With Rapala’s release of new shallow and deep-running Scatter Raps, bass can run, but have nowhere left to hide. I’ve fished them both and they are incredible,” says Rapala Pro Ott Defoe, 2011 Bassmaster Rookie of the Year. “I like the originals, but these two new ones are very exciting. The actions are just out of this world. It’ll be great to get that action throughout the water column.”
While the initial Scatter Rap models covered the mid-depth range, the new Scatter Rap Crank Shallow covers water three feet deep and shallower and the Scatter Rap Crank Deep dives ten to twelve feet. But the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story – Scatter Raps not only cover the water column vertically, they extend coverage horizontally as well.
“That allows you to cover so much more water and so much more efficiently,” says Rapala Pro Brandon Palaniuk, the 2013 Bassmaster Classic runner-up.
Featuring what’s best described as evasive action, Scatter Raps “perfectly mimic a spooked baitfish fleeing attack, moving from one side to the next, triggering reactive bites,” says Rapala Pro Michael “Ike” Iaconelli, the 2003 Bassmaster Classic champion. Palaniuk agrees. “It looks like a little baitfish that’s trying to hide in the grass and coming out and trying to get away,” he says.
Built on classic Rapala balsa body shapes, Scatter Raps derive their name and signature sweeping action from an innovative, patent-pending, curved Scatter Lip™.
Both the Scatter Rap Crank Shallow and Scatter Rap Crank Deep measure two inches and weigh 5/16th oz. They run silently, float when paused and come with No. 5 black-nickel round-bend VMC hooks. They come in 18 color patterns, including four new “Ike’s Custom Ink” patterns – Bruise, Girlfriend, Mule and Rasta.
Ike, Palaniuk and Defoe will be the only anglers in the 2014 Bassmaster Classic on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville with the new shallow- and deep-running Scatter Rap Cranks in their arsenals.
Thanks to a wealth of aquatic vegetation, Guntersville is a great place to unveil the new Scatter baits, says Mark Fisher, Rapala’s Director of Field Promotions.
“Both the Scatter Shallow and Deep will be very good around vegetation,” Fisher says. “Not in it, but over the top of it and alongside of it. The action of the baits coming up against a weedline, or close to it, and then moving back away from it, creates a trigger action, looking like something’s trying to escape – like a sunfish coming out of weedbeds.”
Crank Shallow
Ike and Palaniuk suggest reeling the Scatter Rap Crank Shallow over the top of submergent grass, varying your retrieve speed from slow to moderate – rather than ripping it out of the grass. Erratically sweeping wide left and wide right, then back to center again, “can trigger a phenomenal bite,” Ike says. “It looks like a little baitfish that’s trying to hide in that grass and coming out and trying to get away,” Palaniuk explains.
Defoe says the Scatter Crank Shallow will be most productive in the middle to late pre-spawn period, when water temps are between 52 and 55 degrees and bass are holding in shallow flats in less than four feet of water. “Whether it’s rock or grass, when they’re on those places, I really think that’s where those baits are going to shine,” he says. He’ll keep rods rigged with them in the boat in the summer and fall too, he says.
Crank Deep
The Scatter Crank Deep is designed to dive quickly to 10-12 feet. “That’s right in the wheelhouse of most crankers,” Fisher says. “Whether you’re fishing deep weedline edges, extended points or rockpile humps, there’s a lot of feeding activity that happens offshore in that depth.”
Fisher recommends throwing the Scatter Crank Deep at isolated vegetation clumps off the sides of points. “It will be a killer out there, because it’s got that lateral action,” he says. “Fish have never seen that action out there.”
Palaniuk likes the Scatter Crank Deep for fishing stump-covered deep flats, bumping cover on both the left and right of the bait’s retrieve path. “It’s going to hunt back and forth, ‘searching around,’ down there,” he says. “It really looks like some sort of baitfish that’s lost.”
Defoe likes the Scatter Crank Deep for targeting rocky slopes in the cold water of early spring. “Man, it comes through rocks really good,” he says.
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