Cost of lures going way up...

[ronaultmtd]

I don’t buy a lot of hard body lures because I rarely lose them..maybe four or five new lures a year...I was browsing through our local Dick’s Sporting Goods to see if the new Blair Wiggins line of rods were in- they weren’t...and I noticed that my favorite hard body lure (Rapala XRap) had increased from $8.98 to $10.49...now that is a hell of a lot of inflation!

And lures in general are getting very pricey...is the sport growing that fast that demand has driven up prices...or just greed?

[yakscientist]

I found xrap xr12s on amazon, albeit only a few colors, as add on items, 9$ shipped. Like you said, I always seem to lose them or they just don't seem to produce for me like soft baits, so I only have a few.

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[Yak Fish]

I used to get x rap 12s for like 5 or 6 bucks. Now they're at least double. A typical crankbait would only cost $3, but not any more.

[willf650]

I think my average cost of a hard bait now is $12.

You can get some crank baits for $8 but many are $16. My favorite jerk bait we found this year run from $14-$17 size dependent.

My buddy hit an all time high for a single crank bait a few weeks ago at $20. It did have a sweet paint job though and it worked. It hooked the fisherman at the store.

I’m thankful I don’t lose many.


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[J.A. Veil]

I have visited the Mirrolure factory in the Tampa area twice. The amount of effort that goes into making the lures is quite significant. Plus the manufacturer gets only a portion of the retail cost. Middle men and final retailers plus shipping costs make up the rest.

[Jesserkirk]

Dry those tears and go catch some fish .


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[summersoff]

You should see how much surf plugs have risen. Average plugs used to be $18-25, now if you go to shows, they run anywhere from $45 -75. Not only that, many of the higher end plugs run out in the first half hour of any plug show. There are lines starting hours before the show even opens, just to get one of the plugs. Granted they are hand made craftsmanship, but come on, $75 to catch a fish?!?
Collecting surf plugs is a weird sub-culture you don’t want to know.

[ronaultmtd]

Dry those tears and go catch some fish .


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Watched a episode of Strike King Fish hard that was all about the lure company...the number of hand operations they go through was pretty amazing...from assembling the body and the rattles, chemically welding the two halfs together, sanding, cleaning base coat paint, then many different layers of paint and then outfitting with rings and hooks..each crankbait is hand tuned in a tank before packaging...so maybe $10 bucks isn’t outrageous...just a dramatic increase from last season for the exact same bait, gets your attention...

[PigPen]

I saw a similar video for repala and was impressed. Consider the tooling cost for a machine to turn balsa into formed lure bodies. The painting etc. Amazing process