Freshwater Top Water

Brent Ehrler calls the Gunfish 95 the perfect bait for schooling fish. It's a subtle bait — thin bodied, walking tight rather than wide — and that restraint is exactly why it gets bit when louder topwaters get followed and refused.

Short version: 4" walking topwater, 3/8 oz, floating, two trebles (#5, #6), no feather on the rear hook. The finesse end of the Gunfish family.

What NF Changes

NF is no feather — the standard 95 dresses the rear treble, this one leaves it bare. Without the feather the tail sits differently at rest, the walk is a touch freer, and there's no dressing to mat down and hold water after a few fish.

There's a second difference most people miss. Lucky Craft builds the 95NF with a tungsten resin tail weight system, where the standard 95 uses heavy metal. Same casting principle — mass in the tail for distance into wind — different material.

Why It Gets Bit

The 95 is thinner than most walking baits, but it walks as effortlessly as a classic Sammy. The cupped face adds a spitting action as the bait swings side to side, and a sound chamber inside makes a loud knocking noise that calls fish out of deep water.

Ehrler's own summary: it's a subtle bait that still creates a lot of commotion. Worked quickly it flicks water to each side and leaves a bubble trail behind it — three separate attractants on one retrieve.

Where It Earns Its Keep

• Schooling fish — the use case it was designed around.
• Clear water and pressured lakes, where a 115 is too much bait and a subtler profile is what gets eaten.
• Wind — the tail weight system was built for casting distance in exactly those conditions.
• Calling fish from depth without overwhelming them — the knocking chamber does the work the size doesn't.

How to Work It

Fast. Ehrler works it very quickly to get the walking and spitting going together. Rhythmic twitches into slack line — the bait needs slack to turn, and a tight line drives it straight.

Then pause. It floats, so it holds position when you stop it. After a blow-up and a miss, letting it sit beats snatching it away.

Which Gunfish?

Start here if you're deciding. The 95 is the size most people should own first — it fishes on tackle you already have and it's the one that gets bit on hard days.

Every Color Here Is a Limited Run

Lucky Craft lists the entire 95NF lineup under limited-run colors. When a colorway sells through it isn't automatically reproduced — if you find one that works on your water, buy the spare before you need it.

Fishing It Around Santa Clarita

The 95 is the Gunfish that shines when the lake has been beaten on all summer and fish stop committing to bigger baits. We publish Castaic Lake fishing reports with current conditions — worth reading before you decide it's a surface morning.

Recommended Gear

• Rod: medium power, moderate action, 6'8" to 7'2". A fast tip tears small trebles out on surface strikes.
• Line: braid to a fluorocarbon or mono leader. Straight mono works too and floats, which helps hold the nose up.
• Avoid heavy fluorocarbon straight through — it sinks and fights the float.

Pro Tips from the Tackle Express Crew

• Twitch into slack, not into tension. The one thing that separates people who can walk this bait from people who can't.
• Speed it up. The spit, the knock, and the bubble trail all show up at pace. Slow retrieves waste most of what this bait does.
• Wait to feel weight before setting. Setting on the splash pulls it out of the fish's mouth.
• Downsize before you change lures. When the 115 gets followed and refused, this is the bait you switch to — not a different category.

Common Mistakes

• Working it on a tight line. The bait needs slack to turn.
• Fishing it slow. Wrong tool for a dead-slow presentation.
• Too stiff a rod. #5 and #6 trebles pull out of fish on stiff blanks.
• Setting on sight. Wait for the weight.

Specifications

Specs confirmed against Lucky Craft's published Gunfish 95NF chart. Colors offered vary by production run — the selector above is the live list.

What's Included

One Lucky Craft Gunfish 95NF in the color selected, factory rigged with two trebles and no rear feather. No spare hooks or split rings included.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does NF stand for?
No feather. The standard Gunfish 95 has a dressed rear treble; this version leaves it bare. It also uses a tungsten resin tail weight rather than the standard 95's heavy metal.

How big is it?
4 inches (95mm) and 3/8 oz (12 grams).

How many hooks?
Two trebles — one #5 and one #6.

95NF or 115NF?
The 95 is subtler and the better choice in clear or pressured water. The 115 is everything exaggerated — louder, wider action, longer reach. If you're buying one Gunfish, buy the 95.

95NF or 95 H3?
Same size. The H3 carries a third treble for more hooking surface when fish are slashing and missing; the 95NF has two, which is cleaner around cover.

How fast should I fish it?
Quickly. The walking, the spitting, the knock, and the bubble trail all come alive at speed.

Does it float?
Yes. It holds position on the pause — and the pause after a missed strike is worth using.

Will these colors come back?
Lucky Craft lists the whole 95NF lineup as limited run, so not necessarily. Call the shop and we'll tell you what's inbound.

Related Gear

• Lucky Craft Gunfish 95 H3 — same size, three trebles.
• Lucky Craft Gunfish 115NF — the 4-1/2" no-feather version.
• Lucky Craft Gunfish 117 — 4-1/2" pencil popper, three trebles.
• Topwater Fishing Lures — poppers, walking baits, and stickbaits.

Buy It From People Who Fish It

We're on Soledad Canyon Road in Santa Clarita, twenty minutes from Castaic, and we fish these lakes ourselves. If you're buying your first Gunfish, this is the one we'd hand you. Call the shop or come in and we'll talk through which size your water wants.

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