rattletrap find

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SilverFox

SilverFox

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Oct 16, 2010
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Rocky Top TN/Devil's Woodyard SC
Stopped by Gander Mountain in Virginia the other day. Found 1/2 oz strike king red eye shads on clearance for $1.99 a piece. Dug around the bin and ended up with 37 of them, some regular and some tour series that are silent. Total cost, $77. Heck of a find for me.

 
I do too. The only time i don't throw them is in the river. I have some old light weight traps i throw since i hate losing the red eye. I'll paint a lot of these since the colors were not great and there are several of the same ones.
 
I do the same thing whenever I run across deals like that. Like you said, most of the time they are in "off" colors that haven't sold well. Nothing a little time and paint wont fix.
 
No red craw. This was all the 1/2 models they had. Manager said he couldn't sell them so he reduced them. Some will be red craw before long. There were a couple hundred of the strike king diamond shad traps in there but i prefer the red eye.
 
I was going to say, I got a deal on the diamond shad ones at the Gander Mtn in Turkey Creek here a while back.

My favorite lipless cranks are the XCaliburs, the XR-50 to be exact. But with that said, I caught my biggest bass to date on a Redeye shad that I bought in an off color and painted. It was early spring and I couldn't find any red ones in the stores so we grabbed the paint gun and painted it with some left over paint from when dad painted his 1986 F-150. lol Not sure what she weighed; didn't have any weighing scales at the time but evidently she hadn't ever seen a Ford red shad before :)



 
Wowee, that is a nice bass.

I used to take fingernail polish and make some pretty awful looking red-eyes on my lures.

So the real question here is do naturalized minnow lures catch more fish than ones painted in non-natural colors and exaggerated at that? I just asking because I have caught plenty of fishies on both.
 
DaveB said:
Wowee, that is a nice bass.
So the real question here is do naturalized minnow lures catch more fish than ones painted in non-natural colors and exaggerated at that? I just asking because I have caught plenty of fishies on both.
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I think it's all about contrast. In clear water lakes, the more natural colors tend to work best. But in stained, or murky water, the more contrast, the better. In the fall when the shad start migrating to the creeks and are in SUPER LARGE schools...the predatory fish can have a huge abundance of meals at the ready. That's when I will try to NOT match the hatch, and give them something different to look at. Something that stands out. My #1 color for murky water is Firetiger. Great contrast. Caught a crapload of fish on that color in DD14s and DD22s.
 
Good find. I bought 100 Ratltraps a few yrs back for .50 a piece. Just the body and hook hangers. I painted and added split rings and hooks.
 
SilverFox said:
That's a good one crow. I caught my biggest smallmouth on a red eye in 2010. 6 and 1/2 pounds. That red looks pretty awesome. What did you clear it with?
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I would have to ask dad about the clear and see if he remembers. I think he has several different kinds that he uses when he paints cars. Whatever it was, was something he had left over in his shop that we grabbed and used.

One day a few weeks ago, we went below the dam trolling crankbaits and my wife wore me and him both out on a DD14 -- white with green metal flake color, and it was the only one I had in that color. I had a box full of Deep Lil Ns and DD14s in various colors but none of them were producing like that white/green flake one was. Next thing I knew, on the next trip, dad had half a tackle box of his crankbaits that he had painted white with green metal flake backs. He said he took all of them he had never caught a fish on and gave them a new look since they seemed to favor that color. Drums love that color...he's caught about 13 that were over 15 pounds so far...in the past 2 weeks. The day I went with him, he caught 3 that were so big they wouldn't fit in the net. Caught 2 gars on it too, one of those was about 4 feet long.
 
Sometimes its just a little thing that will make them bite. I have several rootbeer chartreuse cranks all by the same maker. Some of them catch fish, some are not worth throwing. I usually give the poor ones to who ever is fishing with me to throw! LOL
 

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