Top 10 Lucky Craft Lures - #4
By: “Triton” Mike Bucca
(www.tritonmike.com)
With the extensive lineup of baits that Lucky Craft
has I can certainly understand why it might cause a lot of people mass
confusion on what tool to purchase and for what job. I have received
countless emails pertaining to my opinion of various baits in the Lucky
Craft lineup. I have been fishing with Lucky Craft lures since the
late 90’s and I have also been on the Lucky Craft Pro-staff for
the past year and a half. As a fishing guide here in Georgia with over
200 days a year on the water, I have extensive experience in using
pretty much every bait in their entire lineup, and several Lucky Craft
baits that aren’t even offered here in the U.S. I felt this top
10 list would help ease your pain in your bait selection before you
plop down the bucks for one of these fine pieces of craftsmanship.
Do keep in mind that these are the top 10 baits that I find myself
using most often and they are listed in no particular order.
Be sure to check in here at Probass.com often, as
I will give a different review on my top ten Lucky Craft baits that
I
rely on the most. You
just might be surprised to see some of the baits I rely on everyday
that you might not think is an effective bait.
#4 Pointer 78
Yeah, I am little biased on jerkbaits!!
Lucky Crafts Pointer 78 jerkbait gets my nod for #4 rank in my top
ten listing. The pointer 78 is
absolutely an awesome working little jerkbait with a very cool and
extremely erratic action. The Pointer 78 comes in 31 different shad
colors and dives anywhere from 4-5 feet with 12lb fluorocarbon line.
All of the pointer series jerkbaits are suspending and the numerous
color selections can be seen at the following url. Pointer
I call the Pointer 78 a finesse jerkbait due to its small size and
profile. The pointer 78 is approximately 3 inches long and mimics thread
fin and spottail minnows almost perfectly especially in the Aurora
Black, American Shad and MS MJ Herring colors. The pointer comes with
2 #6 treble hooks and weighs in at 3/8th of an ounce.
The pointer 78 is probably the best selling and most popular jerkbait,
not only in the Lucky Craft lineup, but also probably in the entire
jerkbait market and with very good reason they catch fish and have
an extremely erratic action for such a small bait. I seriously doubt
there is another small jerkbait in the world that is erratic at the
Pointer 78 and it suspends almost perfectly due to the weight transfer
system and it also has excellent casting capabilities due to it’s
weight.
I strictly use the Pointer 78 as with most jerkbaits in clear water
situations. I like the Pointer 78 best during post spawn and early
summer when the small shad are bunching up in small schools in the
main lake and they won’t take bigger lures. I like to make long
casts with this lure and work it very rapidly back to the boat with
very little pauses in my retrieve. I especially go to the smaller pointer
78 when I see fish are following biggers lure but not taking striking
them. In other words, I downsize to the smaller pointer 78 to get them
to commit. For spotted bass here is a little trick for catching a few
more fish on the Pointer 78. Spotted bass are notorious for following
your baits back to the boat without you knowing that they are there.
I make it a habit to pause the bait for about 5 seconds when the lure
just starts to come upward out of its maximum depth range and when
it is right under the boat. This gives the spot just a few more moments
to finally decide to commit to striking the lure. This often results
in hookups for fish that wouldn’t have normally bit your lure
if you were to keep up the faster retrieve. However it is the fast
retrieve that gets them interested in the first place, but if you leave
your bait still for very long they will get a good look at your bait
and know it is not real and that is why I favor a fast retrieve for
those clear water spotted bass. So keep that jerkbait moving especially
for spotted bass.
As far as equipment is concerned, I like to use 8lb Triplefish fluorocarbon
(www.triplefish.net) fluorocarbon line when fishing the Pointer 78.
Fluorocarbon is a sinking line and it also allows the bait to dive
more effectively to its maximum depth better than monofilament lines.
Also, due to the low stretch characteristics of fluorocarbon you will
have no problem detecting the strikes, which are often very subtle
when fishing jerkbaits. Besides fluorocarbon line being more expensive
than most monofilaments I am finding that fluorocarbon also lasts 3
times longer than regular mono making it a very economical choice for
the frugal angler. Most medium action 6ft to 6.5 ft rods are great
choices for using jerkbaits. The knot that I use for fishing jerkbaits
is called a “Loop Knot”. I feel that the loop knot allows
the jerkbait more freedom to move more erratically since the knot is
not cinched around the split ring in the eyelet of the jerkbait. Here
is an Internet link with directions to the loop knot that I use on
jerkbaits. http://www.stren.com/knot4.htm
That’s my review of my #4 pick of my most often used Lucky Craft
baits. Give the Pointer 78 a try in your favorite waters when the fish
are feeding on small shad or following your bigger baits.
Coming very very soon!!! My TOP 3 picks of Lucky Craft that I rely
on the most. Are they topwater? Jerkbaits? Cranks? Hmmmm Keep an eye
out here at probass.net to find out what in my opinion are the best
3 baits in the ENTIRE Lucky Craft lineup that I rely on the most to
catch bass for me consistently. I have also decided to do a few “honorable
mention” reviews of a few baits that didn’t make my top
10 rankings, but I have relied on these honorable mentions baits quite
heavily over the years. In reality it’s hard to pick just 10
baits from Lucky Craft for all situations.
www.backwatersonline.com
