This new bait from XZone Lures is perfect for this time of year, and is already proven to be a fish catcher!! Jeremy from @Fishing the LoneStar shows us how he’s using the new Adrenaline Craw, with rigging and retrieval techniques to catch more bass!

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Video transcript:

Jeremy:
Nice, bro. Nice. You see him come and get it?

Jeremy:
Yeah.

Jeremy:
Nice.

Jeremy:
Welcome back to the MONSTERBASS channel. My name is Jeremy, with Fishing the LoneStar. We've got some pretty cool content teed up for you today, discussing a brand new lure for 2021 that I'm pumped to talk about, and to share some tips and techniques with you. First though, I will say this month's MONSTERBASS bag was loaded, just loaded, with some awesome springtime baits. If you've not yet subscribed to the MONSTERBASS bag, check it out, because there's some awesome baits that came in this month's bag. One of them included, that we're going to talk about today is, the X Zone Lures' Adrenaline Craw. Here's a look at that bait in the Purple Shadow color.

Jeremy:
It's the one that I got in my bag. They varied across different bags, but I'll tell you, they're phenomenal. We're going to talk about what makes them unique, a couple of reading techniques, and retrieval techniques to help you catch some great fish. Before we dive in again, my name is Jeremy. If you've not yet checked out Fishing the LoneStar, which is my channel, please head over there. There'll be links below. Give me a subscribe there, as I share weekly updates, tips, and fishing techniques, along with weekly updates of what's happening in Texas or the South region, so hop over there. All right. Let's dive in and talk about the X Zone Lures' Adrenaline Craw. I'll show you the bait again. I want to talk a little bit about what makes this particular bait so unique and different. There is a couple of things, all right? Now, first and foremost, you're probably looking at this going, "Okay, well, that's just another craw style, creature style bait that I have or that I'm used to, so this isn't really that different."

Jeremy:
I will tell you though, it is actually quite a bit different. First of all, this particular plastic that X Zone uses floats. It stands up off the bottom, is what I mean by that, not that it floats on top of the water, although it does. The main point though, is that it floats when it hits the bottom. As this craw sinks to the bottom, it literally is going to stand up in this fashion and almost present like it's in defense mode, almost like a crawfish would do. Now, you can also swim it. We'll talk about retrieval techniques in a minute, but the main thing that I like to do is to Texas rig this, let it sink on bottom, and let that stand up, just like this, off the bottom.

Jeremy:
Another thing that makes this bait unique, the Adrenaline Craw by X Zone Lures, is the plastic, again, that's used. I've literally recently, just recently, caught at least 10 fish on one plastic without having to interchange it, without even having to flip it around and put the hook through the other side. Once you flip it and reverse it, you then get even more usage out of one bait. It's hard to find a plastic that's going to float and stand up off the bottom. It's also hard to find plastic that is that durable, but X Zone crushed it with this bait. The third thing I'll tell you that makes this so unique, Brandon Palaniuk, who is a professional bass angler, is the one who actually designed this bait and this lure.

Jeremy:
He and X Zone worked together to come out with this bait that is brand new for 2021, and it's crushing it so far. All right, let's dive into some rigging techniques, and I'm really only going to cover two with you, because I feel like it's pretty much that simple and cut and dry. All right. The first way that I like to rig this is just on a Texas rig.

Jeremy:
This is the black and blue color, and what you're going to see in some of the footage I'm going to share here in a minute is I've been killing it lately on the black and blue color scheme. Now I have that pegged, which is what this kind of bobber stop or peg here is at the top, the little black thing, on a one-quarter ounce or one-fourth ounce weight. You can use three-eighths, you can use one-sixteenths, you can use one-eighths. I think one-sixteenth is a little light. I use one quarter ounce or one-fourth, because it's a pretty universal weight that I can pitch with, I can flip with, I can crawl on the bottom. If it's a pretty windy day though, I'll step up to a three-eighths or a half ounce, or if it's deeper than I need to get down to, I'll use a half ounce.

Jeremy:
But for the most part, I'm pretty much always using a quarter ounce. I'm also using a 4/0, which is the hook, a 4/0 EWG, extra wide gap, hook, and you'll see there's a slot perfectly there in the bait for your hook to slide into so that it's weedless. That allows me to pitch it around cover, around grass, come in and out of stumps, do whatever I need to, to get this bait down where the fish are. One slight modification you can make to the Texas rig is right in between your weight. I'll slide it up just a little bit to show you. In between your weight and the line tie, you can add a bead right there, a plastic bead or a glass bead, and what that'll allow you to do is have a little bit of noise and clanking along the bottom. Especially if you're fishing around rocks, think about crawfish in general. They are sometimes clanking with their hard shell around rocks. That extra bead, especially in dirtier water, will give off an audible sound that fish are attracted to, and will come and find your lure. But the Texas rig is probably my first choice and how I like to rig the Adrenaline Craw.

Jeremy:
The second way though that I do use often, although not as much as a Texas rig, is putting that on a jig or a jig trailer.

Jeremy:
There's many types of jigs, whether it be a swim jig, casting jig, football jig, et cetera, it doesn't really matter. Any of those you can throw the Adrenaline Craw on as a trailer, and it does extremely, extremely well, again, because when that jig hits the bottom, it's going to stand up. Those claws are going to stand up in the water and float, and you're going to get a lot of good action and reaction to fish fighting after those defensive claws. It just looks like a normal crawfish. All right, let's talk about retrieval. Again, I'm going to keep this pretty simple because there's just a couple of things I want to talk about when it comes to retrieval and what I do often. In fact, I caught my personal best fish, a little over eight pounds, at Lake Fork using this first retrieval, which is simply just casting out and hopping back to the boat.

Jeremy:
The way you're going to do that is, while you make your cast, you're just going to point your rod towards your lure. Now, the important thing here is, you are not moving the bait with the reel. You're moving the bait or the lure with your rod. So you're going to lift up, or pop a couple of hops, and then point your rod tip back down and reel in the slack, and then repeat. Pop up or pop the bait back to you, point your rod back down, reel in the slack. What you're doing though, is you're moving that bait and that lure with the rod tip, not with the reel. The only thing you're using the reel for is reeling in your slack, or after you set the hook, reeling in the fish, obviously.

Jeremy:
Now, because you're using an EWG hook, I recommend using a medium-heavy or a heavy rod, because you need some backbone in that rod to really drive the hook home, and the line I use is 20-pound fluorocarbon, although you can use 14 or 17 pounds as well. I just use 20-pound, because I'm fishing around a lot of heavy, gnarly stuff sometimes, with trees and stumps, and I don't want to lose a fish. I want to make sure I hook into them, so 20-pound fluorocarbon is pretty much always what I go with. Now, the other retrieval is you can drag. So once you hit the bottom, again, you're dragging with your rod tip, and then reel down the slack. So instead of hopping, you're dragging the lure back to the boat. That's another retrieval. And then the third one is just a steady retrieve. I'll give credit here, but I picked this up from Alex at Oklahoma's Worst Angler.

Jeremy:
Yeah, I admit it, but I picked this up from him of literally just letting that bait hit the bottom. You want to use a little bit heavier weight, something like a three-eighth ounce or a half ounce, and just a slow retrieve with the reel. You're moving the bait with the reel, almost like you would a swim bait, but letting it kind of crawl and flutter across the bottom. You can throw that on a normal Texas rig, you can throw it on kind of a wobble head as well, couple of different types. You can use a jig that way, but even just Texas rigging it, letting you hit the bottom, and a slow, steady retrieve with your reel, very slow so you're keeping bottom contact, helps to draw in some fish that way as well. All right, guys, that is a quick rundown of how I'm rigging this bait.

Jeremy:
What I really like about it and how it sets it apart from other craw type lures and some of the retrieval methods that have helped me catch fish. Hope you enjoyed this video. Make sure you subscribe right here to the MONSTERBASS channel for more tips, tricks, and on the water footage coming your way. Also, if you've not yet, make sure you subscribe to the MONSTERBASS bag. And one more thing, I'll add, check out their gear while you're there. They got some awesome, awesome swag like this shirt by AFTCO that MONSTERBASS co-branded. Pretty legit. Make sure you check out their stuff over on the monsterbass.com website. Again, my name is Jeremy, with Fishing the LoneStar. MONSTERBASS, go catch one.