Entry 82-4
Shaw Grigsby On Spinner Baits
Why I Know Red Works
Editor's Note: Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Florida, has a TV show titled "One More Cast" on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) that airs from January through December on Saturdays at 9:00 a.m. and then appears again two more times during the week. Shaw, a well-known professional angler, enjoys fishing all the Strike King baits, especially the spinner baits.
Grigsby: The first time I tested the power of red hooks, I was fishing a Strike King Kevin VanDam Wild Shiner jerkbait. When I first threw out the bait and jerked it by the boat, I told my fishing partner to, "Watch this." When I jerked the bait again, those red hooks flashed like a neon light. To learn what the red hooks looked like underwater, we got a film crew to go underwater and photograph the Wild Shiner with the red hooks as we jerked it through the water.
On the film, you could see the red flashes every time you jerked the bait. The red hooks picked up light and reflected that light unbelievably. Every time we jerked the bait, the hooks flashed like red blinking lights. After I saw the tape, I said, "Okay, red hooks really look good to me. However, will the red hooks increase the number of bass I can catch, and will the bass bite the red hooks more readily than they will black, gold or silver hooks?"
I began to fish this jerkbait for a many different kinds of fish. I caught largemouth bass, peacock bass, snook and two tarpon on it in the canals around Miami, Florida. Now, tarpon are somewhat finicky. I've hooked them from time to time, but I rarely ever catch them. But on the day I tested the red hooks on the Wild Shiner, I hooked and brought two tarpon to the boat and had two more tarpon attack the bait. From this test, I learned that even really-finicky fish, like snook and tarpon, that are often really hard to catch, would attack and try to eat the Wild Shiner with the red hooks.
I don't know, because I haven't talked to a bass yet, if they're attacking the red hooks because they believe the bait is bleeding, or because the red hooks put off a bright, different color of flash in the water that triggers bass to strike. But, I do know that these red hooks cause me to get more bites and catch more fish than conventional colors do. One interesting parallel that I believe helps to prove the case for the red hooks is the hog troughs, which are large aquariums that you often see at consumer fishing shows where professional fishermen put on demonstrations. I've used these little red pointer pens that many business people use to point out certain details on a slide or an overhead projector or in Power Point presentations to cast a red light into these hog troughs that usually have a large number of bass swimming in them. You'll see the bass try to eat that red light. I know from that small example that when bass see a red flash in the water, they will attack it.
