New Lucky Craft Colors - Ghost Chartreuse Shad and Skeet's Magic

Top down: LV-500 and Sammy 100 in Ghost Chartreuse Shad. LV-500 Skeet's Magic

Bass fishing in Japan may as well be a different universe. Very few North American anglers are aware of what goes on with bass fishing there. Some of the little we know is that Lucky Craft was the first to introduce colors like Chartreuse Shad and Ghost Minnow to the USA at just about the turn of this century.

Fast forward to today, and one color, Chartreuse Shad has proven to be Lucky Craft's most popular color in the USA, and Ghost Minnow's tight up there too.

In recent years, based on Lucky Craft's demonstrated success, practically every other vendor has added these two kinds of color to their hard bait line-up, and other Japanese vendors with their own long-standing versions of Chartreuse Shad have brought their versions to the North American market too. To say it's become a popular color is an understatement. If you look at the most recent sensation, Sexy Shad, it appears to be an artful spin-off on the original Chartreuse Shad.

Ghost Chartreuse Shad. Now Lucky Craft has released a new variation on their own color. It's Ghost Chartreuse Shad. It has a similar color pattern as their original Chartreuse Shad, but with the ghost-like transparency of Ghost Minnow. It's a hands-down winner.

It's hard to define what the dorsal or back color is on Chartreuse Shad and now, the new Ghost Chartreuse Shad color. The back is a complex color with tones of blue, purple, brown and smoke gray, possibly a little pink and chartreuse seem to be present in the dorsal color, to my eye.

Plus the defining chartreuse lateral line.

On the LV-500 in the new Ghost Chartreuse Shad color, there's a translucent milky white blue sheen over the entire body.

On the Sammy 100 in the new Ghost Chartreuse Shad color, this milky white blue sheen is not as apparent. Instead there's something much more exciting - a silvery holographic foil-like insert inside that emits reflective glints of blue, green, yellow, pink and more.

The belly on both the LV-500 and Sammy 100 is milky white blue.

Lucky Craft LV-500 ~ Lipless ~ Ghost Chartreuse Shad

Lucky Craft Sammy 100 ~ Topwater ~ Ghost Chartreuse Shad

Sammy 100 in Ghost Chartreuse Shad has reflective body insert and clear weighted tail section

Cellophane package reflects chartreuse line, but only one line's on the bait.

Skeet's Magic. A new Lucky Craft color, obviously named after Skeet Reese. It's transparent plastic on the sides. If I mention it looks like a 'glass minnow' on the sides, you get the idea.

The dorsal color is a thin back of glossy silver paint that reflects white when the color flashes.

On the belly, it appears that possibly a white base coat was put down first, beneath the fluorescent chartreuse belly. Reason I say that is when you look at the belly from the top or side, the chartreuse practically disappears. Regardless of whether there's a white base, the chartreuse is not so apparent from above. But from a bottom view, it is glaringly hot chartreuse.

The entire bait appears to be liberally finished with a pale green hologram micro-flake topcoat all over everything else.

Skeet's Magic color has hot chartreuse belly when viewed from beneath.

Skeet's magic color has reflective silver paint on top, clear sides, and pale chartreuse belly when viewed from above.

Lucky Craft LV-500 ~ Lipless ~ Skeet's Magic