YUM Expands Spine Craw Color Selection

One of the most versatile soft-plastic crawfish lures available, the YUM Spine Craw, has gotten even better with the introduction of several outstanding new colors.

The YUM Spine Craw was an instant success story. Upon its introduction, a few years back, the Spine Craw became an immediate favorite of bass fishermen in part due to its exceptional diversity. Recognizing the popularity and diversity of this soft-plastic craw, YUM Bait Company has added six new Spine Craw colors, which are available now on Lurenet. As a bonus, the Spine Craw was one of the fortunate few lures selected for the fiery hot Lurenet exclusive color, Arsonist.

Let’s take a closer look at the Spine Craw, several great new color options, and a handful of the many possibilities for fishing a YUM Spine Craw for bass, whether on its own or as a trailer.

About the Spine Craw

The YUM Spine Craw is a 3.75-inch soft-plastic crawfish that offers a narrow profile and fast claw action and is designed to displace a lot of water. The fast action and narrow profile are a big part of what makes the Spine Craw a favorite of Alabama bass guide and tournament angler Jimmy Mason.

The claws turn inward to keep the profile compact, allowing the bait to penetrate tight spots and make it look like an easy meal. Anytime the Spine Craw is in motion, whether being swam, lifted or allowed to fall through the water column, the claws come to life with a tight, rapid action. The Spine Craw’s narrow body is lined with forward-angled legs, which add significant vibration and slow the bait’s fall.

Including the color expansion and Arsonist, the Spine Craw is available in 17 colors that together cover a vast range of applications and conditions. That is a good thing, because this lure gets used in so many ways.

New Colors

• Junebug Red Flake combines one of the best colors in the bass fishing world for low light, stained water or dark water with the proven added attraction of sparkly red flake.
• Pumpkin Groove begins with a light Green Pumpkin base and includes a heavy dose of orange flake, resulting in a gem of a color for clear to lightly stained water that strongly suggests the natural coloration of many crawfish.
• Mud Fleck is made for muddy water, which can be important for many flipping and pitching applications. It goes from nearly black to cinnamon and has blue flakes throughout.
• GB Haze, as the name suggest, gives off a hazy look with a smokey light watermelon base and small blue and black flakes. It is highly natural and exceptional for clear water.
• Dirt Purple sports a cinnamon underside and is darker on the back with a mix of purple and green flakes, providing high visibility, even in stain, but remaining natural and suggesting the coloration of many craw varieties.
• GB Plum, as you might suspect, has a Plum base color. A very heavy dose of blue, green and black flake add punch to the timeless appeal of Plum.

Bonus Color on Lurenet

Earlier this spring, Lurenet launched the color Arsonist in BOOYAH Covert Series Spinnerbaits and Mobster Swim Jigs and in YUM Spine Craw and Craw Chunk. Arsonist is a fiery color, featuring orange and red and with black and yellow fleck.

Arsonist was designed primarily for early spring, when crawfish turn bright red in many lakes and bass relate heavily to reddish tones. That said, it’s an exceptional color for flipping a Spine Craw in dirty water.

As spring gives way to summer, Jimmy Mason is excited about using Arsonist for night fishing. He’ll pair a single Colorado Covert with a Spine Craw, both in Arsonist, for fishing under the stars.

Spine Craw Applications

The Spine Craw is commonly used on its own and as trailer and is popular and effective for “moving presentations” and for hitting specific targets or working along the bottom.

Mason is a huge fan of the Spine Craw, Texas rigged as a flipping and pitching bait. He prefers a compact bait for penetrating vegetation and getting into tight places around trees and other cover, but also wants a lot of motion and water displacement to help the bass find the bait. The Spine Craw checks both boxes like no other lure.

Appealing to a completely different group of fish, Mason also likes to rig a Spine Craw with an open hook on a simple jighead, cast it, let it sink and the reel at a modest pace to swim it just of the bottom or midway through the water column, much like he is fishing a swimbait or a grub. He’ll occasionally pause the presentation to let the bait fall or pop the rod tip to vary the motion.

The Spine Craw is also well suited for fishing on a lighter Texas rig, either to work down banks like a traditional plastic worm or to swim though vegetation, and for Carolina rigging across flats, points and humps.

Mason also likes a Spine Craw as a flipping jig trailer for the same reasons he likes to Texas rig it for flipping and pitching, and it is absolute go-to trailer for a Mobster Swim Jig. He believes the Spine Craw’s rapid claw action is ideal for fishing a swim jig quickly and high in the water column. He also uses a Spine Craw as a spinnerbait trailer when he wants to add action.

Finally, it’s worth noting that while Mason always rigs a Spine Craw flat, with the pinchers on the left and right sides, some anglers like to turn the bait 90 degrees to create a vertical profile that is flat on the sides like a shad or a bluegill, as a swim jig or bladed jig trailer.