Lure Review

Alabama pro bass angler Randy Howell got what he wanted and more in 2014.

A Texas bass angler’s bid to get back to the Bassmaster Classic depended heavily on a soft-plastic creature bait that few, if any, others had in their arsenal when they fished the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship on Nov. 6-8 on the Ouachita River.

An Idaho outdoorsman had plenty of time to talk about some keys to his success this year as an Elite Series angler as part of a four-year career that has earned him $517,632.

Brandon Palaniuk spoke highly the last week of September about techniques and patterns that have been working consistently. The season-ending Elite Series AOY in Michigan was behind him, and Palaniuk was driving to another event on Kentucky Lake before going home for the off-season in the Great Northwest.

During the call, Palaniuk eventually mentioned a recently released artificial lure that he helped design. That lure was a key to catching bass in clutch situations across the country.

The Storm Arashi Wake Crank has become one of his go-to baits.

There were days as recently as this summer that a 51-year-old Raceland outdoorsman returned from a sac-a-lait (crappie) fishing trip and removed a secret weapon on his tube jig about a mile from the boat ramp. He did this so no one would get so much as a glimpse of the artificial add-on responsible for putting so many slabs in the ice chest.

On a hot July day in Knoxville, Tenn., Ott DeFoe was sorting and arranging his fishing tackle while preparing to go fish Bassmaster tournaments at Lake Champlain and the Deleware River.

An Edisto Island, S.C., artificial lure designer knows first-hand just how good the ChatterBait was when it was born and how good it is now, as it has won more money this year than ever before for pro bass anglers on the FLW and Bassmaster Elite series circuits across the United States.

After a day of prefishing in late May for a Bassmaster Open on Tennessee’s Douglas Lake, one of the tour’s up-and-coming bass pros was eager to talk about a crankbait he used on his way to finishing 14th this year in this year’s Bassmaster Classic.

What soft-plastic creature bait has an oversized, curved, a wide tail, an hour glass-shaped body lined with air pockets and distinctive wings that remind so many veteran bass anglers of a popular Mister Twister soft plastic first introduced in 1976?

It wasn’t too long ago that the Elite 8, the eight best college basketball teams in the country playing in the NCAA’s “Big Dance,” were thrilling fans and television audiences in a hopeful waltz to the Final Four and, ultimately, to the title game at the center of every bracket in the U.S.

A proven Rapala crankbait moved to the forefront of bass fishing on the biggest stage when it helped produce the 2014 Bassmaster Classic champion three months ago in Alabama.

Bass fishermen are tying on a hot product from Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits. Surprisingly, it isn’t a soft plastic like the ever-popular Senko. In fact, it’s a hard bait with an attitude.

A Louisiana bass fishing pro getting ready for his fifth season on the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament trail said there’s no question about one of the artificial lures he’ll nearly always be throwing when the bass and the money are on the line in 2014.

“I mean, everybody pretty much knows it’s going to be a crawfish,” Dennis Tietje said.

Tietje had just returned from his deer-hunting camp during the holidays and obliged a question about one of the favorite artificial lures in his tacklebox, a confidence bait.

“I’m going to keep three baits on no matter what — a small crankbait (red KVD Square Bill), a (Strike King) Rage Craw and a small (Strike King) spinnerbait,” the angler from Roanoke said. “Even though I may not rely (full-time) on the soft plastic, I tend to throw some type of crawfish bait 60- to 70-percent of the time.”