Entry 82-5
Shaw Grigsby On Spinner Baits
Strike King's Bleeding Bait Spit-N-King
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 Spit-N-King always has been my favorite top-water lure. I believe that the Spit-N-King will catch as many, if not more, bass as any other top-water lure you can fish. I think the Spit-N-King spits better, chugs better and can be cast further than any of the top-water lures on the market today. The other thing I like about the Spit-N-King is because I live in Florida, this lure is one of my favorites to use to catch speckled trout and giant redfish. I've had die-hard inshore salt-water guides say, "You can't catch big redfish on a bait like that," and then when a big redfish blows up on that lure, and I catch the redfish and get it to the boat, I really get a kick out of how surprised these skeptics are. I also catch really big spotted seatrout on the Spit-N-King.
What's really neat about the new Bleeding Bait Spit-N-King lures for this year is that Strike King has eight new colors in the series. My favorite new color is the Smoky Joe. The other one I really like is the Bleeding Clear Nose Spit-N-King. You can see all the way through both of these baits. We've never had this kind of bait before in the Spit-N-King line. I really like the clear baits because if you have a clear bait sitting on the surface, then the bass can't tell exactly how big that lure is. Sometimes fish will be feeding on small baits and won't take a big bait. However, if the fish can't tell what size the bait is, they'll attack.
I've found that I can catch more bass on a clear bait even when those bass are eating baitfish much smaller than the Spit-N-King. Every time you chug the bait or cause it to spit, those red hooks flash red. So when you're fishing a clear Spit-N-King that the bass can't see, that bait flashes on the surface, and the bass spot those red hooks flash, then the bass will attack the hooks instead of the bait, which insures you'll get a better hook-up and catch more fish.
If you'll notice, the new Spit-N-King has a red hook on the front and not on the back. You may ask, "If red hooks make a big difference, why doesn't Strike King put a red hook on the back of the bait as well as the front of the bait?" If you'll think for a minute, you'll see that the answer is simple. We want the bass to attack the front of the lure and the red hook there and not see the hook on the back of the lure. Then we'll have twice the chance of catching that bass with a set of treble hooks that he doesn't even see.
The red hook on the front helps to insure that the bass will hit the center of the lure rather than the tail of the lure and will once again help to insure more hook-ups and fewer short strikes. Most of the time, the front hook will catch the bass deep in the mouth, and the back hook will either catch the bass on the front of the mouth or outside the mouth. This way both hooks get the bass instead of just one hook, something that often happens when you're fishing top-water lures and the bass are short striking. When you consider that the Spit-N-King also has a red dot behind the gills, you can see that Strike King has really tried to cause the bass to hit the center of the lure instead of the tail of the lure to help insure more hook-ups.
Another feature that you'll see on the new Strike King Spit-N-King Bleeding Bait series is that the size of the hooks are larger. The original Spit-N-King has a No. 6 treble hook on the front and a No. 6 hook on the back. This Bleeding Bait series Spit-N-King has a No. 4 treble hook on the front and a #4 treble hook on the back of the bait. The new Spit-N-King also has been designed so it still floats high in the water and doesn't sink because of the bigger hooks.
