Bigger is not always better when talking about soft plastic bass baits. The new Baby Rage Craw might be smaller but, it packs quite a punch for anglers seeking something smaller for a finesse approach.

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Coming in at just 3 inches, the Baby Rage Craw has already proven to be a superior solution for small jigs and/or Texas rigs in finesse applications for proffesional anglers and everyday fisherman. For those of you fishing ultra-clear or hi-pressured lakes; the Baby Craw may be just what the fish doctor ordered.

It can be rigged on a standup jig head, used as a finesse jig trailer, rigged alone on a light line T/rig or drop shot rig and can even be used as a smaller Carolina rigged bait. Available in 9 fish-catching colors for the 2009-2010 season, the Baby Rage Craw is sure to be a great addition to the bass anglers arsenal.

Checkout the RageTalk area of the website for more information and to add your comments or ask questions concerning this great new soft plastic bait from Rage Tail.

Finding a flipping bait with more action is easy when looking at the new Rage Hawg. Our patented flanged-tail design creates more thump, more slap and delivers a flipping bait with more bang for your buck.

The Rage Hawg is available in 8 great colors shown below and is sure to provide bass anglers a soft plastic bait they can depend on. Click on the image for a larger view.

The Thumper worm by Rage Tail is positively the biggest step forward in worm design since the creation of the curly tail. This new 10″ soft plastic worm offers more of everything to bass fisherman. The Thumper produces more tail vibration and the design of this worm has gone even further with the addition of a score line on the tail for an easy transformation into a cut tail worm. The segmented body allows anglers to create a plastic worm in a size with an action that works best for them and the eagerly awaiting Bass in a lake or river near you.

The Thumper is a great worm for T/Rigging a steep bluff bank or dragging across a main lake point on a Carolina rig and everything in between. You can swim it! You can bounce it! You can hop it or drag it and the Thumper does it like no other worm on the market. With the great color selection shown above; we are confident we have a color to suit every angling situation.

Be sure to visit the Rage Talk area of the website to read much more about the Thumper and get your questions answered. RageTalk

Well, well, well……………..it’s gettin’ hot out there and RAGE TAIL is Bringin’ the HEAT with their new line of soft plastic bass baits to be released at ICAST 2009.

The cat has slipped out of the bag and it’s time for a quick glimpse of a few of our new line shown below. Seeing as everyone seems to be hearing about these great new baits, you may as well get it here, from the horse’s mouth.

We would like to introduce a few of our soon to be released baits available fall 2009.

The NEW Rage Thumper worm is 10″ long and has an incredible action for a cut/curl tail type worm. Designed to have increased “flickr” action as it falls to help entice the big fish to eat. The unique Rage Tail Flange design is incorporated into the tail to give this monster of a worm it’s unique action, and that’s not all. The Tail incorporates a score line that can be cut to turn the Thumper worm into a true cut tail worm if you are looking for something a bit different.

The NEW Smokin’ Rooster has been designed to be flipped, pitched, Texas rigged and Carolina rigged offering more than just an everyday creature bait. This is an aggressive creature bait with oversized swimming arms and more action that you can shake a stick at.

And introducing the newest addition to the Craw family, the “Baby Rage Craw”.  This mini-craw has already been proven effective as a tournament favorite among the Strike King Pros. Paul Noles has already set the Big Bass mark way up there using this little craw and is now workin’ on others. I think Paul could catch a biggun on a Q-Tip

We hope you enjoyed a little taste of what Rage Tail has in store for bass anglers this year.
We have plenty more to get excited about but, we can’t give you too much to think about all at once. Find out more about the new Rage Tail line of soft plastics after ICAST.

Happy Fishing!

Mark Menendez wins BASS Elite Series on Lake Dardanelle!

Armed with his trusty Aluminum boat, 90 hp Yamaha outboard and bags full of Rage Tail Soft Plastic Lizards and Coffee Tubes Mark Menendez of Paducah KY, battled the elements and fished his way to victory by over 2 pounds over fellow Strike King Pro Staff Teammate Kevin VanDam.

“I was fortunate enough to use my aluminum boat this week and get back into an area where no one else had been all week and I basically had the entire place to myself.” “Once I started throwing my Strike King soft plastics around and figured out how the fish wanted the bait, I was able to dial in my presentation and bring home the win.”

Congratulations Mark!!!!!!

Also a big congratulations to all of Team Strike King who placed high finishes this week with Mark placing 1st, KVD 2nd, Denny Brauer 5th and James Niggemeyer in 13th, The entire team is showing its strength early on this season. Good luck guys and Congratulations!

James Niggemeyer Wins Toledo Bend Bassmaster Central Open

Strike King Elite Series Pro James Niggemeyer pulled off win #1 of the 2009 season for Team Strike King in high fashion by winning a sudden death overtime fish-off on Toledo Bend on Sunday. James won the Central Open tie breaker by weighing in a 5 fish limit during the 3-1/2 hour fish off.

James caught his fish using the KVD Perfect Plastic Ocho and the soon to be released “Baby” Rage Craw in Watermelon Red colors.

“I threw the kitchen sink at them all week to get to this position and during the fish-off the Ocho and the Baby Rage Craw really proved to be the real winners.” “The fish had moved somewhat due to the cloud cover and I felt really blessed to find them in a short amount of time and to catch them like I did.” James said when contacted by cell phone while he was on his way to the 1st Elite series stop at Lake Amistad in Del Rio, Texas.

This win was James’s 3rd BASS win and he now leads the Central Open points race.

Congratulations James and good luck at Amistad!

Read more at Bassmaster.com

Question: What’s another new lure that Strike King has come out with about which you’re excited?

Hackney: I’m really excited about the Rage Toad. Now I know that there are a lot of frogs on the market today, but the Rage Toad has a unique sound unlike any other frog. The sound is very subtle if I reel it slow. Or, I can speed up the retrieve and cause it to make as much racket as a buzzbait. The Rage Toad also leaves a bubble trail that will allow the bass to track it down and eat it. I don’t believe there’s any frog on the market that can compare to the Rage Toad.

Question: Around what type of cover are you fishing it?

Hackney: I fish the Rage Toad anywhere. It’s an extremely-versatile frog. I can fish it on a clear-water lake or a dirty-water lake. The bass don’t necessarily have to be shallow to want to eat the Rage Toad. One of my favorite little tricks is to throw the Rage Toad on schooling bass – probably one of my best-kept secrets. If you listen to the Rage Toad as it comes across the surface of the water, it sounds like a scurrying baitfish. I think that action agitates the bass. I’ve found that a bass will bite the Rage Toad on the surface when the fish won’t take any other type of lure. In the summertime, when the weather’s really, really hot, and the bass are sulking, you can get a bite on the Rage Toad when you can’t get a bite on anything else.

One big mistake many anglers make with the Rage Toad is they mistakenly believe that it should only be used around grass or thick cover. However, most of the time, I’m fishing the Rage Toad on open water above cover. I like to fish it over submerged vegetation and underwater stump fields, on the outside edges of grass, under boat docks, down sea walls and along the edges of riprap.

This is not just a grass lure like most frogs are. I fish it in a lot of places that most people will fish a buzzbait, because it’s a totally-different-looking lure with a totally-different sound than a buzzbait. Yet it has the drawing power that you expect a buzzbait to have.

One of the big advantages to the Rage Toad is that there are a lot of lakes throughout the nation where the bass haven’t seen a Rage Toad. So what this does is offer you a unique lure to present to the bass that the fish have never seen. When you go to a lake where the fish have never seen the Rage Toad before, often within 10 casts you’ll understand why I’m so high on this bait.

Question: James, what’s your second choice of new lures?

Niggemeyer: The Rage Tail Shad.

Question: This is a goofy-looking chunk of rubber. Why do you like it?

Niggemeyer: There are plenty of soft-plastic-surface lures on the market today. But I haven’t found one that produces as much action or noise as the Rage Tail Shad does. Generally, you don’t associate noise with soft-plastic lures, but with this lure, you get vibration, sound and action in a soft-plastic lure that can be fished in gin-clear or chocolate-milkshake-colored water. The lure puts out a nice V-wake so the bass can trail the lure much like a rutting buck can trail a doe, even if he can’t see her. This lure has proven itself to me. I’ve fished it and caught bass on it, so I know it’s a fish-catching lure.

Question: Where did you fish this lure?

Niggemeyer: When the Rage Tail Shad was still in the experimental stages, I was lucky enough to get a handful of them to test. I took them with me to Lake Champlain when I was fishing the 2007 Bassmaster Elite Series. I was able to catch a five-fish limit early on the last day. I learned that the bass preferred this bait, and they’d chase and attack it with a vengeance. I was catching largemouth fishing this lure on 50-pound-test braided line around scattered milfoil clumps and a milfoil edge.

Question: How big were the bass you were catching?

Niggemeyer: They were between 2-1/2- and 3-pounds each.

Question: What kind of retrieve were you using with the Rage Tail Shad?

Niggemeyer: I used a steady retrieve, holding my rod tip high to keep the lure up and on the surface. I reeled the bait just fast enough to keep the tail flopping back and forth. The bass either ate the bait as it came through the holes in the milfoil, or as it swam just along the edge of the matted milfoil.

Question: What do you think the bass thought of the Rage Tail Shad?

Niggemeyer: They thought it was a bream or a perch. Because the bass never really got a good look at the bait before they attacked it, as soon as the Rage Tail Shad came out of cover, they instinctively took it.

Question: What color did you use?

Niggemeyer: I used an experimental color with chartreuse on one side and green pumpkin on the other side. This is a really-different looking bait that the bass haven’t seen before, but they’ll eat it up.

Question: What trailer are you putting on the football-head jig?

VanDam: I’m either using a Rage Chunk or a Rage Craw. I personally like to fish the Rage Craw on the football-head jig. The Rage Craw is a little longer than the Rage Chunk. I like the Rage Craw because when it comes over a rock, that crawfish-looking trailer on the back appears to jump over the rock just like a crawfish will.

Those pincers have great action. When you combine that action with the fish-catching ability of the Rage Craw on the back side of big bass bait like the football-head jig, you have the most potential for catching the biggest bass you can catch in a Part of fishing. I’m not trying to catch 100 fish a Part when I’m fishing the football-head jig with a Rage Craw trailer. I just want to catch a quality stringer of bigger bass.

Question: Denny, what’s your take on the new Rage Toad?

Brauer: Toad baits have been around for a while, and they’ve been really popular for the last few years. Most lure companies have their own versions of the toad. Strike King’s Rage Toad is different from other toads because Strike King has enabled the angler to slow down the retrieve of the toad type of baits and keep it in the strike zone of a bass for a longer time. We’ve incorporated the best features of a toad bait and a frog bait into the Rage Toad. A frog bait hops along and sits still, and a toad bait has a swimming action. Strike King’s Rage Toad does both.

The Rage Toad also produces a different sound than any other toad on the market. Most toads make a plop-plop sound as they’re reeled across the surface. A Rage Toad has more of a swimming action, which Strike King has achieved by changing the material of its toads to tough plastic. All the Rage baits are made from a plastic that has the toughness and the density to match the fishing application for which they’ve been designed. In other words, if you’re fishing with a toad made of really-soft plastic, that lure is a one-time fish bait. Then it’s destroyed, or it slides down the hook, making it hard to fish the bait correctly. Strike King’s Rage Toad has all the advantages of the soft plastic, yet it’s a much-tougher bait.

Question: Denny, how do you set the hook when a bass takes the Rage Toad?

Brauer: All fishermen are guilty of setting in the hook too quickly when bass take a top-water bait. When fishing toad baits, it’s critical for your success to fish braided line. A higher percentage of bass that strike the bait are landed with braided line, especially when fishing the bait over and through heavy vegetation where most people fish toads. Because the braided line has no stretch in it, most fishermen will jerk their baits away from the bass before the bass have the baits in their mouths.

For that reason, making sure the rod tip is at the right angle is critical to getting a good hook set and timing the strike correctly. To get the fastest hook sets, most anglers point their rod tips straight at the toads as they retrieve the baits. Instead, I hold my rod at a 45-degree angle to the surface of the water. This way, when the bass takes the toad, the fish can load the rod by pulling the rod tip down and continue to load the rod when I pull the rod tip up and set the hook.

Getting the proper hook set when fishing the toad is a timing issue. Yes, I’ve pulled the toad away from a bass before the fish has the lure in its mouth. But I don’t like to let the bass have the toad too long. If I let the bass have this lure for an extended time, the bass will go down in the vegetation and swim toward the boat to reach deep water. Even though braided line is designed to cut through vegetation, there won’t be nearly as much force in the strike if the bass swims toward the boat as there will be if you strike the bass before it makes the turn and starts swimming toward the boat. If I can feel the fish before I strike it, I know which way the bass is moving and how to set the hook before I actually set the hook.

I also can learn a lot from the way the fish attacks the lure. If there’s a big explosion on the bait, I assume the fish has the toad. If the bass take the bait like this, I can’t react fast enough to take the toad away from the bass. If I start missing strikes, I have to adjust my tactic. I have to slow down and wait to feel the fish before I set the hook. I have to adapt each day to the way the bass take the bait on that day. I’ve seen days when bass won’t blow-up on the toad. They’ll just boil the water and suck in the bait. On those days, I really have to be concentrating on the lure as it comes across the water, give the bass more time to get the bait well in its mouth and almost feed the bass the bait before I set the hook.

Question: You can’t daydream and fish the toad, can you?

Brauer: Yes, you can. On some dayss, you’re better off being almost semi-conscious when fishing this bait. If you concentrate too hard on the lure, you may see the water move, the fish readying to attack the bait, and you may concentrate so hard on the lure and the fish that when the bass comes out of the water to take the bait, you immediately try to set the hook and will end up jerking the bait away from the bass. There are times when daydreaming and being less focused will enable you to catch more bass.

In this situation, you have to know how well you can control your emotions and reflexes when you see a bass approaching or blowing-up on the toad. When you see the bass move, if you can’t slow down your emotions and your reflexes, you’re better off daydreaming and waking up when you feel the fish take the bait. If you can force yourself to not strike the bass when everything in your body and mind tells you to hit it, you can watch the bait, let the bass take the toad and then set the hook. Most people probably are better off daydreaming when they’re fishing the toad.