New Storm Wiggle Warts?

[kjackson]

Here's another WW question--while working on tackle yesterday, I came across an original, NIB, Wee Wart in the crawdad color--the one with a lot of orange in the bill. Is this smaller size something I want to fish? Obviously, I will try the size, but just wondering about the Wee Wart. I have some Steelie Wee Warts, so I'll probably fish those, rather than this particular one. The Steelie was intended for steelhead fishing in rivers, BTW, and is just a color and hook difference from the Wee Wart.

For what it's worth, there are two other companies that manufacture WW clones besides Rapala: Brad's Baits has some of the original molds (one of the Storm family is or was involved in the company) and has an extensive line of colors. Yakima Bait has a large line of FatFish as well but few bass colors and no craw colors. Cordell tried to enter this niche of the market with the Wiggle-O, but it didn't sell. I can't testify as to how any of these three baits work for bass, but I may have feedback later.

[Quillback]

I've never tried the Brad's Wigglers, but have not heard good things about them. I'm pretty confident with the "new" WW's, they seem to work. Sometimes they need tuning, and I'm also going to start experimenting with adding suspend dots. I also change out the trebs. When Basspro has the Spring Classic sale they always have bins filled with hundreds of WW's for sale, I forget what the price was last year, but I think it was $2.99. Just leave me a few of the Green Phantom craw please. I always have to dig around in the bin to find a few.

[Guest]

Here's another WW question--while working on tackle yesterday, I came across an original, NIB, Wee Wart in the crawdad color--the one with a lot of orange in the bill. Is this smaller size something I want to fish? Obviously, I will try the size, but just wondering about the Wee Wart. I have some Steelie Wee Warts, so I'll probably fish those, rather than this particular one. The Steelie was intended for steelhead fishing in rivers, BTW, and is just a color and hook difference from the Wee Wart.

For what it's worth, there are two other companies that manufacture WW clones besides Rapala: Brad's Baits has some of the original molds (one of the Storm family is or was involved in the company) and has an extensive line of colors. Yakima Bait has a large line of FatFish as well but few bass colors and no craw colors. Cordell tried to enter this niche of the market with the Wiggle-O, but it didn't sell. I can't testify as to how any of these three baits work for bass, but I may have feedback later.

I bought a NIB wee wart off ebay. shad color $10

It was a mistake on my part, but Im going to tinker with the Wee wart.

Im sure it will catch bass if it runs true.

[Jerry Rapp]

Al, you hit the nail right on the head.

[rps]

I bought a dozen or so Brads two years ago. They had serious "can't be tuned" problems. I lost my temper and threw them away.

[hoglaw]

The old WW mentality is like a lot of things in fishing. Fishermen by their nature are explorers who want to get away from the crowd, or at least they like to think so. It's like the whole "I listened to X band before they were cool" kind of thing. I'm definitely guilty of it myself. I have some pet lures that you just can't buy. One of my old favorites was the 4" salty sensation. They stopped making sensations in that smaller size and those were our favorite river smallmouth baits for a long time. But the coolest part about it was no one else could get them. Just about every one of us has a rod, reel, or lures that you can't buy anymore.

So that mentality competes for brain space with that part of most fishermen that can't stand to be without the "it" lure. If other folks are going crazy about it and paying rediculous money, there must be something to it. There are countless lures that have caused market frenzies. The chatterbait, A-rig, and WW come to mind.

[rainbow]

I have a bunch of the "old" wiggle warts even though some are still in the box. Biggest fish I ever caught on a wart was a 25lb bluecat trolling a wiggle wart in front of Truman dam. Then hit a 4lb walleye to boot.

[DChance]

have heard the density of the plastic also creates a different rattle. I don't know, I have caught fish with both old and new. The biggest difference I have heard and witnessed is the old ones have more of a hunting action to them. many say this is what makes them better. Rapala actually made a more quality wiggle wart and it runs more true. the old Storms seem to run much more inconsistent and hunt and dart erratically more often triggering bites........or so I have heard....

[Mitch f]

You can touch up the bottom side of the lip with a file to make it act differently. Be careful though, only a little. If the lip is slightly sharper on the end it will also dive a little deeper.

[Gavin]

Anybody try the Luck E Strike knockoffs? Heard the first production baits filled with water, but I'm sure they fixed that by now.