Ha! They pulled one over on you Jax........Those aren't lures but rather like Gummi Bears.......you sit and eat the whole bucket while watching Kansas City put a whippin on San Fran tonight. Tough for me to root against San Fran as they seem like a decent sort of club.........But I like Kansas City (swell town!) and besides, they haven't won it in a long time.

I couldn't wait any longer and broke from work to plop the Savage gear lures in the canal in front of my house. The swim baits are different than I thought. Most swim baits have a methodical cadence to them on the retrieve......not so with the savage gear baits. They tend to do some unexpected things. Not sure what to think yet.......I know I like what they do on a fall, definitely have that injured look.

The shrimp looks like the ultimate finesse bait. The TPE plastic is unlike anything I have ever seen before. Very tough stuff. I need to get the biggest size for salt water use but the 4" model should be a smallie killer deluxe.

The crab? Who knows? I'm thinking the thing is going to get hung a lot in the oysters. I was a bit surprised at how good it looked just free swimming.......a mini frisbee gliding through the water with claws and legs waggling along.... time will tell.

The crawfish is super impressive. I think the only thing it really lacks is a bit of noise. Sound carries very well in water and that armor plating craw daddies have must make some noise. Maybe some tiny BB's in a glass capsule inserted into the craw might give it the right noise (yes they make it).

I'm hoping this stuff pans out as throwing a 12 ft cast net or buying 100 shrimp is either hard on your body or hard on your wallet.   

Larry Dahlberg is the man pure and simple. I have one of the Klackin Crawdads and it is still in the box over a year later. Occasionally I look at it with fondness.... picturing when sooner or later I will get to use the dern thing. Trouble is, I forget I have it and then move on to something new which captures my imagination ( er, that would be my wallet actually)........ still have the spin jig rigs which are still in the packaging.

Having said all that my advice is to get 3 of each and in various sizes.

> one thing to pay very close attention to is hooking ability, it isn't enough for them to eat it, will you hook them is the question. For example....this past summer I used the real image frog and fish blew up on the thing but no matter how long I let them eat it my hook up ratio was less than 50%. Enter in the Top Toad which is a very similar lure in style but that hookup ratio was closer to 80%.

What I like about the Savage gear stuff is premium wide gap nickel hooks which looks like they will stick fish most of the time. The only question that lingers in the back of mind is will a 20+ lb snook straighten the hook out while I'm trying to keep her from burying into the mangroves. Stop her or pop her is my motto for grouper and snook.

Mapsguy1955 wrote on Nov 5^th, 2014 at 7:34pm:


Maps guy I would be interested to see how you do with the large size dad for freshwater fish........I read an article once where they set up on a high bluff overlooking a curve in a river. Down below they could readily observe a small school of bass. They experimented throwing various sized crayfish to them and what I recall was the 2" size being the most readily accepted. They theorized that the bass were reluctant to mess with the bigger claws. I only 1/2 believe that but on the other hand I might have some 3" as backup.

Yes, I will hopefully get to try out the savage gear stuff the beginning of December. The TPE plastic will hold up to tons of fish but maybe not the crayfish. Did you get the stand up jig heads? Tackle warehouse......gotta have 'em.

Ha! My plumber is a young guy (about my age  ) who likes to fish. He won a guided salt water trip and he was describing a shrimp lure in a "nuclear chicken" color which slayed the fish.....pictures proved his claims.

I was thinking, nuclear chicken? hey that's one of the color Combos of the TPE savage gear shrimp. I described the lure and yup it was the ticket. Trying desperately to swing a few days. Nuclear chicken......that's funny. I already have 4 savage gear shrimp coming and thought the Nuclear chicken just a bit to gaudy......geez, what an amateur I am.