The New Max Rap From Rapala!

Above is the new Rapala Max Rap shown in "Flake Hot Chatreuse." New for 2010, the Max Rap has once again raised the bar in the pricing of Rapala's premium selections. Of course I had to bite the bullet and pick one up so I could give all you BASStards some insight as to what this lure is all about before you go to the store and drop $17.00 on what could be just a glorified chunk of plastic.

Apart from the Max Rap, Rapala has rolled out 5 new additions to its arsenal for 2010: The Crankin' Rap, the Flat Rap, the DT Thug, the Trolls-To-Minnow, and the Trolls-To-Shad.

Design

The Max Rap is a beautifully designed lure that is tank tested by Rapala and encorporates a number of new features that we haven't seen in recent Rapala baits. The first of which is the oval shaped line tie ring. This oval shape leads to your knot, and the point of force on the bait being just a little further from the nose then you would have on a standard Rapala lure, which adds to the back and forth wobble of the Max Rap.

Additionally, this lure is designed with 3D holographic eyes and laser engraved scales (shown below). The combination of these two design features create the optimal amount of flash as the Max Rap wobbles through the strike zone. Also illustrated below is the undersized lip of this bait, which keeps the bait nice and shallow, generally 1' - 2' down in the water column.

The final great feature of this lure that I will mention is the tungsten weights that slide through a weight/ rattle chamber in the body of the bait. These serve two functions, to create rattle and vibration while you jig the Max Rap through the water and to optimize casting distance, and believe me, you can bomb this bait. This allows you to cast further than you would be able to with a normal 1/2 oz bait because it optimizes the weight distribution throughout your cast. As you cast the weight slides down to the tail end of the bait, thus increasing the amount of leverage your cast has on the given amount of weight.

Field Test

I am going to go ahead and skip the part of this story where my first Max Rap ended up hanging from a tree and get right into the productive field testing. I put this bait through its paces fishing along the Connecticut River for Smallmouth Bass, Pike, and Largemouth as well as a number of lakes and ponds throughout the Western Massachusetts area. Overall the Max Rap performed well and was a pleasure to fish. I worked the Max Rap through an array of conditions and found a few techniques to be most effective.

The first technique is just a steady retrieve. Given the fact that this bait runs between 1'-2' give or take depending on what weight line/ swivel you are fishing, the steady retrieve will be most effective fishing shallow flats 3'-6' in depth. Here the natural action of the lure will do all the work. Just cast your Max Rap out and retrieve straight in without adding extra jerks and twitches, just vary the speed of your retrieve and add a couple pauses.

The second technique when fishing Rapala's Max Rap, which I found very effective in fishing rocky backwaters for smallies, is to allow the bait to sink nose first to the bottom and jig it along the bottom in a series of small twitches of your rod tip allowing the bait to sink back down after each. Now, the Max Rap on most setups will not sink, but using a heavy swivel or attaching a small split shot just above your knot will bring the bait to the bottom. Try this out first in shallow water so you can get a feel for how much to jig and with what speed to achieve the desired action. Vary the intensity of your twitches and the amount of time between each to find a productive pattern. Also, be very mindful when employing this technique, it can be dangerous in heavy rock cover, and since you just dropped 17 bucks on this lure you don't want to have to go for a swim.

The final technique is to fish the Max Rap just like a suspending jerkbait. Cast the bait out, let it sit for 5-10 seconds until it has reached the desired depth, again use a large swivel or a small split shot to reach deeper in the water column. Now apply the same tactic as described above as if you were jigging the bait off of the bottom and combine jigs with pauses in variation. If you are fishing a cold front or in cold water conditions you may need to pause the bait up to 30 seconds to trigger a strike. A great tip that Mike Iaconelli gives on fishing suspending jerkbaits is to jig and pause the bait to the beat of a song, if it doesn't work try a different song until you refine the bite. I personally have found this effective on many occasions, I even bring my ipod out on the water for some ambience.

Shortcomings

Quite obviously, price. The Max Rap will run you roughly $17.00, which is extremely steep even for a quality lure that will surely catch you fish. This can really put a damper on your day when you cast it into a tree.

Apart from being overpriced I found the paint job on the Max Rap to be, although visually pleasing, very weak and prone to scratches. Below you see a few chips and a long scratch along the bait that occured when I hooked a Walleye on the Connecticut River.

Overall BASStard Rating

-Happy Bassin' (Discuss This Article and Much More On The BASStard Forum!)

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