Fishing the Rat-L-Trap
One of my favorite lures to catch big bass is the Rat-L-Trap. It’s not just effective—it has a great history as well. Its creator, Bill Lewis, was a World War II bomber pilot who flew 30 combat missions, as well as 10 voluntary missions supplying gasoline to General George Patton’s troops in Europe.
After the war, Lewis attended the University of Alabama and graduated from the Chicago Academy of Art. He worked as a commercial artist, but was always tinkering with lures at home. One of his creations was a lure with BBs inside. He took it with him to test on a fishing trip in Texas. When he and his friends started catching many large bass on the “funny-looking bait with all the rattles inside,” Lewis knew he had something, but it needed a name. On his drive home, Lewis’s creative mind was working overtime to come up with a name for his invention. Then it started raining, and he had to drive with one hand and work the windshield wiper with his other hand. Lewis said to himself “I need to replace this old rattletrap someday.” I’m sure it was an instant revelation. Lewis would name his new lure Rat-L-Trap, and, as they say, the rest is history.
The Rat-L-Trap is as popular today as it was back Lewis invented it in the late 1960’s. There are many other rattling lipless crankbaits on the market today, but Lewis’s creation still catches bass. I have found that spring is the best time to use the Rat-L-Trap, when big bass spawning in the shallows, or about to head that way. If the water is still cold, those BBs, and the sound they create, will cause a bass to strike out of pure anger and aggravation, even when it’s not feeding.
The rattling bait is hard for a bass to resist. Oftentimes, a bass won’t even eat the bait. Instead, it lashes out, trying to get the bait out of its personal space. You can tell this has happened when you hook a bass on the outside of the mouth. If this happens, the bass is barely hooked, and you’ll have to be careful landing it.
The Rat-L-Trap is so effective because you can cover so much water when fishing it. You can fish it shallow or deep and bass are staging in both depths in the spring. Whether you are fishing 2 feet or 15 feet of water, you can reel it fast to keep it up in the water column or let it sink into deeper water. This allows you to present the lure in all of the areas springtime bass hang out. Many shallow spawning bays have creek channels leading to them. You can use the Rat-L-Trap to cover the whole area without needing to change baits. This makes the Rat-L-Trap a very effective lure in the spring. Give it a try this spring and enjoy the great outdoors.
