Crappie love the Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner
For a man who has been making some of the finest artificial lures in the country for 31 years, Texan Lonnie Stanley sure was talking excitedly — gushing, actually — at length a few weeks ago about his newest baby: a Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner.
Stanley, who lives in Huntington, Texas, a self-described sweet spot 12 miles from Lake Sam Rayburn and within easy driving distance of Toledo Bend, and his good friend and veteran crappie fishing guide Bill Frondren started designing what they and many others believe is the perfect crappie and white bass spinner bait with a seductive little Wedgetail Minnow a little more than a year ago.
Stanley, Frondren and other fishing guides took advantage of a limited supply of the new artificial lure in late winter and spring to do a number on crappie and white bass populations in Texas and Louisiana. They see a big, bright future for such a bitty artificial lure.
“That bait will follow along behind the Stanley Vibrashaft Spinnerbait as probably the best spinner bait on the market,” Stanley said about the 1-inch-long spinner. “It’s going to be a winner.”
Frondren, 64, chipped in and said, “I honestly believe it’s going to make a pretty big splash. I can’t see why people won’t buy this thing. It’s not only good for crappie but for white bass.
“This year during the white bass season I probably caught 750, 800 from January to the end of March in the Sabine River and Angeline River.”
Why is it so effective?
“I think it’s the size of it,” Frondren said. “With the Wedgetail Minnow on it it’ll fit in the palm of your hand.
“There’s a little vibration to it. More vibration than a Roadrunner, and it’s not as big and bulky as a Beetle Spin.”
The 24-year veteran fishing guide said he couldn’t wait to go to Reelfoot, Tenn., to catch crappie on it while filming a G3 Sportsman television fishing show in late April.
The Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner is so new that as of the first week of April only several hundred have been hand poured in about a year’s time as word of mouth increased its popularity from one state to the next. Its maker obliged and kept anglers in the know happy.
Stanley, 66, was waiting for the all-important slender spinner bait wire to come in, and that was expected in early April. He expected 2,000 to 3,000 Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runners to be on the market soon.
Soon it will be in fishing tackle shops around popular crappie and white bass lakes like Toledo Bend, Lake Sam Rayburn, Lake Palestine and Lake Fork in Texas, and Lake Guntersville in Alabama. Later this year, chain stores have indicated an interest in getting the panfish spinner baits onto their shelves, he said.
One of the packages probably will be highly sought after: He plans to package a hard-plastic compartmental kit with three spinner baits and 16 Mini-Wedgetails.
The Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner is ready to roll.
“That thing is so much fun to catch big old bluegill, crappie and bass,” Stanley said. “The problem is big bass hit and straight (the hook) out. That’s OK. It’s made for crappie.
“It’s real good for kids to use, too. You can go anywhere and fish with that thing.”
His 8-year-old granddaughter has had the satisfaction of catching crappie after crappie on the Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner. And, obviously, he has had a great time watching Sara Renee Minshew, an all-around outdoorsman who killed her first deer this past season, catch them.
Stanley said he got the idea for the lure early last year when he was filming a G3 Sportsman television fishing show with John Hale at Lake Sam Rayburn. He noticed the way one of his favorite artificial lures for crappie — the Blakemore Roadrunner, which is oh-so popular there and at Toledo Bend — rolled over grass beds that would flip the small blade up from its standard position below the body.
More often than not the fish would hit it when the blade was above the body.
The proverbial light bulb came on as he watched the inverted blade spin through the water before it tucked back under the body of the Roadrunner.
“I told John, ‘I’m going back to the shop and build the world’s smallest spinner bait,’ ” Stanley said.
And he did just that. He got his hands on No. 26,000 wire and, with the help of Frondren, started the labor of love to make a small, compact spinner bait that would run true with the blade above the body, which in this case would be the miniature soft-plastic version of the Wedgetail.
Bass fishermen and saltwater fishermen know the productive history of the larger Wedgetails, the ones that make his swimbaits so deadly.
The rest is history, after weeks of tweaking, of course.
“I made the first ones last year, the first weekend of March,” Stanley said. “They ran so pretty and straight with a little willowleaf or Colorado (blade). They turned so good above it.
“The first day out (with the prototype on Lake Sam Rayburn) I caught 47 crappie.”
There are many positives to the Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner, he said.
“It’s heavy enough to throw by bridge pilings and over brush piles. You can cover a lot of water with it,” Stanley said, which is important because this month the crappie move en masse to deeper water structure in 20- to 25-foot depths at Toledo Bend, John Dean reports in his column in this edition of the Louisiana Sportsman Magazine.
“What’s good about it is it is so small it doesn’t catch any air, so you can cast it on 15-pound test” line, he said. “Kids can cast it real easy.”
The top color combinations, in his opinion, are No. 1 black/chartreuse and No. 2 white/chartreuse. There are six other colors, however.
While Frondren is also partial to black/chartreuse, he notes one called “Mr. Ugly” (pink leadhead, white body and chartreuse tail) is a color combo named after him, he said with a chuckle.
Each spinner bait body has either a tiny willowleaf blade or a small Colorado blade.
“One day they like the willowleaf blade, one day they like the Colorado blade,” Frondren said.
For more information on the small spinner bait and other Stanley Lures products call (409) 381-1397 or (409) 381-1397 or go to http://www.fishstanley.com/.
