Want to learn how to fish with the Texas Tackle Craw? LTB’s Tyler Anderson gets into detail on how to use this awesome bait to help you land that bass you’ve always dreamed of.

* Transcript below:

Big bass. Giant. What do I have? Hold on. Look at that, boys and girls.

So what is going on everybody? My name is Tyler Anderson from the YouTube channel, Tyler’sReelFishing. I’m coming to you guys on behalf of Lucky Tackle Box today to kind of teach you guys how to fish the lures that come into boxes you guys receive every single month. Now one of my favorite things to do, if you guys follow my channel at all, is to teach instructional fishing content and that’s what I love about working with Lucky Tackle Box is that they gave me the opportunity to teach you guys how to fish the individual lures that come in your box, so you guys aren’t stuck at home, not knowing how to catch fish. You guys can go out and have the best fishing day of your life.

Now the men at Lucky Tackle Box sent me this lure to make a video for, I was instantly happy and I think the president of Lucky Tackle Box knew that I would be happy and that because I’m a Texas boy. Growing up in Texas my whole life, I love the state out of all my heart and so he sent me the Texas Tackle Company Creature Bait. I’m so excited to teach you guys how to fish this bait. And let me tell you, it catches fish.

Now if you guys at home know anything about Lucky Tackle Box instructionals, we’d like to cover three main topics to help you guys catch more fish. That’s rigging, retrieval and location. So let’s start with rigging about this Texas Tech Company Craw. Now you heard me describe this bait as both a creature  bait and a craw, and let me explain what I mean by that. The official definition of this bait here is basically a beaver style bait. Now the company, they kind of created this design of bait. It’s called Reaction Innovations and they made a bait way back in the day called the Sweet Beaver. I believe it was the first bait in history of this type of shape.

And basically what this beaver style bait accomplishes is it mimics both crawfish and creature bait style forage. This bait has both the pinchers and the body size to represent a crawfish, but it also has the shape and the water displacement to represent a bluegill, a big bug, a turtle, whatever these fish are eating. I’ve seen fish eat ducks and turtles, and so basically that’s why we call it a creature bait because it imitates a whole lot more than just crawfish. Now when talking about rigging, there is a plethora of options for rigging this bait, anywhere from a Texas rig to a drop shot to a jig trailer to a Carolina rig, running anything in the world you can put a beaver style bait like this on it. I’m just gonna call it a creature bait for the rest of this video. But today I’m focusing on a Texas rig because I think that’s the most versatile way to fish a bait like this.

Now with rods and reels, I’m not going to go a whole lot into detail with that, but whatever rods and reels you guys have at home, most likely we’re going to work with a Texas rig. Now there’s so many Texas rigs videos out that you can search them on YouTube. And so I don’t want to get a whole lot into how rig to a Texas rig, but it’s fairly simple. All you do is you take the, I’ll kind of show a close up here, kinda take the Texas rig hook. I use a 3/0 hook. Now the size of the hook is important because you want to match the hook to the size of the bait. A 3/0 hook fits this bait perfectly because it isn’t too short that you’re going to miss strikes and it isn’t too long to stick into the tail section that’s going to impede the action. So a 3/0 hook is perfect for this bait. Basically what you’re going to do is kind of feed the hook right there, about a quarter inch in, and you’re going to poke it out, twist it around right above the hook keeper. I’m using a Mustad 3/0 Wide Gap hook today today. And then I’m gonna kinda see where the bait lines up at, poke it on through, and then feed it back through the plastic. And you have yourself a perfect little Texas rig.

Now as you’ll see here in a second when I’m catching fish on this bait. I’m throwing this bait on slightly heavier fluorocarbon, I believe I’m throwing it on a 15 or 17 pound. You can throw this bait on anything as low as 12 pound fluorocarbon, and you can throw this thing on 80 pound braid. It really depends on the clarity of water, the type of fish pressure that you have in your area and the cover that you are fishing.

So now that we’ve completed the rigging sections video, I say move on to retrieval to show you guys how to best catch fish on these lures. So when talking about retrieval, there’s really not a whole lot of action that you have to impart on this kind of lure, this Texas Rig Craw. When you’re pitching it in cover, it’s all about a reaction strike. And so those fish are sitting there. They’re waiting for a bug, a snake, a bird, really anything to fall into the water. A bluegill to swim by. And so basically, I’m just kind of hopping this thing across the bottom. There’s not a whole lot of fast action that I’m doing. I’m not swimming it through the water column. I’m not like lifting it up like a sinker, letting it sink to the bottom. All those can work, but most of the time with a beaver style bait like this, I’m just kind of hopping it off the bottom like this and really in my slack, like this, really in my slack.

I want to get, make sure that my line is tight the majority of the time, that way I know when the fish bites it, because oftentimes these fish will nail it and then sit there and so you won’t, if you don’t have your line tight and you’re not having a good sensation with the line, you won’t feel that fish bite and so you want to always make sure you’re trying to maintain contact with your line to know when that fish bites it. The best bites is when the fish bites, it just takes off because then you know, I got a fish. But not a whole lot of stuff needs to be done with retrieval besides casting or flipping it out there and hopping it along the bottom.

Got ’em. Got ’em. Got ’em. Oh, oh. Oh he got off. Oh, man. See that’s the struggles with flipping it in heavy, heavy cover like this, because I had to get them over all sorts of bushes and almost got him, he was right there. But super cool.

So now that I’ve shown you guys a few ways on how to retrieve your Texas Tackle Company Creature Bait, I say it’s time we move on to location to show you guys the best places in your pond are like, to throw this lure at all times of the year. So you guys can have the best fishing day possible. Now location, we’re talking about fishing a Texas rig is oftentimes shallow water. I’d say less than 10 feet and in some sort of heavy cover. Now in today’s video, as you guys saw, I’m fishing very, very shallow, flooded vegetation, flooded wood in about, you know, one to three feet of water and sometimes less than one feet.

I’m flipping this bait in this heavy cover here and working it in and out, just like a standard Texas rig. So there’s kind of several ways I was talking about in rigging that you can rig this thing. You can either put it on a heavy flip and hook and put it in super heavy cover like this bush and they’ll like, it might do in a second or you can just slip it around standard vegetation like this. And oftentimes when your ponds flood like they do here in Texas, quite often the fish will move up into the shallow cover even if it was, you know, out of the water a few days ago. And so I’m just taking this craw and pitching it into the nastiest stuff that I can find because oftentimes the biggest bass in your pond will head to the nastiest stuff.

Goodness gracious, that fish surprised me. Holy cow. I was reeling in my bait and as you can see, I did not have a good hooks that whatsoever. But that’s exactly what I was talking about with location is that these fish are up in the shallow cover. And so you have to be ready to set the hook because I was definitely, most definitely not. But I flipped it in that bush right there, very high key area, a bush on a point. That’s exactly where that fish bit.

So expanding more on location for you guys. Oftentimes when I’m fishing your Texas rig, I’m not looking for topographic maps, different sort of contour lines where the bass can be traveling and feeding. I’m looking at stuff that I can visibly see with my eyes. So that just takes time to pinpoint where the fish are going to be at.

So I’m going to present this Texas rig in every single scenario possible. So let’s say I show up to the pond. I’m going to fish the points that have wood on them. I’m going to fish little back pockets. I’m going to fish the cuts, the creeks, the little tiny pieces of grass I can stick out, the reeds that are up against the shoreline, literally fish everything until you find out what exact areas the fish are feeding on. And then focus on those areas around the pond. A Texas rig is definitely one of the best ways to dissect cover. I’m making it, you know, repetitive flips in and out of a piece of cover and catching the most bass that live in that area.

So because this bass falls into kind of the broad category of creature baits, it can represent a whole myriad of different things. It can represent bluegills, crawfish, if you have the right colors, but our water clarity can represent a shadow of some kind. And so I think that’s why this bait is so versatile, because you can throw it on a Texas rig, you can throw it on the back of a chatter bait, you could punch with it. All sorts of different things you can do with this. And so that’s why a beaver style bait is a staple of mine and my tackle box almost all year round.

I got him. Yes. Get in here. Get in here. Oh, he’s in the tree. How is that possible? Yes. That was pretty sweet and I just said high key bush, the same bush that I had the fish on earlier, but the different side. I’m not getting out of the bush anytime soon, but got them right. The back side of the mouth. Beautiful, beautiful fish. Awesome. Thank you so much for biting, Mr. Texas Tackle Craw. And we’ll see ya.

Big one. Oh my goodness gracious. No, not a big one, just a very excited fish. Oh yes. I came back to the exact stump that I lost one on earlier and got a chunky bass. That thing is, that thing is fat. Oh man, that is cool and I hope that was definitely not the best, but he got the job done on the Texas Tackle Craw. Awesome stuff.

So hopefully you guys enjoyed that video. If you guys have any questions about fishing a Texas rig and especially about a Creature Bait or beaver style bait, as we’ve discussed with this Texas Tackle Company Craw, I’m definitely going to be using this craw in my own personal arsenal, because it’s from Texas and I love it. Yeah, if you guys haven’t subscribed to Lucky Tackle Box channel, make sure you guys do that by clicking the button down below and get that notifications built on as well so you guys don’t miss a single video that we put out on how to help you guys catch more fish. And of course if you haven’t subscribed to my channel, TylersReelFishing, it’ll be down in the subscription as well, as well as anything you guys need to know about fishing these lures, from rods, reel line and the beta. And we’ll see you guys next time on Lucky Tackle Box.

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