Rapala is expanding their colors this year, particularly the craw colors. They have launched the molting craw colors in several of their popular cranks as well as a new size in the Clackin’ Crank series. The new 55 square bill crank will give you that one knocker sound in a shallow running, square bill crankbait. This lure should excel in off colored water as well as spring time when the bass can be keying on smaller baitfish.
Two new baits that were shown this year are the Clackin’ Minnow and the Rippin’ Rap. The Minnow shares a very similar profile to the X-Rap suspending slash bait. Whether you call it a slash bait, jerk bait or rip bait isn’t the issue. This bait has the same erratic action as the X-Rap and now comes with the same, single ball sound chamber that was originally used on the Clackin’ Rap and shares that one knocker type sound.
Rapala has a new lipless crank called the Rippin’ Rap. This lure has the standard rattle chamber with several bee-bee’s, a sunfish shape and was designed to really put out some vibration. The Rippin’ Rap should do well in spring as well as fall.
The new Deep Rattlin’ Flat Boy was produced to address that mid-range depth. This lure, with it’s flat sides will have a tighter wobble than a rounder bodied bait and can be used to dig into the bottom to elicit a reaction bite.
The X-Rap Prop Bait has a tandem prop and three hooks. The props are counter-rotating and the patterns will match lots of primary forage fish across the country. We should see these lures on shelves soon.
Added to the X-Rap series are the X-Rap Pop and the X-Rap Prop. The popper has a cupped mouth that will spit and spray water forward on the retrieve. The X pop at rest sits tail down in the water to allow the fish to get a better shot it when they strike. The X-Rap Prop has a narrow body with two down-sized props. They are counter-rotating and again, at rest, the lure sits tail down in the water. The weighting system in the X-Rap Prop allows this relatively light bait to be cast well and these baits should be in stores very soon.