A couple of weeks ago I went crazy and bought four of the Rick Clunn Lucky Craft cranks.  I love them.  Great baits, great quality, super paintjobs, big sharp hooks - everything about them was fantastic.

A few days later I bought the same (or very similar) colors only I bought the BPS XPS Professional Hardbaits.  They look nice, shiny red eyes, red hooks, and packaging made to look like Lucky CraftsI figured what the heck, and got four of these, the same colors I got in the LC baits.

I fish mainly with my brother, and let him use my lures, but I keep him away from my LCs.  He is a sucker for the lures we used as kids, and usually grabs an old battered Rebel Craw or a Mepps spinner.  I love him, but he loses lures a lot, so I'll fish with Lucky Crafts, Megabass, or Bagley lures, and try to keep him away from that stuff.

Well, we've gone fishing three times since I made those purchases, (on the Potomac near Harpers Ferry WV, on the Shenandoah between Front Royal VA and Winchester VA, and on the Potomac near American Legion bridge near DC) and I noticed my brother staring lovingly at the splatter-back Rick Clunn LC bait I had.  I handed him the BPS XPS bait in the same color they look really similar, except the BPS bait has red hooks.  I usually trounce my brother, but after taking count on the last three trips, and having three solid trips wading the river with quality and quantity smallmouth, the race was just about dead even I caught only a couple more fish than he did over the past three trips...  He ties on the same color crank I do, only uses the BPS XPS version.  

The moral of the story?  

The Lucky Craft baits are beautiful, productive and fun.  And cost $14.99 each.

The BPS Baits are beautiful, productive, and fun.  And you can buy two of them for $14.99 Remember, I am not one of those that screams all day saying you don't need expensive baits, I have a bait monkey in each pocket and grab just about everything that I see But if you have ever been in BPS and find yourself making your way to the register, culling baits as you go to get under two hundred bucks You just might want to put the Lucky Craft bait back, and stick with the BPS version.

Are the baits copies of the RC?   I was looking through their cranks the other day and noticed one of their baits looked like a DEAD-ON copy of an Ever Green Combat Flat (a great crank in itself).   Does BPS pay a license fee to do this or are they straight-up ripping off designs?  

There are some baits I really like from BPS - - - their previous version of the XPS Rattle Shad (lipless crank) was a very nice design with a unique action, and when you dropped them to the bottom they would nose stand better than any bait I had at the time.   The new XPS Rattle Shad doesn't do it - - but it is a good bait nonetheless, with a nice hard-kicking action (kind of like the Spro Aruku Shad).  

They are not an exact copy, but are very similar.  The RC does not rattle, the BPS version has a single metal ball in there for some noise...

Update: I have fished with my brother 3 more times, and we used those two baits exclusively... We are still about even...