By Kevin W. Dombrowski

I got my first Rapala lure at the tender age of 10. It was a crawfish colored Rattlin’ Rapala, which I still own and use. I bought it while on a camping trip, and on the first cast with it, I caught a Largemouth Bass. Since then, I have been a life-long fan of Rapala lures.

Over the years I have collected many Rapala lures that I use in many different situations – whether I’m trolling for walleyes with Shad Raps, bouncing DT’s over rocks and stumps for smallmouth bass or burning a jointed Rapala over weed beds for northern pike. I thought Rapala had a lure for every situation and species of fish. Then the X-Rap was introduced.

At first, I was skeptical about this new bait that was supposed to be “the next big thing.” However, I knew that Rapala would never steer me wrong. So I picked one up, and little did I know, my life and the way I fish was changed forever.

I took my new No. 8, Purple/Gold X-Rap and decided to try it on a fishing trip in Wisconsin’s North Woods. On that day, I caught 20 largemouth bass and a couple northern pike. Needless to say, I was happy with my purchase. So I decided to buy a few more X-Raps – an obsession had begun. I now own X-Raps in many colors, sizes and models.

One of my favorite places to use X-Raps is in my home waters on the Wisconsin River in central Wisconsin. When the smallmouth bass are being really finicky, all I have to do is take a size 8 or 10 clown-colored X-Rap and twitch it slowly over the rocks and the fish practically jump into the boat.

Another situation I like to throw an X-Rap is when the Walleyes are chasing baitfish over the flats. A deep diving size 6 or 8 X-Rap Shad in Firetiger, Hot Head or Glass Ghost, usually does the trick. Just cast the bait and crank it in fast, stopping it and giving it a jerk whenever it hits cover. Doing this for a couple hours will almost always yield a limit of nice walleyes for the frying pan.

My love for X-Raps was only deepened when I caught my first musky ever on a size 13, gold Jointed X-Rap Shad that was being cranked and twitched over a weed bed. After four years of throwing practically every type of musky lure on the market, it was an X-Rap that allowed me to finally bring a 30 inch Tiger Musky to the boat. The memory of catching that fish will last my whole life.

I still have the first X-Rap I bought and I still use it all the time. In fact, this past season I had an interesting experience with this particular lure. The story starts early in the year, while my friends and I were fishing for Walleyes just after the ice had melted. It seemed that nobody was catching anything and everyone was using jigs tipped with minnows. So, I pulled out that X-Rap and in only 4 casts I pulled in a 24 inch Northern Pike.  The fish swam furiously into the shallows to grab the lure that was being bounced off the rocks.

A few months later, I was spending some time on a pond near my home. I was twitching that same X-Rap over the weeds, trying to catch some of the smallmouth bass that swim there. However, to my surprise, it seemed that there was a small perch that really wanted that X-Rap. Every time I twitched that lure, the Perch would swim up and swipe at the bait. Even though it was almost as long as the fish itself, that perch found a way to get hooked. Simply put, X-Raps can catch any fish in any situation you use them, period.

As you can see, I throw X-Raps everywhere I fish. The X-Rap is usually the first lure out of my box on any given day, and almost always stays tied on during the whole trip. They have the ability to catch aggressive fish, as well as tease weary fish into biting. As a result, The X-Rap has taken my fishing to a whole new level, and I share these lures with all my friends at every opportunity. Rapala should be proud to have created such versatile and well built lure.