CrushCity Report
CrushCity’s new Mooch Minnow
Bass Pro Tour champion Dustin Connell put CrushCity’s new Mooch Minnow to work this spring, before the lure was officially released. He won both the BPT RedCrest on Lay Lake and regular season event on Toledo Bend with this new minnow imitator. Two very different fisheries, one with mostly spotted bass, the other with mostly largemouths, but the defining similarity was the appeal of this one lure – the Mooch Minnow, one of four new softbaits that joins Rapala’s tournament-grade softbait line, CrushCity.
The Mooch Minnow may appear at first glance like many other soft plastic minnow baits, but there are key differences, starting with the lure’s tab tail, which makes it substantially different, and in most cases better.
“You can’t reinvent the wheel, but you can do things a little bit different,” said fellow BPT Champion Jacob Wheeler. “Like actions, you can change the profiles a bit, you can do a lot of little things to separate yourself from other softbaits.”
In addition to its unique paddle tail design, another defining feature of the Mooch Minnow, is its use of TPE Material. Not only does it float, enhancing the action of presentation, but it’s ultra-durable. That meant that Connell could catch 20 bass on tournament day on a single softbait. That alone saved him valuable time, and saves other tournament anglers valuable cash. It’s scented, too, so fish grab it and won’t let go.
Because of the way the tail is designed, it doesn’t have a hard kick, but rather a tight wobble, one that’s almost invisible to the naked eye.
“I didn’t want a lot of resistance where there was a lot of lift,” Wheeler said. Connell agreed – one of the key attributes of this lure when he’s using forward facing sonar is that he can get it down in front of fish while they’re still present and active.
It can be fished on a dropshot, on a jig head vertically, or with Wheeler’s signature horizontal shake, and it’ll still maintain the absolute correct amount of roll and kick to emulate a living, fleeing baitfish.
The Mooch Minnow’s 3-½ inch profile resembles the size of many common baitfish throughout bass fishing country, from threadfin shad to perch to ciscoes to smelt.
The Mooch Minnow is available in 20 pro-designed colors, including: Albino Shad, Black, Black N Blue, Chartreuse Pearl, Electric Shad, Ghost Morning Dawn, Goby, Green Pumpkin Chartreuse Pepper, Green Pumpkin Disco, Green Pumpkin Goby, Green Pumpkin Magic, Green Pumpkin, Green Shad, Gizzard Shad, Perch, Pearl White, Shad, Sungill, Sexy Shad, and Tennessee Shad.
The Mooch Minnow is sold six per pack and has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $5.99.