I have known about this bait for quite a while now and have been fiending to get my hands on it, so when Jeremy from Black Dog Bait Co. told me he finally had his first small batch of prototypes, I made the hour and a half drive out to Livermoore to go fish the Delta.

Jeremy had been up half the night painting these little gems. I had talked to him the day before when he told me they had shown up just in time for Grant to bring them to ICAST Tackle Show coming up in Florida from July 15th-17th.

I love swimbaits but have been fishing crankbaits as a go-to technique for many years now, so this bait combines the two into one uniqe hybrid.

Unlike its older brother that is made of wood the new Mini Cracker is an injected plastic bait like its new Punker counterpart.

The advantage to this is durability and price. Like the new 6" inject Punker the new mini Shell Craker is going to sell in the $20.00 price range. (Holly shit, I say) This just means you can buy 5 at a time!

Down to the basics:

So how does it work? Well…..I must say very well.

I opted to throw it on 65# braid with a small moderate 7' 9"swimbait rod made by Rogue Rods. This bait could also be thrown on a heavy crankbait rod as well, but it would need to be pretty heavy.

It cranks down anywhere from 2 to 3 feet and is pretty boyant which will be very beneficial in bouncing off cover, and can also be slowly waked, very effectively.

I have not been this exited about a bait in a long time. Oh and did I mention it catches the hell out of bass yet?

The new Mini Cracker will come in all the traditional Black Dog colors such as Delta Craw, but also be looking for some new outfits with its release.

Here's some more photos of the bait.

 

 

 

Coming to a store near you soon.