At TackleTour, we do our best to stay on top of the latest tackle trends, acquire product, fish it, and report back our findings in the form of a review.
The Spro BBZ-1 Shad was introduced to us in May of 2008
Almost a year ago in May, we got our first look at Bill Siementel’s latest bait, the Spro, 4″ BBZ-1 Shad. We were pretty excited about this compact little bait that featured a big bait swagger.
The Spro BBZ-1 Shad is available in three ROF’s – Floating, Slow Sinking, Fast Sinking
Then a couple of months later in July, just before ICAST, we found out about a similarly sized product from TruTungsten that featured their innovative adjustable weight system, the 4″ Tru-Life swimbait.
The Tru-Tungsten Tru-Life 4″ bait features the same adjustable weight system and two hooks per bait.
Can you say shootout?
I was more than prepared for a full blown shootout
In the Fall of 2008, Reaction Strike got in touch with us with their interpretation of this same concept and once again, it was game on in the “swimbait” market.
We were made aware of the Reaction Strike product during the fall of 2008
I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about doing individual reviews versus a full blown shootout between these three manufacturers’ product and had pretty much decided to go full blown shootout.
The profile of these baits has garnered a lot of attention as well.
Then of course, we declared 2008 as “The Year of the Crank” on TackleTour. Normally that would not affect anything but the interesting thing I found is the more I fished cranks, the less I saw the purpose behind these little 4″ big baits.
The joints have good movement.
They all seem to share a similar issue in that unless you are retrieving them painstakingly slow, no matter their rate of fall, they will all rise in the water column. The fast sinks are better about staying down than the slow sinks, but they will all still rise if you’re not careful.
Their gill bait is even more intriguing.
Reaction Strike has a solution for this dilemma with their little big baits by offering a billed version. So then, is it still a “swimbait” or is it a crank?
And now they make one with a bill.. is it a crankbait or swimbait… a hybrid?
The term “hybrid” comes to mind… something that is a mix of two or more things but neither one or the other. You’re usually making compromises when choosing to go with something that is a hybrid.
Of the three baits, these two are most similar.
Long story short? I’m having a hard time wanting to fish these products. I’ve thrown them a few times and each time, I find myself either tying on a billed or lipless crank when wanting to stay small or tying on a traditional big bait when wanting something that “swims”.
But all three are rated at 4″
So, I’m sorry to say while I’m sure these are all worthwhile products that have their time and place, I’m just not in a proper frame of fishing mind to give them a fair shake
. 
And while they catch fish, personally, I can’t bring myself to fish them enough to give them each a fair shake.
Tags: 4" Swimbaits, Reaction Strike, Shad Baits, Spro, TruTungsten
Just got the tiny four inch tru tungsten, hope its durability is right. Checked the price was $19.99 for smaller one and 49.99 for larger size bluegill. I like the weight balls but don’t want to mess with the wire that connects the bait. I used Mega bass XFL last year and fin fell off after full season use, i think same thing would happen to spro bbz 1 with fins falling off. I like the larger size bluegill for big trophy fish. Hope to get better one this fall season, if new baits come out or something. Thanks Denis for great reviews i am a continued fan and enjoy this article. God bless
I picked up a couple of the TruTungsten swimbaits, and I just got word that a local tackle shop got a shipment of Reaction Strike swimbaits. I’ll try them out as soon as I can, but bass season doesn’t open until the end of June in this area.
Tom, I agree with you whole-heartedly. I was talking with Call back in Feb about fishing. Just plain old fun fishing. Cal said he hadn’t been fun fishing in so long it didn’t remember what it was like. All his (and I assume JIP’s and Zander’s) time on the water is spent doing reviews of gear. If the fish are biting something they’re not reviewing, they don’t know because they’re taking time to review products. That takes dedication. For him to not do a timely review on these products and tell about it on his Blog just shows how honest these guys are. If he wasn’t that way, he’d have not said anything or even posted a fictitious review.
Cal, my hat is off to you and the rest of the TT clan. I can’t wait to share a boat with you on the 4th.
Terry Battisti
Actually I can appreciate where Cal is coming from. I doubt anyone would want to read a review of something he put half an effort into. That’s what makes Cal, Jip and Zander awesome – when they do a review on something you know they put their absolute best effort into giving us the nitty gritty details of the bait/rod/reel, whatever. So I say thanks Cal for not blowing smoke at us and laying it out like it is. There are 10’s of 1000’s of things worth reviewing on this site – skipping of 3 of them isn’t going to end the world!
Well let’s see, you have 3 viable, extremely well selling products here that you admit catch fish but yet you’re not in a “proper frame of fishing mind” to review them? Doesn’t that sound just a bit pompus? I own a mid-sized independent hardware store and just the other day I wasn’t in a proper frame of screwdriver selling mind but yet I somehow mustered up the will to go in and do my job. My customers depend on me to provide them with their needs. I believe that you owe it to your “customers” to do the same regardless of what fishing frame of mind you may be in.
While I’m yet to fish with the Tru-Tungsten, I have used both the Reaction Strike and Spro models. These are both very well constructed lures that as you mentioned, catch fish. They both have exceptional swimming actions and both are fairly true to their specified rate of fall. One big difference I did notice is that while using the slow fall version of each, while sinking the Spro had a tendency to “nose dive” or spiral down. The Reaction Strike fell horizontally with no more than a slight side to side “wobble” that seemed to mimick a live fish. Upon reaching bottom, the Spro simply fell over onto its side. The Reaction Strike model came to a perfect rest atop its hooks and stayed there in the upright “live fish” position.
Granted that’s one small detail but I believe it speaks to the engineering that went into the products. I see in your blog that Reaction Strike now has a bluegill version and a lipped, suspending version as well. That tells me that there is some serious innovation going on at this company.
Simply from the factors mentioned above my leanings are towards the Reaction Strike version. I’m just one angler though. Perhaps someday you can gather up the fortitude to do a review of three products that are making some pretty big noise in the marketplace? At least in my opinion that is your job and that’s what readers of your site come to depend on, unbiased, honest reviews of new products be they to your liking or not. With no offense intended, I don’t personally care how many fish you may have caught on a given outing or what type of lure you feel like fishing at any particular moment. I read your reviews and the reviews of your staff to gain some insight into where my money should be spent. To not review a series of products simply because you don’t feel like it is a disservice to your readers and quite frankly puts you personally in an arrogant light.
Thanks for the info. The seller on eBay has it listed as only shipping to the USA. I will keep an eye out for the yellow perch color. Your bluegill color looks very similar to a perch, so I’m sure that would work well for me too.
Guys, just wanted to let you know that ALL of these baits are very nice and have their time and place. If you put them in the water, you will see that all 3 are very different in how they respond.
We are honored that Tackle Tour, which is the unmistakeablely best site in the fishing biz included us in their analysis.
We have simply tried to offer a wide variety of these swimbaits. Guys in TX fish with different colors than people in CA and the NE want entirely different colors too. We have 20 colors, and 10 more we just got in. By ICAST, we will have settled in on 40 final colors.
Also, we now have a 5.5 inch LIPPED/suspending version. We also have just finished the 7″ version. We will be shipping both of these in late April.
We also have a 10″ and 12″ Revolution Shad in the works and will be shipping production in mid May. The musky, pike and REALLY big bass guys were screaming for them so we made them.
ALso, for Jake above, we wanted to let you know we do have yellow perch. It is identical to Great Lakes Strain yellow perch. Not sure how to attach a jpeg so here is a link to an ebay listing for Custom painted yellow perch:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Custom-Painted-Reaction-Strike-Revolution-Shad-Swimbait_W0QQitemZ150335101336QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item150335101336&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A570%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50#ebayphotohosting
ok, good luck to all. We all need it in this difficult economy.
Reaction Strike
Please give them another try. I have been reading everything I can about them. I’m in Canada, and 7″-9″ swimbaits are just too big for our smaller northern strain largemouth bass. I want to get something that imitates yellow perch, so I am leaning towards the TruTungsten bait. The tackletour review on the larger Trutungsten baits said that they weren’t very durable, so I would really like to see a review that compares the durability of the 3 baits.