Wired2Fish 2012 Wishlists | New Bass Fishing Lures
Posted by Jason Sealock on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 @ 10:00 AM
Finally, our last Wired2Fish Wishlist for the upcoming 2012 fishing season. Today we're tackling artificial lures for bass fishing and well maybe some other species too. These are some of the lures we've had a chance to fish with and really like and look forward to fishing more when the water warms again.
If you're looking for a few new lures to check out next year, we recommend you put these on your list.
Bandit Square Billed Crankbaits
These square bills offer a unique wobble and color patterns that are a great addition to your bass fishing arsenal and come at a welcome price. The baits have a wide S-shaped swimming motion and really displace some water. We really liked fishing them in shallow cover laden dingy water this fall. Bandit makes a bunch of great colors to choose from so you can always find something that works on your fishery.
Lucky Craft Fat Smasher
This is a unique bait that we call a three-way hybrid. The Fat Smasher is part swimbait, part one knocker and part wake bait. You better have good command of the spool with your thumb because this thing launches. We've fished it around docks, points, over submerged cover and more. It has some great features that we think the bass are going to react to and it comes in a variety of sizes to make it a great offering for a lot of different fisheries. But we prefer the largest size to really offer a big meal in that shallow to mid range depth in the water column.
Mann's Slick Lures Alabama Rig
The rig that started it all, is now available exclusively through Mann's. The Alabama Rig set the bass fishing world on fire this fall and hasn't let up from the constant introduction of knockoffs and posts of big catches on Facebook. If you haven't heard about this rig, you might have been hiding under a rock. But it's basically an adaption of the old striper umbrella rig that has a minnow type head anchoring five hard wires to which you can attach grubs, swimbaits, or other lures to mimic a school of bait. The rig itself is light but once adding all the lures it will require some stout equipment and line to fish it effectively and avoid injury. The catches this fall have been simply amazing on it.
Megabass Ito Vision 110 Plus One
The Ito Vision 110 has been "the hot jerkbait" among the pros over the last several years and now they have introduced it's deeper cousin with the Plus One. This bait will reach new depths which is going to be a key on highland clear water impoundments in the winter and early spring periods. It still has that same great erratic action, weight transfer system, attractive styling and rattles that the Vision 110 is known for. We've already had some good catches on it and we expect to have a lot more.
Optimum Top of the Line Swimbaits
This type of soft swimbait is very popular from coast to coast, but the original versions of these big head line through type swimbaits was that the hook is dangling on the bottom. And that really limited where it could be fished like around standing timber or submerged grass because of how prone it was to snag. Now with this new Top of the Line swimbait, the hook is actuall on the back of the swimmer yet still free after hooking a fish. That way you can work it right over the top of the cover but still not give the fish an advantage with the weight of the bait to throw it during the fight. It's definitely a bait we're adding to our fishing next season.
Snag Proof Guntersville Frog
We got to see first hand how well the bass reacted to this frog on a blustery cold front day on none other than Lake Guntersville. The fish really honed in on the rattles nose slapping action of the frog. We liked that it was very easy to cast in the wind, worked very fast across mats for more aggressive bass. The bait skips really well too which is an added advantage when fishing around less obvious cover like docks and other manmade structures. It's another great addition to anglers growing box of productive frogs.
Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover Swim Jig
We got a lesson on the heavy hooks from Greg Hackney a few months ago and now the Heavy Cover Swim Jig is top of our list for new products for next season. If Jason had to pick one way to catch bass the rest of his life, swim jigging might be it. With this swim jig you can use heavy braid and just lock into the fish and winch them out of heavy cover without a second though of hook flex or losing bass. And the wire keeper we found to work great with a variety of trailers.
Stanford Cedar Deep Cedar
We're always looking for a crankbait just a little bit different that what everyone else is throwing. Usually that means a custom paint job. But in this case it can mean a completely different make up. Not many guys are throwing cedar plugs these days and the unique properties of cedar in the water make the Deep Cedar and welcome addition to our deep cranking. The bait is quality built and looks great in the water. If you haven't seen what cedar can do, you need to pick up a couple to play with next season!
Rapala X-Rap Pop
We got this bait before ICAST during the prime topwater time and it was a winner the first time we fished with it. It's a very unique popper in that you can work it with a subtle spit-spit-spit pitter patter on the surface or a big deep gulp pop in a much slower but louder cadence. We also found that if you hold your rod right and jerk with more of a pull you can get the bait to almost mimic a bass busting the surface. A trick that worked numerous times for us to start a school busting on bait. The VMC hooks are tacky sharp as we can attest to with an ER visit on one trip. So be careful; this dog defintely hunts!
Reaction Innovations Kinky Beaver
Much like the Alabama Rig, the Sweet Beaver started the whole beaver body type craze for flipping and pitching. Now RI is back with a new twist on their original creation with the Kinky Beaver that adds tantalizing tentacles and legs that kick and swim on the drop or behind a jig. It really gives the Beaver a more classic craw shape and profile and we think this one could be even more popular than the original because of the added action.
Z-Man Punch Crawz and Shaky Headz
This is the clear water killer and farm pond wrecker. Some folks don't like Elaztech plastics. Some folks love them. But we found this combo to be the crossover. If rigged on the Z-Man Shaky Headz, the Punch Crawz have a very natural look in the water but most of all they will hold up to fish after fish. We fished three days with one offering before finally snagging and losing the rig. It's amazing how effective it is when fish are feeding on crawfish in clear water.
Zoom Super Salty Tube
One glaring hole in the Zoom product line that their customers have been begging for is a salty fat bodied tube for flipping and fishing on jigheads in deepwater. Zoom finally answered their customers' wishes by adding the tube to their line and coming out with all their great color options. The tube walls are thick, it's easy to rig on a jighead and on a Texas Rig.
Zoom W.E.C. Prop Bait
Okay this might be a big tease as it hasn't even been decided if it's going to be sold to the public yet. But we got our hands on a homemade prop bait from Ed Chambers. Of course it features his great paint jobs and attention to detail and craftsmanship. It's weighted perfectly to make it easy to cast and explosive on the retrieve. If you like to fish these shad body props in the post spawn period, you're going to love this prop bait. We'll keep you updated if and when they go on sell. But we all have to have that one special Christmas wish that might be beyond our reach but it's still worth asking for anyway. Right?
That's it for the Wishlists, check out all our wishlists here.