John,

I source my baits from a ton of different places. Most of the custom painters are so far behind that stores don't have what you are looking for. Through my business, I tried to buy the glass minnow and paint them myself. Unfortunately, Rapala orders are about 6 to 8 weeks behind on that particular bait (which is the one that most custom painters paint on). That being said, I purchase a fair amount of baits from Jann's netcraft. They have the class as well as the custom chrome. The best prices I have found is in Frank's in Linwood or Northwoods up in Pinconning. Cabelas does carry them (in custom colors) but rarely do they have them in stock (backordered).

That being said, I will say that my best bait, hands down, is NOT the rapala DHJ 10's or 12's. For me, the best bait in my box is the Berkley Flicker Minnow in size 9. Recently they came out with a size 11 but I have yet to put any in the box. Nice part about the flicker minnow is they are cheaper in price (by a ton). Less than 6 bucks. Another good thing... they dive deeper with less line out than a DHJ 12. A size 9 flicker minnow back 65 feet will dive to 15ft. A DHJ 12 back 65 will only dive to 13 feet. Not sure on the dive curve of the 11's but I know they are even less line out than the 9's.

I love running cranks, less mess in the boat, quick bait changes, and good hook ups! Let me know when you want to head over there and I'll give you some of my GPS numbers to fish.

There are a few companies that do custom colors on the flicker minnows (Frank's is one of them). My BEST producer in the standard color is "Pink Lemonade". The next best is "Prime Time" followed by Purple Flash. We do really well with "Slick blue Alewife", Slick Purple Bengal, and Slick Sunset. Jann's has them for 4.95 each. I also purchase a lot from Fish USA. Their shipping is better (and quicker) and they are a sponsor of Crappie.com.