to go when you find a lure that works for sure. I know I'll be getting these swimming tube craws.

I was just on their site checking that thing out. I'm gonna pick up a couple packs next time I order. Looks like it could be a winner on a wobble head.