Throughout my years of bass fishing all over New England I have spoken to many anglers and read many articles endorsing the Rebel Crawfish as the ultimate Smallmouth bass lure. I’ve had a couple of them in my tackle box for as long as I can remember but never took the time to tie one on and give it a spin until last spring fishing the Connecticut River. I had spent a couple of hours flipping small plastics along a rocky backwater section to no avail; I had a few bites, but they just weren’t swallowing the bait enough to set a hook. I decided to work the new Rapala Max Rap through a deep pocket allowing it to sink nose first to the bottom, retrieving it along the bottom much like you would fish a jig, and had a couple of follow-ups from some monster smallies, however none would commit. I had literally thrown everything in my shoreline fishing bag at that point besides the Rebel Crawfish. It was early spring and I was able to draw the smallmouths out of the depths with a slow moving presentation from the Max Rap so I figured I would speed it up a bit and grind the Rebel along the rocks on the bottom looking to trigger a reaction strike. It only took one cast, holding my rod tip down and cranking my Daiwa Sol nice and slow while feeling the bait glance along the rocks on the bottom. It stopped dead, and a few seconds later a 3+ pounder surfaced and spit the hooks. The next two casts hooked up with two more smallies pushing over 3 pounds, which up here in Massachusetts is a solid slab of bass; unfortunately I didn’t land either of them as I hadn’t checked the hooks on the bait before using it and they had become extremely rusted and dulled from sitting in my tackle box all these years. There are two lessons to learn here: pick up a Rebel Crawfish if you don’t have one already (they’re dirt cheap compared to Rapala and smallies love them) and more importantly sharpen your hooks.
