It won’t be a shock to anyone who reads my articles that I'm a big fan of Rapala lures, I've used the plain minnow for bass and trout for as long as I've fished. I remember reading an In-Fisherman article in the early 90's about people in the Ozarks doctoring up their Rapala minnows with weight to get them to suspend, and catching winter bass like dynamite on these customized lures. I doctored a few, and it worked just as they said. When Rapala came out with the Husky Jerk, I was a happy camper. They usually suspend right out of the box, and bass eat them right up. Trout, especially big browns, do too. The Shad Rap and I go back almost as far, and I have used the smallest shallow Shap Rap as a go-to bait for trout for years.

Here you see the whole Rapala family that lead to the X-Rap Shad, at bottom. It starts with the Husky Jerk and Long Cast minnow, which gets you the X-Rap. Cross with the Shad Rap RS, and there it is.

The only problem with these lures is that they are light, the Husky Jerk is plastic, the original Minnow and Shad Rap are balsa. The bigger Husky Jerks cast O.K., but the balsa lures are frustrating in the wind, even with fairly light spinning tackle. Rapala answered the problem with the Long Cast Minnow. A patented weight transfer system inside the lure consisting of a metal ball that rolls inside a track allows long casts, but normal action when the lures is retrieved as the ball locks in place until it is cast again.

These lures must be a pain to construct out of balsa, and they don't seem to be selling well for freshwater anglers, which is a shame. The smaller size is my favorite Brown Trout lure when fish are aggressive, and has scored my two biggest at TaneyComo. The larger size is a great warm water bass jerkbait. I guess most bass anglers don't use floating jerkbaits enough, or maybe don't know about this one. Whichever, it is available only in the saltwater line as I write this.

Here you see the Long Cast Minnow in two sizes. A great overlooked bait.

The weight transfer system was a great idea, and too good to stay only in one lure. Rapalas answer to high priced suspending jerkbaits, the X-Rap, was an instant success. It is plastic, but borrows the diving bill placement (further forward) and long cast weight system from the balsa Long Cast Minnow. The first one I tried caught a bass on one of the first few casts. A good omen indeed. Now the X-Rap is available in different sizes, deep water long billed versions, saltwater, etc. But the Shad Rap kind of stayed where it was at. The plastic Shap Rap RS (Rattling, Suspending) was a mild success, but even made out of plastic still was hard to cast.

The Husky Jerk(Left) and Long Cast Minnow(Right), which combined make the X-Rap(Bottom).

Now the Rapala family tree brings the long casting, suspending nature of the X-Rap to the shad family with the X-Rap Shad. It even has the same color-coordinated "dressed" rear treble hook like the X-Rap.

X-Rap Shads in Silver/Black and Purpledescent.

I had tried to doctor some lures up to be more of a suspending shad imitation, but nothing worked quite right.

The "Swimmin' Image" Shad weighted to suspend.

I had tried the Shad Rap RS, but again it didn't cast well in wind, so it was out, except for a trolling bait. I think the new version of the Shad Rap will prove to be a great success both as a standard crankbait, and as a stop and suspending bait for coldwater bass.

The new X-Rap Shad has the same deadly nose down then slowly right itself on the pause action that the original X-Rap does, and can be twitched like it's jerkbait kin to good effect. It retains the tight action of its Shad Rap forefather on a straight retrieve, although it's bill is slightly different than either the Shad Rap or Shad Rap RS.

Diving bill shapes are slightly different for all three shads: Shap Rap RS (Left) X-Rap Shad (Center) Shap Rap (Right)

Rapala has demonstrations on their webpage showing the swimming action of all their lures.

http://www.rapala.com/products/luresdetail...eshorsalt=Fresh

The new bait comes in 5/16 and 1/2 ounce sizes, the smaller version running 8 to 10 feet (depending on line diameter), perfect for cold water or finesse type situations, and the larger size is going to go deeper, sure to compete with some of the much more expensive deep diving lures for summer structure cranking.

I really like the colors on the new lures, one of the colors that I like is the "Purpledescent." Sort of a purple back that fades into faint chartreuse sides, with a pearl white belly. I need a regular X-Rap in this color, and now am on a campaign to email Rapala every time I think about it until they get one out there. It really looks good in the water, and I decided to use this color of X-Rap Shad in the smaller 5/16 size to try out. I don't think it will ever replace the standard jerkbait, but in a few situations, I think this lure will stand out. Anytime you want to get down quickly to 8-10 feet, then let the lure sit, like around isolated tree, this lure gets the call. Most of the time I just cast a standard jerkbait past the cover and retrieve it back, but when fishing this past weekend I found a perfect spot for the lure. A large tree down on a bluff, the only cover on this stretch of bluff for 50 yards, and no way to cast beyond it to work a regular jerkbait down very deep. I cast the lure tight to the bluff, just slightly past the tree, reeled down a few cranks and twitched the bait, followed by a long pause. Twitch a couple of more times, followed by a faint "tick" on the line, which was this nice red-eyed Spotted Bass.

I think anytime you want a more subtle crank (which is almost every time you fish Table Rock) the new lure will work great as well. Oh, and for colors, Rapala really needs to get a crawfish color going on with the new lure, too. Are you hearing me, Rapala guys? Oh, it retails under 7 bucks, too.

My only dig at this lure is the way the line attachment fits in the bill. The Shad Rap RS had the same problem, and that I like to take the split rings off my lures and use a snap. A standard small snap is really hard to get onto the lure, although you could just leave the split ring on and clip to that. The Norman Speed clip that is popular around the Ozarks isn't a problem at all to get on there, so really it's just my pet peeve.

Really only the lack of a crawfish color and the snap thing stop me from giving it a 10.

So solid 9 out of 10 for the new X-Rap Shad.