I'm just going to say it right off. This is the best bait Castaic has put out since the softbait trout. I've been playing with all 4 sizes over the past few months and the lures continue to impress.

No rips or tears in the plastic. No breakage. Awesome action at a variety of speeds. The sales pitch from Castaic is that you'll get 22 bass per bait and that seems completely reasonable given what I've seen so far.

There's a few quirks like the strangle oval shaped split rings used to get the hook far enough back to hook to the magnet, and the fact that its hard to rig a trap hook on the bait without affecting the action (you can do it but will find yourself adjusting it frequently to get the bait to track right).

Overall though, my impression is that Castaic has at long last gotten things right in production and taken a great design to the point where is also a great functional bait.


http://www.calfishing.com/files/Images/lures/swimbaits/castaic_softbait_catch22/castaic_softbait_catch22_10inch_side.jpg

Rob,

If you were to buy one size and sink rate of this bait to fish in nor-cal, what would they be? The cost is not prohibiting me from buying more than one but I am on a minimalistic kick right now when it comes to swimbaits right now.

Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have-yous

8 inch is going to be most versatile. It's a nice size. The 10" looks great as well but is considerably larger and bulkier. If I was buying one, it would be the 8"

looks nice, and i like the overall concept but is there a reason to really get this one over any others? Is the action that special?

The hook placement options (lack there of) is extremely frustrating when deciding on this bait :D

In my endless swimbait purchasing, I always look for one thing above all else. Fishability!

Can I go down the bank with the lure and cast cast cast for an hour or five hours and get good performance from the lure? Or do I have to monkey with the lure all the time, worry about casting it off the shore, worry about it getting tangled every cast, or worry about it breaking?

Some baits excel in fishability. Slammer, Hudd, Triple Trout, Stocker Trout just to name a few. These baits have fishability.

I'm suggesting in my mini-review comments above that the Platinum is the best bait from Castaic in a long time because its fishable! It has good action cast after cast. It doesn't break or tangle up. It just works.

Now, could the trap hook situation be improved? Yes! Because adding a trap hook with this bait knocks down the fishability factor. When you add the trap hook, now you're monkeying with it every 5th cast to line it up on the magnet. Now you're getting a doughnut (that's when your trap hook fouls on the cast).

A counterpoint to the trap hook issue is the fact that the bait is very soft, much like the platinum. If you ever caught fish on the platinum, you noticed that the lure folds up in their mouth and hooks go everywhere. I caught 6 pounders on the 10" platinum that just engulfed the darn thing. That's awesome when it comes to hooking and landing bites.

The Catch 22 is similarly soft. So even with one hook, you'll still land a lot more bites than you would on a comparable 8" rubber swimbait with a single treble on the chin.

In summary... I like this bait and feel like its worth the money. Trap rigging is an issue however. So tradeoffs must be made between fishability and bite to land ratio. That's for you, the user, to work out. I'm still thinking about it and dreaming up the perfect trap rig for this bait.

If I figure it out, I'll share :)

thx for the great reply

yea ive fished the platinum before and know it caught fish but the durability factor definitely led me away from Castaic all this time after that.

i will look a little more closely at this one.

I agree with you about the Catch 22, Rob. It swims really nice and just looks fishy in the water. I believe I will have some good days with this bait. And it is not a real expensive swimbait, which is a nice bonus!