A Glide Bait is as simple to use, as it is effective!

Pike fishing with glide baits is extremely effective when you know how to adapt to the conditions encountered. When temperatures are low and fish are difficult, the SUPER SHADOW RAP GLIDE is the type of lure you need to have in your box to trigger hits.

A glide bait is a hard lure from the swimbait family. Swimbaits are lures made up of several interconnected parts, called joints. The distinction between a swimbait and a glide bait can be seen in the number of joints in the lure. Glide baits often have a single joint in their center and are therefore in two parts, whereas classic swimbaits have at least three parts.

The two joints of a glide bait give it its distinctive S-shaped swimming action, which irritates predators, especially pike. When the rear part of the lure comes up against the water, it acts as a drift, pushing the lure to one side. Once the lure changes sides, it also changes direction and so on until it reaches the bank. 

The SUPER SHADOW RAP GLIDE's unique swimming action, unmatched by any other lure, is a real weapon when it comes to taking on tricky fish. If you've ever watched pike swim, you'll surely have noticed that its swimming action resembles the undulation of a snake. The sudden change of direction when the glide bait is swimming triggers sudden attacks by pike, who think they see their prey escaping.

The undulation of the lure combined with sudden changes of direction perfectly imitates a wounded or fleeing fish. It can also be interesting to combine this swim with imitative colors, whether “Live Pike” resembling a pike or “Live Perch” resembling a perch, or rather white and yellow like the aggressive “Sunny Snow”. Fishing with glide baits is still a slow process, so the choice of color is important to obtain concrete results.

This type of lure can be used all year round, as the best models can withstand very wide variations in speed, so you can fish very gently in winter and very quickly in summer. What's more, these lures also accept variations in rhythm, often alternating a few quick crank turns interspersed with pauses will be a good way of triggering fussy pike!

The SUPER SHADOW RAP GLIDE is an imitative lure. So it's important to use it in the right conditions for it to be as effective as possible. The best time to use this lure is when prey fish are spawning, when they will be moving in large numbers to reach their spawning grounds. Pike will be particularly attentive to these movements and will seize any opportunity that passes them by.

If you're lucky enough to be able to observe whitefish on the move, try to imitate their swimming speed as closely as possible with your lure. Too fast and the pike won't have time to react to the lure, too slow and they'll follow the lure without ever catching it. The SUPER SHADOW RAP GLIDE can also be used in winter fishing, when the big fish start to swim towards the edges before the spawning season.

The revolutionary Screw Diver System (SDS) lets you change the weight of the lure using interchangeable tungsten weights. Simply screw and unscrew them, allowing you to fish from the sub-surface to a depth of around 3 metres. There are several situations in which I was particularly successful:

Shallow weedbeds are prime positions, dance a glide bait just above them and there's a good chance that predators lurking below will be tempted, pike as well as others for that matter...

Deep breaks (up to 10-12 meters) are also interesting to prospect. In fact, especially in clear water, it's not uncommon for a pike ambushed on a slope break to rise several meters. Before trying to place the lure in front of the fish's mouth, it's a good idea to start by getting the fish several metres away, so you don't spook them, especially the big ones!

River currents can also be fished very well, in the manner of a trout fisherman, I've caught quite a few pike by casting downstream and letting the current make my lure swim. 

Very steep banks are also great spots, and in this type of configuration, it's sometimes interesting to run the lure flush with the bank and parallel to it. This presentation can vary the result considerably!

There are 2 ways to use this lure. Because of the lure's articulation, the SUPER SHADOW RAP GLIDE can be fished in a straight line and the lure will make fairly slow undulations with a wide amplitude, its glidebait side being present to give it a beautiful swimming action. But the most appropriate use for this lure seems to us to be in long pulls followed or not by longer or shorter pauses, which will allow the lure to swerve sideways like a wounded fish. With this swimming action, the lure will move a lot of water and attract the attention of pike.

You can fish with this lure on virtually any rod capable of casting 100grams, whether spinning or casting. Traditionally, rods dedicated to big baits tend to be casting rods, but there are spinning models that allow you to do this without any problem. The 86-gram lure is light enough for spinning use. A 0.28mm braid fitted with a 20kg single-strand titanium leader, or a large, consistent fluorocarbon (mini 0.90mm) to face the sharp teeth of pikes.

The SUPER SHADOW RAP GLIDE is an interesting lure for prospecting in search of pike, particularly but not only during the cold season when they are sensitive to the glidebait's distinctive swimming action in the vicinity of weedbeds. With its modest size and weight, it can be used with rods that are not too imposing, making it a perfect candidate for inclusion in a tackle box and always on hand to try this attractive swim when your usual techniques don't work.

Vincent LOPEZ