Introduction: The life of a TackleTour Editor is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it is our goal and opportunity to fish some of the latest and greatest the tackle industry has to offer. At other times, it's rediscovering old favorites, or proving and disproving perceptions. But because of all the testing and evaluating, rarely do you have a chance to go back and fish a favorite product if it's not on your list of items to review. More often than not, once we complete a review, the product in question is retired as we move on to the next, similar item to evaluate. So, it is with great reluctance I sit down to write this next review. Introducing, the Megabass DeepX 200T crankbait.
 

 
The Field Tests: The DeepX 200T became my go to crankbait for the 2006 fishing season and as such, I fished it on a bunch of different setups. The two most common were my F4-610GT3 cranking stick and the 2006 SuperCast Shootout champ, the F4-610XDti Elseil. The respective reels and line are detailed in the following table.

Casting: Thanks to Megabass's Moving Balancer System, this half-ounce plug casts like a bait that is much heavier. As such, and with the right setup, it can be cast great distances with relative ease. As with the majority of today's baits, the internal tungsten bearing of the DeepX 200T shifts to the rear of the bait during a cast to weight the lure in the direction of travel.

Retrieving: Once the lure hits the water, this same internal bearing moves all the way to the front of the bait to give it a nose down position in the water facilitating the lure's diving action the second you begin your retrieve. Of the eight or so lures I actually used over the coarse of this past year, none of them required tuning out of the box. The DeepX 200T indeed dives down quickly and easily reached depths up to ten feet on our test rigs. Greater depths can probably be achieved with thinner diameter lines, but I never went there with this lure for fear of breakoffs.
 

Weedlessness: I fished the DeepX 200T in both rocky and weedy conditions and while certainly not snag-proof, I never had to pull out the lure knocker, retrieval pole, or make use of the LureSaver split rings I put on all my baits. Each snag that I encountered while fishing this lure was easily recoverable and I've yet to lose a single one of these baits. Thanks to the baits somewhat slender profile, it seems to come through weeds better than many of the wider bodied cranks as well. In fact, I found good success, on occasion, ripping free from the weeds after it had been caught. Many times, after doing this, I'd get a fish right after pulling my bait free.