Never Judge a Book by its Cover, the unassuming Jackall Crosstail Shad (continued)

Durability: The Crosstail gets a lot of bites, there were times in the winter where I got bites even before the drop shot weight hit the bottom. While many bites is good they do take a toll on this bait. I found that I would catch a lot of dinks as this lure is so small and is often assaulted by juvenile bass.

...underwater the lure seems to come alive

That isn’t to say that you can’t catch big fish with this lure, but you definitely have to deal with a lot of small bites in the process. Catching smaller fish can be fun but losing lures quickly is a pain, not to mention expensive. Sometimes fish would short strike and peel the lure right off the hook, but most of the time the lures were lost when trying to land fish or they broke the surface with head shakes.

A look at the Superpin-Tail shad in deep water

Very rarely would the tail section of the lure become damaged, it is in the head where the bait is rigged that the lure would rip. In our field tests I was averaging about two fish per bait, and would often use the trolling motor to turn the boat around and quickly pick up baits that were shaken off. Even when the head is torn you can quite easily rig the bait a few more times in different sections of the head, and though a little thrashed these recycled lures still remained deadly effective.

Pro Angler Cody Meyer has some Crosstail Shad in special patterns

Price and Applications: While the bait actually proved to be good in stained water it is absolutely deadly in crystal clear water where other lures often lose effectiveness. I have fished it side by side with many other custom handpours and time and time again the Crosstail seems to be as good as or better than everything we pit it against. In Jackall’s own lineup the Superpin Tail shad is unquestionably the more attractive and more realistic looking bait and while it also proved effective for dropshotting the straightforward looking Crosstail Shad outfished it in every single one of our logged field tests.

A few weeks ago we fished with Cody and he demonstrated his drop shot technique with the Crosstail Shad

The Crosstail Shad come in packs of eight and retail for $4.99 a pack, and at 62 cents a lure they are rather expensive, and certainly too expensive to lose on a single fish, especially if that fish happens to be a dink. Though simple in design the finishes of these baits are impressive and the colors are very appealing (now only if I could my hands on some of Cody’s special morning dawn stash). While not cheap these lures are absolutely worth the investment if you’re looking for a quality drop shot bait that is good for extreme finesse situations.

These days I pack plenty of bags Crosstail Shad baits when I know I will be dropshotting

Ratings: (We've re-calibrated our ratings standard for 2008 and have included a key at the bottom of the following matrix as a guide):

Pluses and Minuses: