We started fishing the Beaverhead River and immediately starting catching fish. We noticed that the 65 series caught more fish than any other bait we had, it caught three times as many fish as the Rapalas. The first year we fished the Beaverhead, Yellowstone and Big Horn Rivers and caught a total of 319 fish in 11 days of fishing.

In 2008 we went back out west and took 16 Lucky Crafts (65SP and 65DD in rainbow trout) and noticed that they still out performed the other lures in our arsenal. The trout at these locations are big and aggressive and fight as hard as the smallmouth do back in West Virginia. These fish destroy the baits over time and I had to call my wife back home and have her next day air me all of the other Lucky Crafts I had started using back home for smallmouth fishing. She sent me 13 lures in other colors (Aurora Black, Misty Shad, Ghost Minnow and Ghost Brown). These colors also produced a lot of fish daily. We lost, or the fish destroyed, about 25 lures on this trip.

In 2009, we talked two more fishing buddies into going. We had four fisherman (two are fishing guides from Class VI), two white water rafts, 10 spinning rods and 94 Lucky Crafts, 65SP and 65DDs in various colors. We decided to fish only the Big Horn, since it had always produced the biggest and most fish for us the two previous years. We caught 1251 trout in 13 days, fishing on average 10 hours/day, all on Lucky Craft lures. The fish would damage the baits daily, but we had taken spare split rings and size 8 trebles (Gamakatsu and Eagle Claw), and I would make daily repairs to the baits that had been damaged. Of the 94 baits that we took, three had the entire tail hook assembly ripped from the lure, four did not run correctly right out of the package, all had paint wore/chewed off and every bait fished suffered damage to the hooks and split rings (some of these trout are 24” and weigh 5 lbs.+). We realized early on the baits would not run properly with any treble other than the Gamakatsu brand so we drove into Billings and purchased them along with all of Lucky Craft 65 series baits they had.

I believe we could have caught even more fish, if we had taken the smaller 2” bait that Lucky Craft came out with, since the fish in some areas became wary towards the end of the trip.

I have also experienced some tremendous smallmouth fishing with these baits. The table below details two of the best days of smallmouth fishing I have ever experienced, both days the Lucky Craft 65DD and 65SP (Aurora Black and Misty Shad) were the baits fished.

Date Length (inches) Weight (lb./oz.)
03/27/09 21 6/9
18 5/7
18 4/8
18 3/14
18 3/13
18 3/10
18 3/8
17 3/6
17 3/4
17 3/4
17 3/3
4/10/09 21 6/0
20 5/6
20 5/2
19 4/12
19 4/12
18 4/9
18 3/11

We are planning on going back out west next year and would be more than happy to field test these lures for Lucky Craft. It would also be helpful to have spare split rings and treble hooks, since these components will definitely get damaged and will need to be replaced. If we are not chosen to field test these lures we would be interested in buying at least 100 of the 65 series baits (SP, DD and now the new XD) and an equivalent amount of hooks and split rings. If interested you can contact me at (304) 640-2131 or at
rwagner@globemetallurgical.com. Your lures are definitely impressive and are the best baits I have ever fished!