TackleTour

Does anyone have any experience with the Lucky Craft ultralight sized lures? If so, please post which ones you have used and any results. I have been specifically looking at some of the topwaters (Bevy Series NW Pencil 52 and the Bevy Popper 50), the lipless cranks (Bevy Vibration 40S and 50SP), and the shad style suspending baits (Bevy Shad and Bevy Shad MkII in various sizes below 60mm), but please feel free to share your experiences with any of their other ultralight sized offerings as well. I also might include one or two saltwater lures to try out in the Gulf of Mexico this year. Oh and also feel free to name certain colors that you really like.

I love the Pointer 48 and 48DD, and I am planning on ordering a small assortment of the Lucky Craft ultralight sized baits, so I would like to know if there are any particular ones that really stand out as being especially good or bad. My order will definitely have a couple of the Pointers and probably at least one Bevy Shad MkII 50SP and one Bevy Vib 50SP, but that leaves a few more open spots in my order.

*edit* I forgot to mention that I also really like the looks of the Cra-Pea series (non-magnum) and the Bevy Series SHINGO Screw.

You know about the Pointer 48s so I won't talk too much about them , but to say they are available in some amazing colors for salt water . I have several Bevy Shad 40s which work great , unfortunetly they have been discontinued . The Bevy Shad Tango 45 has alitte more wiggle and flash . I prefer it for trout . The shallow Cra Pea is a great ultralight wake bait . It cast well and I have caught some huge bluegill this spring on it . I have afew Deep Cra Peas which I will fish for the first time this week for smallmouth . I'll report back on those .
The best ultralight Lucky Craft Lure , however , is the Bevy Minnow 40 SP or F .This bait catches everything . It has been my most consistant bait for the last 2 years . The SP suspends like the pointer , but has more wiggle on the retreive . The F make s a great twitch bait . Both are alittie small for salt water .
I love these baits , but there is one drawback . The small silver treble hooks that they come with are very sharp , but bend easily on big fish . I have changed out some with black Owner hooks sizes 12 and 14 . They are just as sharp , but don't bend as easily .
I have some Humpback 50s and some Bevy Minnow 45s but have not fished them enough to comment on them yet .

Wow thanks that is a lot of really helpful information. I'll be sure to pick out a couple of Bevy Minnow 40s to put in my order. I also think I'll get a deep Cra Pea and one of the Flat SSR Cra Peas for a wake bait.

There's just so many choices..... It would be nice to be able to just order a few of everything, but I'm also trying to save for two fishing vacations and a Shimano Vanquish, so I can only get maybe 10 or so. Ahhhhh fishing gets so expensive when you get into the really good stuff. I blame it all on you, TackleTour!!!

Well I ended up going with a decent assortment of the more basic stuff. Here's the list:

Bevy Shad MkII 50SP in Lake Biwa Bluegill
Bevy Shad MkII 50SP in Pearl Flake White
Bevy Minnow 40SP in NC Bora
Bevy Minnow 40F in Melon Sherbert
Deep Cra-Pea in Ghost Bluegill
Shallow Cra-Pea in Aurora Black (the color I wanted sold out while I was deciding )
Bevy Shad 50SP in Ghost Zander
Pointer 78XD in Ghost Threadfin Shad (I needed at least one bass bait)
Pointer 48DD in JP Mat Tiger
SW Pointer 48DD in "MaAji - Jack"
Pointer 48 in MS American Shad (crappie here love this color)
SW Pointer 48 in Ghost Green Smelt

Now I need to make another thread about tackle boxes!

The Humpbacks are only worth fishing in current. They sink and have very little wiggle to them but run very true, even against fast water.

The small Wanders are great baits too. They cast well, twitch easily and sink.

The Shingo Screw I can't comment on. I've fished it once and caught a couple of small bass on it. It looks like it would be a good finesse bait for the fall season though.

I've now had sometime to fish the diving Cra Pea and the Humpback minnow . The diving Cra Pea gets down about 4' and will maintain that depth even at a slow retrieve . That's unusual for such a small bait , other than the Eco Gear sx40f which goes even deeper and suspends . The Deep Cra Pea will slowly float up if you stop the retrieve . I caught alot of smallmouth bass rock bass and Redbreast sunfish on it . It's a keeper .
The Humpback Minnow is an interesting bait that was designed to be fished in fast water ie rivers and streams . It's a sinker , but in current it's a true suspender . it tracks extremely well in current , better than any other crankbait . I fished it last weekend in fast little river and killed the smallmouth bass. i love it .

I was able to try out a few of mine as well.

The Shallow Cra-Pea does work well as a wake bait like you said. The water in Guntersville was about as clear as I've ever seen it, and I had lots of fun pulling it slowly over grass and watching small bass come up and follow it for a while before blowing up on it. I had a hard time finding any bluegill up shallow though, so I didn't get to try it out as much for them. I really can't wait to throw it over a school of feeding crappie in the fall to see if they will blow up on it too. I've caught them on stuff that runs less than 1ft deep before, but never on a wake or topwater bait.

The Bevy Minnow 35F and 35SP were both good for just catching fish in general like you said. However, I'm still not completely convinced that they work any better than the Rapala F-03. The F-03 actually seemed to produce a little better for me on the day I was trying them, but that was probably just because of the color or the location. Like I said before, the water was really clear while I was in Guntersville, so the fish were especially picky and small changes seemed to make big differences. I spent a big part of my week there dragging Zoom Ol' Monster worms through grass and around ledges, and that was one of the few times I've ever experienced a situation where the color decided whether or not you were going to catch anything.

I also tried out the saltwater Pointer 48SP for a while, and I found out that it seems to suspend in freshwater perfectly, just like the regular freshwater version. My main concern about the saltwater versions was that they would be tuned so that they would only suspend properly in saltwater. Now that I know they will still suspend in my local lakes, I plan to pick out at least a few more of them next time I make an order because there are lots of excellent looking colors that are only available in the saltwater versions. Oh and I did catch a couple of bass on it too. The spots would only hit it on a fast straight retrieve, but the largemouth liked a slow, steady retrieve with a pause about every 10ft. They would just follow right behind it while I was retrieving it, and then gently mouth it when I paused it. This was the only way I could get them to touch it. The spots seemed to be more picky about the appearance of the bait, so the ones I caught were more of a reaction bite.

Around here I seem to do much better with hard baits during the colder months, and soft plastics during the warmer parts of the year. One thing I would really like to find is a 2-2.5" soft plastic swimbait that has the same general shape and action as the Keitech Swing Impact. I absolutely love fishing the 3.5" version on a 1/8oz jig head on my medium light tackle, but an ultralight version would be fantastic.

*edit* And I just realized after posting that I had read somewhere that they actually make a 2" version. So I guess I now know what will be my next tackle acquisition.

Tackle Warehouse carries the Evolve RX Goby Leech. This is a 2.5 inch shad shaped soft bait that I have been rigging with a 1/16 oz. darter jig head by Kalin. This year is my first year fishing this bait, but the results thus far are promising. Take a look at it and see if that fits your needs. I like the action and this past weekend caught one of my better smallmouth of the trip on a Virginia river.

i also generally do better on softbaits as it gets warmer , but i'm having a such a good time fishing these little hardbaits it's tough to switch out . You ought to try the ghost colors , ghost minnow, ayu ,wagasiki ,ect... the next time you're in super clear water .Some buddies and I got forced ( the river was high and brown ) to fish a clear mountain lake afew weeks ago . You could literally see 3 and 4lbs bass cruising around . We'd cast nearby and the bass would turn towards our lures to check them out then turn away . Quick jerks and a dead stop with the ghost colors really saved the day .

Don't overlook the LC Clutch. You likely can find them on ebay in ss, shallow, medium and deep runners. They are my favorite UL crankbait. Also the Bevy Shad is another good one.

Love the Clutch! And they make a bone plastic version

Stumbled across these on, of all places, TW - http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Lucky_Cr ... -SKTT.html

Was surprised to see a 1 1/2" bait on there. I have a couple on the way. Virtually no information online about them at all, hopefully they fish as well as they look. I really like the looks of the American Shad.