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Man It's a Hot One, Like Nine Inches : Rago Bait's Smoothie
(continued)
  Action: The more joints a bait like this is given, the more sinuous its action becomes on a steady retrieve. The Smoothie features four joints and five body sections that combine to produce a relatively tight s-like swimming motion in the water with a very slight top to bottom wobble. The faster you retrieve the smoothie, the less pronounced this wobble becomes and the more steady the first two sections of the bait are overall. Its best swimming action is at about a medium speed retrieve.
This bait swims in a tight, s-like fashion.
If you prefer to tempt your prey with an erratic retrieve, the Smoothie will dance side to side on a jerk-pause and given enough slack, it can be made to do a 180, turning around to look at any chasers. For me, this bait seems to be at its best on a steady retrieve.
One of the four colors we've physically seen because we purchased it!
Components: The Smoothie features all stainless hardware and comes stock with two Owner 1/0 hooks. It’s ready to toss right off the shelf. The tail on this bait is a soft plastic and it is shipped with one replacement per bait. Other than standard paint finish wear and tear, the tail is pretty much the only area susceptible to damage.
The Smoothie in Hitch.
Availability: And now the bad news,
product review cycles here at TackleTour vary greatly depending upon our on the water success with each product. Too many factors to list affect this success rate, but for the Smoothie, it’s been a longer than normal process. The bait, right now, is near impossible to find not only because Rago hasn’t built any in some time, but also because he’s been busy refining the bait getting ready to release a new version, the “2 Smooth”!
After Zander saw me catch this ...
The new version of this bait is under final stages of design, but Rago has moved the last joint further back, swapped the tail for a hard plastic material, and moved the line tie out from the mouth to the top of the bait’s head. What’s more, there is a new, three joint, four section version of this bait in the works as well. Both versions will have more sculpted features along the body including some very subtle protruding fins. Of course, until the baits actually hit store shelves, we won’t know for sure.
He grabbed one of my spares on a different trip and caught this!
Ratings:
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Rago Baits Smoothie
Ratings
(?/10) |
|
Construction/Quality |
Beautiful, well made bait |
9 |
|
Performance |
Everything you'd expect out of a 9 inch hardbody |
8.5 |
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Price |
Everything you'd expect out of a hand made bait (if you can find one)! - ouch |
6 |
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Features |
Replaceable tail (supplied), Owner Hooks, but nothing out of the ordinary |
7.5 |
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Design
(Ergonomics) |
Smooth and sinuous |
8 |
|
Application |
Good throughout the water column |
8 |
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Total
Score |
7.83
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Ratings
Key:
1 =
terrible
: 2 =
poor : 3
=
lacking
: 4 =
sub par
: 5 =
mediocre
: 6 =
fair : 7
= good :
8 =
great :
9 =
excellent
: 10 =
unbelievable!
For More
Details
of the
updated
rating
system
visit
our
explanation
here |
Pluses and Minuses:
Plus |
Minus |
| + It's tough to beat hand made quality |
- Availability is scarce |
| + Really good swimming action |
- You have to be prepared to throw a bait of this size |
| + Did we mention the quality? |
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Conclusion: Our conversation with Jerry Rago was a few months ago, and still no sign of the new Smoothies. Perhaps he's moved onto another project. Such are the whims of the bait designer. You just never know if or when that next new thing is going to hit the shelves. With our themed review years, it's been difficult finding the time to toss baits like this, but so ends another journey with a quality hard bodied big bait.
I don't think I'm getting that bait back from Zander.
Though the craze may have leveled off a bit, I still have a stack of other, hard bodied big baits to fish and review. I typically put away those baits I've previously written up to make room for the new, but I made sure to stock up on Smoothies because this bait performs.
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