Here to Challenge Your Imagination : Megabass of America's Garuda (continued)

Top Hook Rigging: Trying to figure out how best to rig a top hook to this bait brought me back to the days when we used to have to custom rig our Huddleston Swimbaits. It's probably been at least a decade since I've rigged up one of these baits, but I remember using a treble hook for top rigging and burying one of the hook points into the head to hold it secure.

Here's a closer look at the Reins drop shot hooks I used to weigh down the Garuda

The Garuda has a magnetic hold plate in it's head to hold the hook, so all you really need is a big, stout, straight shank worm hook. I didn't have one on hand that I felt was sturdy enough. So instead, I pulled the hook out of a frog bait, then sat and stared at it for a bit trying to remember if I used to use wire, a heavy mono leader, or braid to attach the top hook on my Hudds.

This is the one ounce, flat circle sinker I had on hand to really push the limits of weighing this bait down

I didn't have any wire on hand, so that really wasn't an option. Mono didn't feel reliable enough, and I was feeling a bit lazy to undo one of my other combos so I could strip off some braid. In the end, I just used some extra split rings and made a make-shift chain. I removed the two bottom hooks, safely stowing them away, and proceeded to rig up the frog hook on top of my Garuda. All the while, Zander gave me a couple of curious yet dismissive smirks and just continued to fish.

Another option to customize the Garuda is with these soft plastic pads included with the bait

That magnet on the Garuda's head is really strong and really holds onto that hook on splash down. My only comment is the channel within which you're supposed place the hook shank is not quite wide enough for a frog hook. I'm sure I can file that channel to make enough room for the frog hook, but I mostly just wanted to see how this might all be accomplished and did not intend to fish it long-term in this manner. It all works fine, but in the end, I restored my Garuda to its out of the box configuration. The top hook on a hard bait is just difficult for me to look at let alone fish.

Design/Ergonomics: Along with those afore mentioned rattles in the bait's head, the Garuda makes a subtle clacking sound as the middle section of the bait pivots into the front section while the bait is swimming. It's not as loud as wood baits of the same design, but it's there. Megabass ships the bait with rubber sticky pads you can place inside this joint to silence the bait if you prefer, but there are no options to silence the rattles, so I never bothered attempting to silence the joints.

Megabass of America offers the Garuda in a very limited color palette of four colors. I'm sure this has everything to do with the bait's cost. At its size and price, anglers are going to be wary to buy and if the baits aren't moving, then it's difficult to offer more than a few standard colors. It's a shame, because given the chance, I'm sure Megabass could come up with some sick patterns for this very capable and worthy bait.

Price & Application: Speaking of price, the Garuda retails for $124.99. Welcome back to the land of uber-expensive Megabass product. Yes, there are other wake baits that cost less. Yes, there are actually wake baits that cost considerably more. As I've tried to explain, the Garuda is more than just a wake bait, and Megabass of America will not apologize for any of it.

Ratings:

Pluses and Minuses:

Crawl it, burn it, bounce it off rocks, slowly swim it along the surface. The Garuda speaks many different retrieve languages and just might teach you a new one or two that you didn't realize existed