Soft plastic from Mister Twister is the real deal
When a Port Allen bass angler needed to cull some fish in his livewell during a recent Bassmaster Southern Open on Lewis Smith Lake near Jasper, Ala., he started fishing with a soft plastic that had been on the market no more than three weeks. It’s a safe bet no one else on the water had those in their bass fishing arsenal.
Mister Twister’s Poc’it Craw, part of a new Poc’it Series that has been reintroduced by the Minden artificial lure manufacturing company, did the job for Brent Bonadona. The Mister Twister rep culled some bass and got a paycheck with a 28th place finish for that three-day tournament the first week of October.
“I fished logjams with the Craw. I think I was using Okochobee Craw (laminated watermelon/green-black/blue),” Bonadona said a few days later. “I was able to cull a couple of fish using that once the sun came up and they started using that cover.”
The 38-year-old Bonadona, who has owned Performance Auto Body for 13 years, is as excited about the 3 ½-inch-long Poc’it Craw as he is about the Poc’it Phenom and the Poc’it Paddle Tail plastic worms.
“I think they’ve really stepped it up,” he said about Mister Twister. “They’ve always been there, but they’re out on a new playing level now. I looked at it and said, ‘This is the real deal.’ This and the Paddle Tail worms work well for us.
“I’ve only been using them for a short time, but they’re successful so far. They definitely met and exceeded my expectations.”
Bonadona will fish BASS Southern and Central Opens in 2013. He’s got big plans for the Poc’it Craw at the first Central Open on the Red River.
“I’m really looking forward to that. That bait will be the key for sure,” said the bass angler, who started fishing competitively in bass clubs and local tournaments at age 8.
Then he tackled the FLW’s BFL Weekend Series and went on to BASS Southern Opens.
His excitement and optimism are shared by the artificial lure’s designer, Mister Twister sales manager Darryl Laurent of Bossier City, who has been with the company since 1991.
“Yeah, I’m happy. That was a lot of work,” Laurent said about the two years of effort that went into making the Poc’it Series. It was deja vu for him and the company, which had a popular Poc’it Phenom plastic worm for years before it was discontinued in 1999.
However, Laurent said, requests kept pouring in from bass anglers wanting to know where they could get their hands on the plastic worms and if the company could start making them again.
The veteran artificial lure designer believed it was the right time to reintroduce the soft plastic with distinguishable pockets on the surface. More and more bassers are downsizing and using smaller soft plastics for drop-shotting and punching through grass.
But, Laurent said, the original mold was “shot,” unusable. So he decided to make it and others — including the Poc’it Craw — all over again.
“We did make a Poc’it Craw, but it was more an old-style crawworm people were fishing with 12 years ago,” he said. “We needed something durable, too, meaning the pincher would not come off. The hardest part was getting the thickness on the pinchers right … that would allow for durability and still have action when it’s pulled through the water.
“I’ve been doing this since 1988. This effort right here, I worked with a lot of people (Mister Twister field reps and customers across the country) and put a lot of time on the water.”
Mister Twister got what it wanted. The Poc’it Series has those tell-tale pockets in the body that release air bubbles on the retrieve and apparently hold scent, particularly the newer paste scents, longer.
The company started shipping the soft plastics nationwide “a little over 30 days ago,” Laurent said the second week of October. The reaction has been extremely favorable as it gets onto more and more hooks and catches more and more bass.
There’s more to come, Laurent said, as he is busy working on two more molds to add two more lines next year for the Poc’it Series.
Laurent and Bonadona, who’s following his dream to be a pro bass angler, are partial to the colors and color combinations in each of the Poc’its. Two-toned and laminated soft plastics are challenging to produce correctly, Laurent said.
“A lot of people (other artificial lure manufacturers) do not have laminated colors in that bait,” Laurent said about the Poc’it Craw.
The key, he said, is to make sure one color doesn’t bleed over to a different-colored pincher.
“They’ve got some pretty good colors,” Bonadona said.
The Poc’it Craw he used to cull his catch in early October resembled the color of the crawfish in Smith Lake, he said. There are 15 colors to suit water conditions from muddy to clear anywhere in the country, “anywhere crawfish are present,” he said.
He also attested to its durability, noting “it’s actually lasting a good bit longer than other competitors’ (plastic crawworms) I’ve used in the past.”
For more information on the Poc’it Craw and other Poc’it Series soft plastics, call 800-344-6331 or go to www.mistertwister.com.
