rapala shad raps

i remember in the early or mid 80s when they shifted production to ireland. we were all breaking a lot of lips on the floating models. prior to this time, we were lucky if we broke one a year. after the switch, it was half dozen a year, at least.

didn't storm buy out rapala? i know that after storm started making hot n tots in china, we began to have problems with them. sure hope they don't inject "planned obsolescence" into rapalas now.

i did some of my raps with trebs that are the next size up, red in color. may help. also, i am not sure how important that belly hook actually is. on some of my size 11 floaters, i have removed the front hook altogether.

just another tip, and cannot validate whether it works or not, but 30 years ago, we painted all of our raps with clear finger nail polish. we caught a lot of smallies and walleyes using these, but i am not really sure if the extra gloss helped.

i can tell you that using one of these painted raps, while wading the south end of pymy, i caught a 16 inch largemouth and a 15 inch smallmouth on the same lure,at the same time, in from of witnesses. the bigmouth wanted to dive and the bronzeback wanted to jump. weirdest fight i have ever had while fishing. i do remember that i had just doctored this plug up.

actually, i use nothing but a snap for all my raps. i always thought that a knot clinched tight to the eye of a lure would inhibit its' action.

Outasync and Rapala11, you are right in your thoughts that rapala's quality has been questionable. and Rapala bought out Storm not the other way around. Rapala has been buying everything. Rapala lures are still as effective as they once were but the quality has gone down hill. I still use them from time to time, but have definitely noticed a drop in quality. The lips bust off easier now, paint chips off super easy its sad but once companies get so big, it seems they don't care as much about the quality anymore.
I noticed you suggested split rings. This is just my own personal preference, but I cut those off the second I get them. I tie the rapala knot instead. Its not hard to do either. Once you practice it a few times, its not that hard and it increased the action of your lure. I have seen line work its way through the split ring. Sometimes the split ring even cuts your line as it is working its way through. Definitely try the rapala knot, I think once you try it a few times, you will agree it a better option.