Originally posted on 05 July 2022 by TFF member "Mark44"

I finally had a good chance to try out my first set of your lures this weekend on Buchanan, and I am 100% a believer. We put over 100 fish in the boat between 2 guys in 2 hours on Sunday morning, and another 75 on Monday morning. Other boats around next to us were fishing slabs, spoons, umbrellas, and rat-l-traps and we were slinging fish in the boat at a rate of 10 to their 1. It took a little bit to get the feel of the blades, if they aren't spinning you aren't getting bit. Once we both figured out the rhythm, it was game on. I think our record was 15 fish on 15 consecutive drops.

(Reposted with Mark44's permission)




GIVE THE MAL LURE A TRY: SEE ALL MAL LURES HERE

How was he fishing them? Straight down or casting?

Fishing vertically -- using a "smoking" retrieve.

Here's a video to demonstrate. Skip to 2:28 if you're in a hurry, and set the playback speed to 1.75x.



Enjoy!

I was fishing in about 40’ near the point by big chief. Dropping them to the bottom and reeling back up. Also caught a few throwing to fish on top, but the schools were moving around a lot and not staying on top for very long.

We fished all three ways and tore them up. Casting to schooling fish, straight down, and the saw tooth method when nothing was showing up on the surface.

Great to hear someone other than holding the line is successful with them....I've tried on more than 10 trips without success....I'm still trying to catch something with these.

You have to ensure the blades engage for success. Its not a jerk like we are normally accustomed to, its the initial speedup that does it. watch the videos, total gamechanger imo

I can attest that these lures work great, I bought three initially and will be purchasing three more soon. I have put fish in the boat with them three times now, great versatile lure if you are like me and don't have a ton of space for multiple rods. This is an everyday driver, I haven't taken it off since I bought it.

Romeoxl1200, perhaps we should take a step back and set lure selection aside.

Obviously, no lure will catch fish which aren't there.

Do you feel very certain/confident that you are seeing fish (on sonar) to fish for? Or, are you uncertain if fish are where you are choosing to fish?

Locating fish to fish for is the biggest challenge in fishing. It is more important than gear selection, than bait selection, or the kind of boat, trolling motor, or rods and reels you use.

I'd love to see some screen shots of your sonar. Perhaps I (and other TFF'ers) can help you with settings and interpretation so that, going forward, you can know with confidence that fish are present before you drop my lure, or anyone else's lure, down to them.

Keep us posted. Most of the folks on TFF are helpful and will give sound advice to those willing to accept it.

--Bob

Thanks Bob. Catching fish, just not with the lures yet. I'm having great success with the old school Gold and Silver Mepps Aglia.....As I mentioned, I'll keep trying.

I did get one of each of your lures.....Did catch 2 crappie on them.

Just ordered the dense and two more of the heavy variety, great lures. They never have the sizes I want at bass pro and I get dizzy and broke shopping there.

Those lures are great !!!!!!!!!!

My fish are hitting the MAL lures great! I like the heavy or dense ones. This may sound sacrilegious but the first thing I do on my treble hooks is take a pair of dikes and cut off one hook turning it into a two hook rig rather than treble hook. This does several things. 1) it causes less harm to the fish with hookup or hook removal. Sometimes with a treble hook when its hooked deep in their oral cavity you remove one hook and have another hook stable somewhere else in the mouth and 2) it lets me remove the hook faster and get back to the school and catch another one that much quicker. And I have never noticed any fish getting off the hook or striking and not getting hooked up....that happens anyways on any bait and this hasn't affected my catch rates at all, if anything its improved my overall numbers.

I have a feeling if you arn't catching fish with these on 10 outings there is very likely a location error. White bass are not hard to put at least a few in the boat on even a piece of lead with a treble hook on it if you know where the fish are. These lures just work exceptionally well, especially in the lethargic summer months at putting more fish in the boat than anything else I have tried.

I agree with Clay, these lures, during hot summer weather, out catch anything I have tried. Sometimes when I can’t get a bite on slab/jig combos we wear them out with a MAL. Schooling fish, the MAL out catches rattle traps, crank baits 2 or 3 to one. The MAL is the only thing I have tied on this time of year. If there are white bass on the graph, we catch them with a MAL. Have you tried a splasher? Sometimes if fish won’t bite, I turn on my splasher and it really gets them going. I’m sold on the concept, especially seeing it on my Active Target.