Although I have never tried it myself, the scientific theory behind a heat signature of live prey in the water is accurate. Many people assume that because a fish is cold blooded that their body temperature is equal to its' surroundings, which is in fact not true. When it comes to cold blooded animals, the amount of heat given off to its surroundings in directly related to oxygen consumption and mass. For a cold blooded animal that weighs around an ounce (I'm guessing the average crawfish weighs about an ounce), that animal will give off roughly 0.001 kcal per hour, which would raise the core body temperature somewhere in the range of 4-6 degrees depending on surrounding conditions.

So after saying all of this, I think that in theory this is a great idea to have your lure give off a heat signature, but you're balancing a fine line because too much heat could overwhelm the senses of a bass and easily turn it away.

Me personally and I am only stating how I personally look at it so others might feel different but no way in hell am I gonna try and gauge what heat signature equation I need to impart on a jig. I would rather focus on putting it in the right spot as many times as I can throughout a day. I think for me the more I simplify my fishing the better I do. Hell I rarely even put rattles on a jig or spray attractant anymore and have seen ZERO decrease in bites.

I don't agree with everything or everyone on both sides here 100%. But if you have ever stepped a foot in to Mr. Harper's shop you would know what ever he does must work for him. The man has more trophy's than anyone I have seen from some very prestigous events. Maybe there is something to it. Confidence is where its at. I have sat down with Donald and listened to him. I feel like I learned a few things about my style of fishing and it has helped me. May not be for everyone but I enjoy learning from others past experiences.

I will try to describe the best I can what I try to do with the Heat capsule and how it works for me.
-I do not try to walk this fine line as mentioned above.
-I want it to represent a criter that has fallen in the water that has been sitting on a rock or in a tree and is hot from the sun. I want this first cast thing happening over and over as much as possible as mentioned above. I want that bite to contine and not stop because the lure became the same temp. as the water. It only takes one or two degrees to make a big difference.
-The two tiny cylinders which are a little larger than a worm rattle is loaded with a biodegradable chemical that gets hot when water enters through a tiny hole.
-These two cylinders are made from a short piece of straw and attaches to the spider double rattle keeper as used on spinner baits and jigs for a rattle system. I have modified this system to hold the heat cylinders instead of rattles.
-I also use a single rattle keeper to hold one heat chamber on any of my soft plastic baits like: T-Rig, C-Rig, Swimbaits and etc. that do not have a skirt to hide the double cylinders. This just gives it a low profile.
-I have had great success C-Rigging a capsule in the tail of the Tornado and Stanley Sidewinder worms.
-I have seen results loading the belly of swimbaits with one large cylinder.
-I have also used the chemical in a hard bait that came out in the early 90's which was designed to inject water into the body of the lure to make it suspend at different depths. I just pull the plug and load the bell full of the chemical and put the rubber blug back in and water enters through the hole in the rubber plug.
-Any critter up in the shallows has a core temp. and will increase some depending upon the water temp. So if the surface temp. is 90 degrees their temp. will increase assuming they have been there for a while. So, I would want the capsule to increase the bait above 90 degrees and work the bait out to 5 to 10 feet where the water temp. is much colder. Bass recognize this difference and strike the bait.

The time that these cylinders stay hot with outside water coming in is short lived. It will get hot to 100 degrees and then begin to cool down within 5 minutes. In 10 minutes it is over with and time to change them out which takes all of 30 seconds to do so and it is ready to go again.

I have a company working on a self contained capsule that holds water on one end and chemical on the other. You would just squeeze the membrane to release the water into the chemical side. There is no outside influences of water entering therefore it will get much hotter and stay hotter longer.

Like everything else, things have a time and place.
We all know that bass are finicky, and on some days they want something weird. I first experienced the heat phenomenon years back, noticed I was only catching fish on the first cast or two on a new spot then nothing.

It was the heat of summer so my soft plastics got hot moving from spot to spot.

I rigged up two Identical rods and would alternate the hot bait on the deck after every other cast.

Another important part of this was I was using a soft plastic that had pork fat mixed in with its plastic so when it got hot the pork fat was cooking out of the plastics and was like hot bacon and greasy.

I tore the fish up that day, thinking I had found the new majic bullet I started doing this every outing afterwords, guess what ???

It doesn't always work, just like everything else on some days under certain conditions its the deal, but not always.

I think I have narrowed it down to bass eating either lizards falling out of cypress trees or off rocks that day for it to really work. But that's just pure speculation.

Give the heat a try sometime, under the right conditions its dyno-might! But don't rely on it to work everyday like a helicopter lure.

If thinking real hard about it solved all the issues about how to catch fish there would be limits for all everyday!!

wheres my lifejacket...

Well, at least this makes for an interesting discussion.

Maybe he is really on to something here and maybe its the next color selector deal that came out 20 yrs ago and was popular for a few years. (My apologies to anyone who still uses one).

With so many things to get right to get a fish to bite, you can overload yourself with things to get concerned about. To me, the most important variable has always been fishing where the fish are-now that's something to get concerned about.

alright guys look i asked for everyone's .02 on the subject and Mr. Harper gave his no need to bash one for their opinion..

yeah i get annoyed by these sale pitches as well but i just ignore them like you said they all move on and when people get to commenting against em it just ends up causing annoying off topic posts just saying guys move on this post is getting ridiculous

This is exactly on!!
- When fishing in our lake and hoping for 5 good bites per day you can hardly tell any difference from day to day trying every bait in the box and every new technique that you read about, what is going to produce from day to day. Therefore being on the fish makes all the difference in the world.

- Where we fish in Mexico the bite is 100 Bass per day and it only takes one day to know if it works or not.
- With those kind of fish each day this is the reason I have my baits narrowed down to what works.
- It is my opinion that these same baits will produce bigger fish and bigger stringer of fish here in the U.S. when you find them.
- Everything I have put together makes a difference: Blades, skirts, trailers, scent, eyes, heat and color to some extent.
- In Mex. my spinner baits will out catch all others 2 to 1.
- My Scent increases our catch ratio over 30%.
- My jig with the big eyes and all the above added senses has out produced all other jigs 2 to 1.
- Even our #1 bait down there which is the Watermelon Lizard. With the Night Crawler scent we catch 100 per day; without the scent we only catch 50 to 70 Bass.

Building the confidence in the baits that I use is what I have done. When I use them in our lakes I stay with them because I know if I am not getting bit I am not on fish. I feel that I have a great advantage when I do find them and the catching will begin.

Swim jig maybe...

It is a sales pitch. All his posts are directed at selling his baits. I bought one of his $25.00 spooks. Worst bait that I ever bought. It sinks. My brother was using an out of the box spook in the back of the boat and caught 15 fish to my 0. I was using his "tweaked" spook and it would sink under the surface. That thing is worthless. Switched to my old faithful spook and immediately started catching fish.

BS...sales pitch

Fast Lane you have no reason to complain and slam the Spook. I have offered you several options to make the bait right. I have not had any other complains with the spook.

You still have the option to return if for a full refund plus your shipping. It is apparent that something is wrong with the bait. It is something I cannot fix without seeing the bait.

I guess you feel that is your right to slander someone on a open forum for no reason. When something goes wrong with any product it is a easy fix if you will take to time and effort to send the product back or ask for a refund.