Weighted hook makes Z-Man Turbo Craw more versatile
While chatting with Z-Man’s Glenn Young during the recent Louisiana Sportsman Show, I picked up one of the rod segments and started hopping one of the lures in the booth’s water tank.
It was just something to do while we revisited past fishing trips and caught up.
But it didn’t take me long to stop hearing whatever Young was saying. Because the crawfish imitation lure at the end of the line was doing something I hadn’t seen other such baits do.
Most of the time, when a craw worm is pulled off the bottom and dropped, the lure will fall straight back down. Sure, some versions float, which means the claws will be positioned up in a more-accurate mimic of the real thing.
That’s usually the sum total of the action.
This lure — the Z-Man Turbo Craw — was doing something different, however.
When dropped, the lure glided to one side before settling on the bottom of the tank, claws up.
Now, to be clear: If you rig the Turbo Craw Texas style on a hook and slap a bullet weight on it, the worm will fall to the bottom just like the myriad craw worms out there.
The difference in this bait was in the rigging — Young had it on a swimbait hook that literally transformed the lure.
“If you fish a crawfish on a jig, you can basically fish it only one way,” Young said. “You put it on a swimbait hook, and you can make it swim and make it come alive.
“It’s not up and down; it glides down.”
He said the swimbait hook opens new doors, making the lure more than bottom bait.
“Now I can use it as a searching bait,” Young said. “You get a great swimming action, but if you want to stop it it will go to the bottom and stand up with a natural stance.”
And because the bait is rigged weedless he can swim it through lily fields and pull it over grass mats, allowing it to glide into any holes in the vegetation.
He said his preference has long been a 1/8-ounce 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG swimbait hook, but Mustad recently added its patented Grip Pin to its version of the hook to push that company’s swimbait hook into his wheelhouse.
“It’s a perfect hook because it will hold that ElaZtech,” Young said. “Once you get a bait on the hook, it just won’t come off.”
