Did I happen to mention that the Real Gill Xr50 Series of lures by XCalibur Lures looks really real? I mean real! Just like any common bluegill or panfish that is swimming in your local fishing hole. Think about it for a minute. Bass and other predators love to eat what? That’s right, forage that swims by and gets to close. Bass love cover like boat docks and brush piles. Bluegill and panfish hide around docks and brush piles. It’s better than takeout. “Honey, should we go out to eat?” says one bass to another hiding under the shade of a boat dock. “Why, we have all we can eat right here at home; I think, I will have me a Longear with a Pumpkinseed for dessert,” replies the other bass. You get the point and now you have a lure that really looks like what they eat.

The new XCalibur HI-TEK Tackle Xr50 Real Gill (www.XCaliburTackle.com) looks like the real thing with details like a three-dimensional look, multi-step painting process, and three-dimensional red eyes; however, XCalibur didn’t stop with just making the lure ultra realistic. They engineered the Xr50 to emit the perfect vibration when being retrieved; in addition to designing the hooks to push back against the body of the lure to keep it from hanging up. Of course the Xr50 has XCalibur Tx3 rotating super sharp hooks. The XCalibur HI-TEK Tackle Xr50 Real Gill comes in 5/8-ounce and measures 2 ½-inches in length making it sizeable to what bass love to eat.

Even with all the engineering that went into designing the lure it still comes back to the realistic look. The XCalibur HI-TEK Tackle Xr50 comes in 5 color patterns to choose from including Chicken Pox, Pumpkinseed, Longear, Rayburn Gold, and Blue Racer. What color pattern will catch fish in your pond, stream, or lake depends on the forage base. Another factor is the time of year you are fishing the Xr50. Springtime can be one of the best times to fish a lipless crankbait in shallow water. The bass are shallow and so are the bluegills. Bass go shallow to spawn while the bluegills swarm the beds the bass make and eat the eggs. That makes bluegills prime targets for bass who loathe these nest robbers. In the summer months, anglers can fish around boat docks or brush piles where bluegills are always hanging out. Bluegills will stay shallow in the fall until winter. Bass will follow them from the bluff ends, all the way to the back ends of feeder creeks. The bluegills spread out and can be located anywhere, but are still a source of nourishment for bass. Since the forage is spread out, fan casting a lipless crankbait allows anglers to cover lots of unproductive water fast then slowing up when locating a school.

One fact remains the same throughout the year when fishing. Bass love to eat bluegills. So it only makes sense to fish with a lure that looks like a bluegill. Plus every pond, stream, or reservoir has them in it. All an angler has to do is match the color pattern of the bluegill in their body of water to catch fish. It’s that easy…really.