Soft plastic reapers are often over looked and rarely discussed for fall presentations.

The hand poured reapers by Don Iovino products, Upton's Customs, Roboworm and other mfr's are 3" and 4" leach looking worms. Reapers represent several bottom dwelling critters and minnows or small baitfish.

Presentations like split or slip shot, drop shot rigged on 5-8 lb FC line, nose hooked or weedless hooked with light wire hooks allow the reaper to do nothing as it moves through the water column. Reapers glide and have very little action.....bass love them!

Tom

We have a lake that is electric motor only and in the early spring the water is gin clear, a reaper on a mojo rig was one of the best ways to get bit, other plastics not so much. In mid spring you found why the reapers worked so well, the lake was full of water newts and when they first come out they are very slow and lethargic, in mid spring the reaper bite goes away and a lizard does better but for a solid month nothing will beat a reaper in dirty green pumpkin or oxblood.

There´s only one real reaper and that is Mojo´s Salty Reefer, absolutely deadly, my number 1 "secret" bait for more than 25 years, bass don´t want to bite ? ----> Salty Reefer is the solution.

PTL makes one that's almost silly looking - it's like 10" long.  Looks like a giant willow leaf.

I have been using them for a long time. They work really well for pike & lake trout on a jig. Met Harold Endsley on a plane coming back from Canada. He mentioned he was the originator or had a patent for their design. All white & all black colors are my favorite.

I believe the Reaper was a trade name not a patent and for several years lure makers avoided using the trade name and called reapers names like reefers. The big cow tongue reapers 6"+ are good at times (night or bed fish) and usually fished Texas style with a sliding bullet weight.

The hand poured reapers have a thicker flat tail, injection molded tend to have thinner more ribbon tails. Logic would think the thinner tails would work better, have more action. Experience says the thicker flat tail reapers glide and have a movement bass prefer.

Tom

I agree, Tom. I dismissed these based on my early experience with injection versions. I have some hand pour 5" ones with a ribbed head that are killer on Erie and Ontario.

I have a bunch of Wave Tiki Reapers that I think are 3.5" but I have never actually used them. I may give them a try on my next trip on my light action spinning rod and reel and hopefully have some fun.