At this year’s Bassmaster Classic Expo, I stumbled into the BassMooch booth and struck up a conversation with the guys there. I had only heard of their company once before in passing and had very little knowledge of their product line. Thus, I was quite astonished to find around 50 different products surrounding me, maybe more.
A relatively new kid on the block, BassMooch has exploded onto the scene the last couple years with a wide range of products. From rods to scissors, sun gloves to face shields, dip nets to jigs, fishing line to soft plastics, the list goes on.
The BassMooch guys sent me home with a goody bag of products; one bait in the goodybag was their Shooter Craw. I spent some time testing this bait out on a recent whackfest fishing trip to a buddy’s pond and this was my experience.
A COOL BLEND OF PROFILES
The Shooter Craw has a body more along the lines of a Reaction Innovations Beaver, but flanges on the claws more like what you’d see with a Strike King Rage Craw. Each of the claws actually have two staggered flanges on them, and the body has a wavy ribbing all up and down it. In all reality, it’s not at all like a Rage Craw or a Beaver, but those are the best two baits I could think of for comparison’s sake.
The closest other bait to compare to the Shooter Craw would be the Zoom Z Craw maybe, but even then the claws of the Shooter Craw spread much wider and create a different action.
ACTION
Between the two-tiered flanges along the claws, the wide-spread posture of the claws and the bait’s otherwise narrow design, the Shooter Craw falls vertically on a slackline, while the claws wiggle, wobble and wave their way down.
This bait has a lot of action, but it’s not a fast swimming action. You could certainly put it on the back of a swimjig or buzzbait and burn it along if you’d like. However, I think the bait shines brightest on a light Texas rig, which allows the claws to kick with a slow flowing, wide action as the bait drifts down to the bottom.
BOTH SOFT AND DURABLE
There’s an art to designing a good soft plastic lure, especially when trying to dial in the consistency of the material used. If the bait is durable, it’s often too dense, making it hard for the hook to escape the bait on the hookset. On the other hand, if the material is too soft, the hook tears through the body and head of the bait before you ever even get a bite.
That fine line between soft and durable is hard to toe, but BassMooch does it well with this bait. The bait is soft enough to have a beautiful action, but durable enough to hold up to multiple fish catches.
After catching the third bass on a single Shooter Craw, I started paying better attention, to see how many I could catch on a single bait. I ended up catching around six bass on just one of the Shooter Craws—the biggest weighing about 6 pounds. I never rigged up another bait and left the lake that day with the same one still rigged and ready for duty.
IN CONCLUSION
The Shooter Craw comes in a pack of 8 for $4.99. That’s a pretty solid value for a bait as good as this one. With a fairly unique action, plenty of durability (without compromising the hookup ratio), 12 colors to choose from and a pretty strong scent to boot, the Shooter Craw from BassMooch is an easy bait for me to recommend.
When I see a company try to do a bunch of things all at once, I’m pretty skeptical by default, concerned that their focus may be too much on quantity and not enough on quality.
That was my first impression as I stepped into the booth of this company that had half a hundred products out. I now owe them an apology for the preconceived notion based solely on the quality of their Shooter Craw though. I’m now eager to try some of the other products this company has to offer. Bass Mooch might be a real player in the coming years. They are certainly on my radar now.
