Salmon on the Rattlin Rapala

A couple days before having my mate over, I purchased five of the Rattlin Rapala lures to use for Flathead and barramundi. These lures are a sinking, lipless crankbait that can be fished in nearly every way for casting twitching and trolling, to vertical jigging. The lures are 7cm long with a shad profile body, which produces a very effective vibration while working the lure, and a very seductive fluttering action on the fall. The lures have a very prominent and loud rattle noise that attracts all predatory fish and causes them to aggressively strike at the lure providing a solid hookup.

My mate and I chose Ross Creek to test out a couple of lures on the local Flatheads. On arrival it became obvious that the flathead were a bit shut down and were not going to take any of our lures, so we tried casting on the beach side of the break wall. The water was not very deep, approximately 2m at the deepest where we were casting out, and 30cm at the bottom of the wall we were casting from. My lure of choice was the Silver Blue coloured Rattlin Rapala.

The Rattlin Rapala and the first fish of the day.

On the first cast of the lure, I used a steady lift and drop retrieve in hope of a big flathead waiting for a sick or injured herring to drift by. As the lure neared the wall I saw a silver flash follow the lure before shooting back out to sea. I then tried a much faster straight retrieve which quickly hooked the ‘silver flash’ that was following my lure. The fish turned out to be a stealback salmon which was hooked neatly in the corner of the mouth. The fish was landed with my Okuma lip grips, and then safely released after a few quick photos.

Stealback Salmon No.1



It wasn’t long before my mate managed to stir a few more salmon out of the deeper water using a surface stickbait. I tied on my Rapala X-Rap walk lure which produced many hits, but just like my mate the fish had a lot of difficulty hooking up. From there I went back to my Silver Blue Rattlin lure, which in no time had hooked up on a second stealback salmon.



Salmon No.2



By the time I had taken a few photos and safely released the fish, the tide had managed to go out enough to draw the fish away. I cast my Rattlin lure over the sandy channel made by the outflow of Ross creek and worked it across the bottom. I hate to admit it but my new favourite lure managed to hook a rather unhappy sting ray, hiding under the sand, which took off once the lure hooked into its wing. I think I was just as surprised as the stingray when it leapt out of the water just before breaking my line off.

Slightly depressed about the loss of my new lure I switched to my all-time favourite soft plastic lure, the Storm wildeye twitching nipper. This lure can be used for almost every fish in the area, it just requires the right retrieve. For flathead casting the lure over sand banks and twitching it just off the bottom, while for cod, twitching it from the bottom to the surface at a steady speed across rocky structures is the best. All of the fish were very laid back and were not aggressive enough to get a solid hook up, except for a baby goldspot rockcod which I hooked just off the edge of my rocky platform.

All in all, it was a beautiful day with almost clear water that produced a few solid fish. I can’t wait to use my other Rattlin Rapala lures and test out the newer model, the Rapala Clackin Rap. This Clackin Rap features the X-Rap holographic finish, holographic eyes and a much more affective sound chamber which is second to none in the modern era of lipless crankbaits.

For any inquiries, please feel free to email me at rhettthorne@gmail.com or for information about products use the links to the right of the post.