It doesn’t take much to get the party started with the new Storm® Arashi® Vibe. Even the slowest retrieve speed will elicit shimmies and shakes from Storm’s new lipless crankbait, spurring even the most wallflower of fish to bump and grind it between their jaws.
Talk about putting out a good Vibe.
“Being able to fish it extremely slow is very advantageous,” says Brandon Palaniuk, five-time Bassmaster Classic contender. “If you look at a lot of lipless crankbaits in a swimming pool, it takes a fair amount of speed to get them to impart any action. But the Vibe, as soon as you start turning the reel handle, that bait’s swimming.”
Featuring a soft-knock rattle, the Vibe emits a unique single-cadence, low-pitch sound that attracts attention without alarming tentative fish. “It’s a subtle, single-knock sound,” Palaniuk says. “Rather than a higher-pitch sound made by a bunch of BBs rattling around, it’s got one balance weight that’s a little bit loose — that creates the sound.”
Palaniuk loves to fish the Arashi Vibe parallel to grass edges and over the top of scattered vegetation. Both a steady retrieve and lift-fall technique can be effective. “When fish are using a grass line or grass patches to ambush prey, there’s not many baits better,” he says. “The fish are keyed in on those baitfish and looking up.”
Ticking the edge or top of the grass and pulling free with a jerk of the rod often triggers bites — and from bigger fish.
“When you rip the Vibe out of the grass, it’s going to come out really clean and come straight up and back down — it’s not going to blow out,” Palaniuk says. “Then, when I continue my retrieve, I can detect any subtle differences in the bait. So if a fish slaps at the bait and causes it to lose action, they’ll actually knock slack in your line and you’re able to feel that a lot better.”
Not only does the Vibe start swimming at slower speeds than other lipless crankbaits, it falls slower too, according to Palaniuk. “So it allows you to be able to fish shallower water at a slower speed when that’s what you’re looking for,” he says.
Although many anglers fish lipless crankbaits mostly in the spring, when fish are first “pulling up” from deeper water and closer to shallow spawning areas, Palaniuk will fish a Vibe 12 months out of the year. “It’s really good when fish aren’t quite schooling on bait, but they’re relating to bait,” he says.
Rotated hook hangers, a feature of all baits in the Arashi family, ensure that the Vibe’s two sticky-sharp No. 3 Premium VMC® Black Nickel Hooks will grab fish and not let go. The rotated hook hangers improve action and prevent hang-ups as well. The Vibe also has a self-tuning line tie, another feature unique to the Arashi line of baits.
The Arashi Vibe measures 2 3/4 inches, weighs 9/16 ounces and comes in 14 color patterns: Hot Blue Shad, Bluegill, Blue Back Herring, Wakasagi Ghost Hitch, Green Gill, Rusty Craw, Mossy Chartreuse Craw, Red Craw, Black Silver Shad, Green Gold Shad, Copper Green Shad, Pro Blue Shad and Dirty Shad.
Palaniuk fishes a Vibe on 15-pound test 100 percent fluorocarbon a majority of the time. “If I want to fish it deeper, I may go down to 12-pound test or I may go up to 20 if I want to fish it shallower,” he says.
“Arashi” (Ah-Rah-Shee) means “Storm” in Japanese. Storm is one of many respected names in the Rapala® family of brands.