Culprit Topwater Shad In Package
Today we’re going to review another one of those “Duh” baits. Not “Duh” as in, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, rather “Duh” as in why didn’t someone come up with this a long time ago?
Every good pitcher knows that if you want to make your fastball more effective, you need to develop a good change-up. The Culprit Ultimate Topwater Shad is to frog fishing what a change-up is to a fastball. A different look and different speed.
This bait is a floating, walking, hollow body, shad profile, double-hook carrying top-water lure. The Ultimate TW Shad is 3.5 inches long and weighs 0.6 ounces. When we first saw it, our first impression was, “You’ve gotta be kidding!”. Why? Because the Culprit looks somewhat cartoonish.
The colors are rather simple and far from all the ultra-realistic finishes that we see on recently produced baits. Even the shape is kind of bulbous and lacks real definition. But what the hey, might as well give it a go and see if can be productive.
One of the things you learn after having been around this stuff for a reasonable length of time is that in spite of what you may think in your human brain, a fishes perspective is often 180 degrees removed from ours.
We took the Ultimate TW Shad out to some of our favorite frog lakes to see what, if anything would be willing to hit this bait. To our surprise, the fish were as willing to chomp down on this bait, and sometimes more, than they were to eat a frog.
The Set Up For The Culprit Topwater Shad
We fished the Culprit on the same gear that we use for frogging. Yes that means braid and a nice stout rod. Personally, I was more than curious whether or not this thing would walk-the-dog worse, as well as or better than hollow body frogs. Obviously they can differ but that was our baseline for comparison. We found out that the TW Shad does walk-the-dog fairly easily. In fact, more easily than some of the frogs. Given a good snap of the rod tip, this lure will glide to the side more than most frogs do. That may due to the fact that it doesn’t have any type of legs hanging off the back to create drag and slow its momentum.
Another interesting aspect of the Ultimate Shad is that, when we felt that we were out of the strike zone and began just bringing the bait in, we noticed that it has a nice side to side wobble all the way back to the boat. By sheer coincidence, this was responsible for two particularly vicious strikes. Not bad for just playing with the bait! As an added bonus, this bait skips under trees, docks and into some of the tightest spaces you can imagine easily.
Culprit Construction
The components on the Culprit are surprisingly good for a bait at this price point. The double hook is sharp and stout. The plastic used
Very nice construction
is sturdy but still remains moderately soft. All this results in a better than average hook-up ratio for the TW Shad.
We fished this lure during the day and at night. We got strikes and caught fish no matter the time of day. We haven’t experienced any problems with the bait. On the contrary, we now have one of these tied on laying right next to our hollow body frogs when the conditions call for them.
It’s always cool when you’re first impression of a new lure is proven completely wrong. The Culprit Ultimate Topwater Shad certainly did that for us. It is an effective bait that will catch fish and is really an excellent long reliever for when your starter frog just can’t go the distance. This bait will close the game for you.
| Culprit Ultimate Topwater Shad | |
|---|---|
| Overall Rating |   |
| Looks funny, but is no joke in the water | |
See ya’ on the water …