Shad Chub

Handmade silicone baits, imitation of chub fry, 7 and 10 cm

With this Shad we really gave our best.

It is an imitation on the verge of reality, the next step remains only the real fish.

It is a project that starts from the 3D analysis of a real fish that is replicated to perfection in detail, then hand painted one by one.

Sure it's a long and expensive process but, like all WildpPikes lures, we spared no expense in making extremely catchy lures.

I'm not sure there are such realistic silicone lures in the world, but one thing is for sure, this silicone Shad is light years ahead of the current best series production lures.

Take one, risk the little it costs, because I assure you that you will be amazed by this Shad.

A silicone Shad that really makes the difference in the very pressed places, with fish extremely suspicious, wary and accustomed to seeing the most common baits (by now the fish also know the barcode of some lures).

Perhaps the best soft bait for pike

The reality of the details is incredible. This is the first detail of the Shad WildPikes.

I have tried a lot of silicone lures on the market. I'll tell you right away that some are excellent, but 90% of silicone baits (which actually silicone is a wrong term, but let's not get lost in detail) should be avoided for several reasons (which I will DEEPEN HERE ).

I myself use several, such as  Keitech 's soft baits , which are excellent baits, but when the fish is very selective, not very active or very pressed, then the key is to get the Shad WildPikes out of the Meiho.

This is the secret weapon for the biggest and most savvy fish.

The attention to detail is on the verge of fanaticism, but it is the key to making these baits almost alive.

The 3 key points we followed to make the WildPikes silicone shades are these:

- Color

- Form

- Details

Color

Shad WildPikes are real imitations of forage fish.

You can find them only in the liveries typical of the European bait-fish. No flashy colors, no Fire-Tiger or Fluo.

We have chosen 5 types of forage and colors.

The roach, bait fish par excellence, the chub in the fry stage, the royal perch, which almost always shares the habitat with pike, perch and bleak.

Roach, perch and perch are the lures that exceed 20 cm in the largest sizes, ideal for making selection.

Form

If at this moment I tell you to open your box of lures and take a look, I am sure that at least 50% of your lures have the wrong shape / color.

In practice, the shape does not correspond to the color of the fish it represents. 

Have you ever seen a long, slender carp like a pike, or a large, stocky and short pike?

Obviously not. 

But as they say, the first to take the bait is the fisherman. For this reason, companies insert many types of livery on every form of lure, even when in nature they do not correspond to each other.

Basically the best rule would be to have the shape and color that match enough.

But like all rules it can have exceptions (such as the  WildPikes PIKE spinners)

In this case, however, the Shad WildPikes are true replicants of form. Fish recognize their prey exactly, both by color and shape.

This is why we have cloned the real fish in every detail, starting from the shape.

The rudd is not just rudd colored. It is a real rudd, in shape and color. The perch is a true perch, with its hump between the dorsal fin and the head, and so on for the other silicone imitations.

Now reading it will seem like a foregone conclusion, but it is not at all.

Just do a roundup of the various stores or online sites to see hundreds of lures with random shapes or far from reality. Unrealistic imitations I call them.

Details

And now we come to the icing on the cake! The details.

If we have focused so much on color and shape, what really makes these silicone lures unique are the fine details.

First of all, the flakes. They're real! While everyone draws them, we made them 3D because they make a difference.

To the eye, the drawing may seem similar to reality, but in the water everything changes.

The flakes create vibrations that make everything more natural and realistic. They make a marked difference.

All the flakes you see on our Shads are real, you can feel them with your fingernail.

This is not a detail, but perhaps it is THE DETAIL.

Then we have the eyes. The eye is important in a Shad, also in this case it is in 3D, with particular attention to the painting and to the area around that has the natural hollow that the fish have.

In particular, the whole head is finely detailed in details such as the mouth, gills and jaw.

The fins obviously replicate the shape of the fish and are external appendages to the body.

On some models the sac of internal organs typical of the juvenile stages of forage fish is also visible.

Wanting to finish with a flourish and have the maximum possible, on request it is also possible to add the scent to also obtain a taste and smell similar to natural fish.

Fishing or collectible

As you can see, these Shads are made with the heart and care typical of a high-level artisan product.

Believe me when I tell you you'll be sorry to stick hooks in it, spoil it with armor, or have it torn apart by the teeth of a pike.

But they were born for this purpose and you can be sure, they are incredibly effective.

So I still want to give you some details about these silicone Shads.

For each size we have created a specific compound.

This is something that in series production it is not possible to do, but on small series it can be managed well by adapting the compound.

The larger versions are made with a more resistant and rigid type of plastic which makes the movements more natural, being the tails large and the bodies heavy, a soft rubber would make the movements too wide and therefore unnatural. 

As the size decreases, the compound also becomes softer and softer to maintain natural movement with each size set-up.

The relationship between size and softness of the rubber, on the shads in particular, must be correct. Too soft is not good, just like too stiff. 

It seems a foregone conclusion now that you have read it, but it is not so, nor for most fishermen, who have no idea how many tricks it takes to build a bait that makes a difference in fishing, and not even for producers, who they exploit the lack of knowledge to make products that are not very attractive and that lead to numerous coats.

Now that you know all these things about Shad Wildpikes you just have to decide whether to use them in water or display them in the window :).