LUNKERHUNT PROP SERIES*

Lunkerhunt regularly comes up with creative, lifelike lures. Company reps tell me they’re striking deals to have their products in most military exchanges soon. This prop series is a hybrid, combining topwater, weedless, hollow-body soft plastics design with a water-churning, hard-plastic twist. Patterns used in the series are extremely realistic. The soft plastic is silky supple.

The series features The Prop Frog, Prop Fish Sunfish and Prop Fish Shad. All lures splash and gurgle on the retrieve and float during any pauses. The Prop Frog is designed to churn water over open pockets. The feet are harder plastic and spin through the water. It comes in eight color patterns.

The Sunfish and Shad patterns replicate two popular freshwater gamefish forage species. Unlike the frog, the fish patterns have a single integrated tail propeller. They mimic baitfish breaking the water. Each has six available patterns. $8.99. Available late fall.

RAPALA RIPSTOP

Rapala calls this lure a cross between a hard-plastic bait and a soft-body swimbait. The plastic boot tail design creates lots of movement in the water, mimicking live minnows akin to a swimbait. The front lip lets it dive to 3 to 4 feet. It can be fished as a twitch bait, jerkbait, or cast and reeled in with steady or variable-speed retrieves, like most crankbaits. It’s equipped with two VMC light-wire treble hooks, weighs .25 ounces and is available in 14 color patterns. $9.99. Available now

BOOYAH FLEX II

This new lure is designed to take a beating. It’s made using a patent-pending foam-injected molding process that gives the bait similar properties to balsa wood while maintaining the strength of plastic. It has a 3-D eye, a one-piece wire design and a one-piece bill and rattle chamber.

Foam is injected around the wire and the rattle chamber increasing the lure’s strength. It weighs half an ounce and is 2¼ inches long. Expect lots of wobble on the retrieve with the lure routinely hunting 2 to 5 feet deep and zig-zagging 6 to 8 inches off the center line, helped by two divots on the bill designed to change water direction moving over the bait. It’s available in 11 color patterns. $9.99. Available now

MATZUO FURIKO PENDULUM CRANKBAIT

Matzuo America also has a new, shallow-running square bill crankbait. It features a patent-pending, internal-weighted pendulum made of tungsten that swings 360 degrees, banging into side‐mounted brass blades and a front-mounted sound resonator. It makes a racket underwater. When you stop or slow your retrieve, the pendulum keeps the lure swaying as it floats upward.

It’ll come in 2.5- and 3-inch models and eight color patterns, diving from 2.5 feet to 6 feet, depending on the size. They’ll sport Matzuo treble hooks. $6.99. Available in January.

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