Tournament News Powered By Lake Drive Marine
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Rapala Report
CrushCity™ Cleanup Craw™ from Rapala
For champion professional bass angler Jacob Wheeler, a soft plastic crawfish imitation is the life blood of any serious angler’s arsenal.
So, when Wheeler teamed up with Rapala to create a craw that could be pitched and flipped and used as a trailer on all sorts of jigs, he didn’t want it to be like everyone else’s craw. It had to be a craw that he could personally use to win America’s biggest bass tournaments.
Welcome to the new CrushCity™ Cleanup Craw™, a craw unlike any other, where every subtle feature adds up to a big-time, crushing difference.
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Northland Report
Northland Eye-Candy Paddle Shad
Fall is in full swing, and for anglers willing to step down from the tree stand our out of the duck blind, the walleye bite is heating up.
While there are a lot of ways to catch fall ‘eyes, one favorites is covering water with a simple soft plastic and jighead combo. Enter the new Eye-Candy Paddle Shad.
A Marvel on Mille Lacs
“The Paddle Shad’s got a subtle action that walleyes key in on,” says Mille Lacs Lake guide and Northland pro, Brad Hawthorne.
“It doesn’t have a hard ‘thump’ like other paddletails I’ve fished. The Eye-Candy Paddle Shad has the action of a real minnow swimming, not an exaggeration of a minnow swimming, which is what most paddletails do. And when other swimbaits’ action stops—typically at half-a-mile-an-hour—this bait still has tail action, so you can jig it with subtle motions or snap jig it two or three inches forward at a time and the tail still kicks. That’s why it’s catching so many fish.”
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Northland Report
Northland Tungsten Crappie King
Panfish jigs are nothing new. As long as there have been hooks, metal, and feathers, resourceful anglers have combined ingredients to create fish-catching baits. Thing is that these historically effective baits have been made of one thing for the last century: lead.
But we’re living in a new age – and yes, there’s a better way. And one that will put more fish in the icebox.
We’re talking tungsten.
Because tungsten is so hard, compact, and heavy, the material provides anglers with extreme sensitivity, which can be incredibly helpful to determine bottom substrate and detect the slightest of bites. It also falls fast, getting down to fish low in the water column – another benefit.
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St. Croix Report
SEVIN GS Spinning Reel
In addition to baitcasters, St. Croix’s new SEVIIN reel company has introduced the all-new GS Series spinning reel.
It offers a lightweight, rock-solid, and reliably dependable performance for an attractive and competitive retail price of $140.
“Almost two full years in design, this is a lightweight and extremely durable reel,” says SEVIIN Product Manager, Robert Woods. “Available in five versatile sizes from 750 to 3000, GS Series reels will appeal to a wide range of avid anglers, as well as more-casual anglers who appreciate elevated quality and performance. Our team engineered GS with a carbon body, side plates, and rotor to maximize rigidity and minimize weight, and rounded out the external design with strong and lightweight aluminum handles and spools.”
Woods describes the aesthetics of GS reels: “They’re unique and our own,” he says. “We designed GS to appeal to a wide variety of anglers, and looks are an important part of that. We wanted GS to stand out with a unique look that equals its performance without going to extremes. Overall, the form of GS reels is largely driven by function, but once anglers pick them up, they’ll notice a variety of subtle design details – from logo placement, accent colors and anodizing, to more functional design elements like spool angles, handle bracing, the machined aluminum handle cap, and the geometry of the foot and stem.”
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Northland Tackle Report
Northland Smeltinator
The 2023 Bassmaster Classic wasn’t the first time that Jeff “Gussy” Gustafson had stacked big weights and solid limits of smallmouth bass on the Tennessee River out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Back in March of 2021,
Word of the “moping” technique traveled quickly through social wires, sending serious bassers on the hunt for Gussy’s favored jig head—Bass Tactics’ Smeltinator Jig.
Two years later Gussy did it again ‘moping’ suspended smallmouths with the Smeltinator Jighead on forward facing, proving the money method for a Bassmaster Classic title, the $300K payout and honors as the top bass stick on the planet.