Bass Fishing part 4 - Fishing the Rapala XRap

Another great search bait is the Rapala X-RAP minnow lure, since its introduction in the 60's this lure has probably caught more fish than any other lure in history. In the 60's until recently the lure was made from hand carved balsa, and each lure was hand tested to make sure it ran straight. I have caught 1000's of fish on these lures in both fresh and salt water. They can be cast and retrieved with many variations, and all will catch fish.

You can fish them as a top water, casting them next to cover and twitching them in place until no self respecting bass can ignore them, even if its not hungry, you can make him mad enough until he wants to kill that pesky intruder into his space. Strikes are usually vicious, all you need to do is raise the rod tip to set the hook, and the battle is on! If the fish are in a positive mood and are chasing bait fish to the surface and crashing on them, a fast retrieve is in order, just cast it out and wind it quickly back to the boat in the area where you see bass blasting bait on the surface.

A very exciting way to get bit is to cast right intothe circles left when a bass crashes a bait on the surface, then let it sit for a few seconds, give it a twitch and HANG ON!!!!! You will get some heart stopping surface strikes that way. Another favorite retrieve of mine is the jerk n pause, the lure is cast near cover and the rod tip is pulled with a fast ripping motion, ( start with the rod parallel to the water and straight out in front of you, then rip it quickly to the side and reel in the slack quickly and do it again. As you pause to wind in the slack, the bait will float up several inches toward the surface, then take off like a bat out of hell!

This has a wonderful triggering effect on bass, they can't seem to resist this retrieve when they are active. If they are closer to a neutral mood, you don't see many bass crashing on the surface, try just pulling the lure just fast enough to make it wiggle for a few feet, then pause for a moment, them just twitch it a couple of times and pause and repeat. Many times when bass did not want a fast moving lure, they would gobble up the slower moving lure.

The newest lure from Rapala, The X-RAP, is made of plastic and has holograpic colors embedded in the lure, this almost makes it look more like a bait fish than the real thing. It has more wiggles than a go go dancer on steroids! It drives fish nuts! It also suspends, when you rip it down and stop it, it just sits there and dares any fish in the vicinity to eat it. This is very important when fish are not actively feeding or in the cold water period when bass are very inactive, they may not want to chase a lure but when they see this bait fish just sitting there right in front of their nose, without moving, they will just swim over and suck it in, easy meal!

I like to fish these lures on light spinning gear, loaded with 6 to 8 lb test Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon line. This is especially important when the water is very clear as the Vanish is almost invisable underwater. For less active fish the lure is cast near brush or other cover and given a sharp pull to get the lure down to its working depth, then just slowly twitched along like a wounded bait fish, it will stay at its depth and not float to the surface like the old balsa models.

I have cast them next to brush in clear water, pulled them down to thier depth range and just let them sit next to the bush for 30 seconds, then I saw a bass slowly move out of the brush pile and just slurp the lure in. I didn't feel a thing, I just saw a little twitch in the line as he sucked the Rapala in.

For more info on the Rapala lure company visit http://www.rapala.com/
For more info on the Berkley Vanish flourocarbon line visit http://www.berkley-fishing.com/