Rapala Report

Rapala balsa bait -- the OG Rocco 5

Fresh from the wood shavings and sawdust of Ott DeFoe’s Garage, comes a new Rapala balsa bait -- the OG Rocco 5.

A big-body, square-bill crankbait, the OG Rocco 5 is built to burn through heavy cover and trigger bites from big, burly bass and other gamefish.

“You’re able to fish it faster in those heavy-cover areas,” said DeFoe, a Rapala Pro, Bassmaster Classic Champion and winner of 11 other top-tier Bassmaster and Major League Fishing (MLF) tournaments. “You can burn it and trigger a reaction bite.”

Integrating DeFoe’s exacting design specs and Rapala’s engineering expertise, the OG Rocco 5 deflects off cover and recovers better than any other square-bill that DeFoe has ever banged off wood or rock in his storied career.

The OG Rocco 5’s size, balsa-wood engineering and construction all contribute to its superior, bite-triggering deflection ability.

“It’s a pretty good-size hunk of balsa, and the more you’ve got there, the more buoyancy you’re going to have,” DeFoe explains. “So, when you reel it down into a crack in a laydown, or a piece of rock, or something like that, you can stop it, and that bait has enough buoyancy to back out of a lot of those situations, so you can keep your retrieve going.”

The OG Rocco 5 is the third balsa-wood crankbait DeFoe has designed for Rapala’s celebrated OG Series. OG stands for “Ott’s Garage,” where he carves, shaves and sands on his workbench, balsa baits of all shapes and sizes. OG Slim 6 and OG Tiny 4, each a flat-sided, round-bill crankbait, preceded Rocco in the OG Series. DeFoe and others have won big bass tournaments with those baits.

DeFoe says it’s “quite a bit different than the Slim or Tiny.” Setting it apart is both its bill shape – square vs. round – and it’s “overall shape” and profile” he explains. “It’s a fatter bait.”

Another difference: The Rocco swims with “considerable more thump” than do the Slim or Tiny. That action will make it a go-to spring bait when water temps warm to the mid-50’s, and where bass welcome heavy cover to hold on – be it submerged wood, big snaggy rocks, or a combination of both.

“I’m going to have this on the deck all the time,” DeFoe said. “Where I need to bump a bait into cover to be able to trigger those fish into biting.”

While the similarities between Rocco, Slim and Tiny start with balsa-wood construction, they also include attention-grabbing, gamefish-mimicking color patterns and sticky-sharp VMC Black-Nickel 1X Strong Hybrid Treble Hooks. “Those are my absolute, all-time favorite treble hooks,” DeFoe said.

OG Rocco 5’s are available in 15 forage patterns, comprising “good mixes” of both baitfish and crawfish patterns, as well as bright-color and natural-forage patterns. Bright colors are better, generally, in stained to muddy water. Natural looks generally work best in crystal-clear to lightly stained water. The Rocco’s palette of color patterns includes threw new options – Bruised Citrus Shad, Tuxedo Shad and Chartreuse Black. The original OG Series color patterns include Bream, Classic Craw, Copper Green Shad, Chartreuse Rootbeer Crawdad, Citrus Shad, Dark Brown Crawdad, Green Gizzard Shad, Hot Copper Green Shad, Helsinki Shad, Red Crawdad, Rootbeer Crawdad and Silver.

OG Rocco 5 weighs 3/8-ounce and measures 2-½ inches. It will run as deep as 5 feet on 12- to 14-pound-test line.

The OG Rocco 5 has a suggested manufacturer’s retail price of US$10.49.