Crawfish are among the top forage staples in the bass fishing world. Thus, artificial lures designed to look like crawfish are among the most plentiful on the market. These baits come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors and are actually used to mimic other forage as often as they are crawfish themselves. The best crawfish lures will have realistic profiles and colors and great actions to entice bites
With this bait category occupying such a wide spectrum of the bass fishing space, we thought it prudent to help breakdown some of the best crawfish lures. Some of these are newer but some of these are the old staples that never seem to go out of favor with the majority of anglers using crawfish to tempt fish.
OUR PICKS FOR BEST CRAWFISH LURES
- Best Flipping Craw – NetBait Paca Craw
- Best Jig Trailer Craw – Strike King Rage Tail Craw
- Best Swim Jig Craw – Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw
- Best Scented Craw – Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw
- Best Pre-rigged Craw – Megabass Sleeper Craw
- Best Punching Craw – Gambler BB Cricket
- Best Ned or Finesse Craw – Great Lakes Finesse Snack Craws / Z-Man TRD CrawZ
- Best Crawfish Crankbait – Rebel Craw Crankbait
BEST FLIPPING CRAWFISH SOFT PLASTIC LURE
NetBait Paca Craw
We’ll start with a slightly controversial pick in the NetBait Paca Craw as the best flipping craw of all time. It’s not controversial because the PacaCraw isn’t deserving. It’s just that there’s likely another bait equally as deserving in the Strike King Rage Tail Craw. But we’ll spend a little time with that lure in just a moment.
For the best flipping craw, we went with the Paca Craw because of the slow flowing, subtle action of its claws on the fall. This is the perfect action for a bait rigged for flipping and pitching around isolated cover like stumps and thinner patches of vegetation.
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BEST JIG TRAILER CRAW
Strike King Rage Tail Craw
Now let’s talk more about the Strike King Rage Tail Craw. Though this soft plastic lure also makes for a great flipping bait (and the Paca Craw works great on the back of a jig as well), we went with the Rage Craw as the best jig trailer because of it’s action.
The raised flanges along the edge of the craws have long set the Rage Craw apart from its competitors, giving the claws an impressive and unique action. This makes for a tantalizing jig trailer, wether fishing the bait on the back of a football jig in 20 feet of water or a flipping jig in a foot.
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BEST SWIM JIG CRAW
Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw
The Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw is a little smaller than the full-size Paca Craw and Rage Craw, coming in at 3.5 inches as compared to 5 and 4 inches respectively. This Zoom bait also comes equipped with a different claw design, the Ultra Vibe claw that Zoom is famous for.
This claw design has a very fast and tight action, making it a great bait to slip on the back of a swim jig. Adding a lot of action but keeping to a slim profile, the legs don’t kick out so wide that they catch on the cover. And that’s what makes this the best swim-jig trailer when it comes to craws.
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BEST SCENTED CRAW
Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw
The Berkley Powerbait Chigger Craw is the best scented craw of all time. Though most of these soft plastic craws we’re looking at today have some sort of scent to them, the Powerbait scent that Berkley uses is as potent as any in the game. So, if you’re a fan of scent, this one is a must have.
The Chigger Craw is a great bait by design for flipping on a Texas rig, slipping on the back of a jig or any of a variety of other techniques, like bed fishing or Tokyo rigging. Available in 3- and 4- inch versions, you can really do a lot with this bait.
Buy at Tackle Warehouse Buy at BassPro.com Buy at Berkley
BEST PRE-RIGGED CRAW
The Megabass Sleeper Craw / River2Sea Stand’n Yabbie 80
The best pre-rigged craw would have to be the Megabass Sleeper Craw with the River2Sea Stand’n Yabbie 80 being the runner-up. The 3-inch versions of these baits both come in at around 1/2- to 5/8-ounce, making them a good imitation in size to the real thing that bass encounter every day.
And the looks of these lures are next to none. These are some of the most realistic looking baits on the market. The Stand’n Yabbie comes with an exposed hooked with a light-wire weed guard, where the Sleeper Craw’s hook is hidden in a custom pocket slit along its back.
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BEST PUNCHING CRAW
Gambler BB Cricket
The Gambler BB Cricket is the best craw bait when it comes to punching. Though this lure is designed to resemble a craw, when using it to punch it’s more likely thought to be a small baitfish like a bluegill or bream.
It’s slim and subtle design though makes it the perfect bait for punching through dense matted vegetation behind a 1- ounce (or heavier) weight. When looking for a good punching bait, you often want just enough soft plastic to cover the hook. That’s what you get with the BB Cricket.
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BEST NED OR FINESSE CRAW
Great Lakes Finesse Snack Craw / Z-Man TRD CrawZ
We found that two baits were worth mentioning again when trying to narrow down the best craw for Ned rigs and finesse jigs: the Great Lakes Finesse Snack Craw and the Z-Man TRD Crawz. Both of these baits measure between 2 and 2.5 inches, making them the perfect little presentations for these techniques.
Both of these baits are also designed with buoyant plastics so that the craws will float up off the bottom in a defensive posture. The ElaZtech material used by Z-Man to accomplish this is also extremely durable, giving the TRD the advantage over the Snack Craw when it comes to the number of bites you can get on a single bait.
Read our full review of the Z-Man TRD CrawZ.
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BEST CRAWFISH CRANKBAIT
Rebel Craw Crankbait
The Rebel Craw Crankbait is one of the oldest and most realistic craw-style baits ever invented, and it’s intentionally the only crankbait-style lure we’ve included on this list. You could compile a whole other list on the best craw-imitating crankbaits, but none do a better job of mimicking the profile than the Rebel Craw.
This bait comes in a few different sizes, ranging from 1- and 1/2- inches to around 2 and 1/2. The smaller Teeny Wee Craw is one of the best small waters baits of all-time, with countless fish in creeks, streams and ponds falling prey to its rock crawling and bottom prowling prowess.
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