By Andrew Martin

A few weeks back, I received my Tackle Grab box in the mail filled with some brand new lures. One lure that caught my eye immediately was the AR Lures Minnow 110 jerkbait in the rainbow trout color pattern. Once I took it out of the package, I knew this was not your typical “mass-produced” ripbait. It featured a wooden body with obvious hand crafted features. The paint job was superb and the hooks were incredibly sharp out of the package. It looked great, but looking good and performing well are two different things.

I’ve managed to get on the water with the AR Lures Minnow 110 twice in the last two weeks; once on a predominantly smallmouth fishery and once on a predominantly largemouth fishery. The Minnow 110 caught fish at both.

The smallmouth lake, was bowl shaped with sloping flats and rocky points. The fish were in prespawn, but were definitely thinking about moving up. I threw the Minnow 110 on a Dobyns Champion 704 CB, with 10 pound Seaguar Invizx fluorocarbon. The first thing I noticed was how well it casts. One of the issues I have with some of the lighter jerkbaits is castability. At 3/5 of an ounce, the Minnow 110 cast like a rocket. As I started ripping it back to the boat, it worked back and forth in perfect “walk the dog” like cadence. It has an amazing darting action. Probably more so than any ripbait I’ve ever thrown and it caught fish. Multiple smallies feel victim to the erratic action.

The largemouth lake, was a shallow reservoir with lots of flooded trees, rocky points and grassy flats. The fish were also in a prespawn pattern, but very close to getting up on their beds. I used the Minnow 110 as a search bait in the morning and it proved very successful. I caught a number of fish in the 2-3 pound range and they didn’t just slap at it, they devoured it.

The AR Lures Minnow 110 is an exceptional jerkbait. It’s very difficult when trying to write an impartial review of a lure, when there is literally nothing negative to say about it. I guess the price, which retails at $21.99 is possibly a deterrent for some, however, for a wooden custom lure even that is not particularly discouraging. If you like to fish jerkbaits, you need to give the AR Lures Minnow 110 a try. You will not be disappointed.

Pro Staff: Dobyns Rods, Tackle Grab, PowerTeam Lures, Solar Bat Sunglasses, Skinny Bear Jigs, Gethooked Baits, Whiskey River Bait Co.

Contributing Writer: Rahfish.com, Bass Utopia, Bass Angler Headquarters