Entry 126-1

Kevin VanDam on Strike King’s New Products

Six New Colors in the Bleeding Wild Shiner

Editor's Note: This fall Strike King has introduced a boat load of new products. However, the Strike King Pros have had the opportunity to fish these new products during this past summer before their introductions. This week Kevin VanDam will tell us what exciting new Strike King products he's fished and what he likes about them.

VanDam: Without a doubt, I'm most excited about the six new colors Strike King has for the Bleeding Wild Shiner line of jerkbaits. We have a new shad, a rainbow trout, a chartreuse blue back, a chartreuse purple back and a bleeding whitefish pattern. The chartreuse blue black, the chartreuse purple back and the bleeding whitefish Wild Shiners are all great colors, especially in the South when you're fishing during the spring in stained water with a jerkbait. But Strike King didn't forget the northern fishermen either. We have a new Bleeding Calico Wild Shiner that really enhances the line and gives northern a new bright-colored jerkbait with which to fish. All these lures have the red hooks and red throat patches.

These six new colors certainly will enhance the Strike King line and give fishermen much more variety of colors from which to choose. I've been asked before in seminars, "Do the red hooks make a difference in whether or not a bass will take a bait, or is the red hook just another gimmick to sell more fishing lures?" My answer is quite simple. I don't like to add my name to any product or endorse any product that I don't truly believe in my heart will help a fisherman catch more bass.

So, before I got all fired-up about the red hook, I did my own test to see if they would make a difference in the fish-catching ability of the Wild Shiner. Two years ago, while fishing in Michigan where the water was really clear, I'd just gotten some new red hooks from Mustad. I decided to put one set of red treble hooks on the front of the Wild Shiner to try to determine if the red hooks would make any difference in its fish-catching ability. Most bass generally would attack a lure right near the throat of the bait, and that was why I put the red treble hook in the front of the lure.

Up in Michigan where I fished, you could catch a lot of smallmouth in a day of fishing. Therefore I felt like I could get a pretty good idea about whether or not these red hooks would make a difference. The other two sets of treble hooks on my Wild Shiner bait were the same hooks that came on the lure. Nine out of the next 10 bass I caught had the front set of red treble hooks locked solidly in their jaws. Next, I said to myself, "Okay, I'm going to put the red hooks on the tail of the bait and put the standard hooks on the front of the Wild Shiner and see what happens." Then nine of the next 10 bass I caught had attacked the tail of the bait and had those red hooks solidly in their jaws. This test confirmed what I had believed, that wherever a hook had red on it, that would be the area of the lure the bass would target.

You can look at those red hooks coming through the water, see the flash they give off and know that those hooks create a lot of attention when they're in the bass's environment. I think the red color is a natural cue that lets the bass know that the baitfish it's looking at is wounded and will make an easy meal. I'm a fanatic now about red hooks, because I know for myself that they get more strikes, and the bass attack the red flash.

I've also been asked, "Why is having so many different colors of the same lure important?" I'm convinced that you have to have colors of lures that match the forage where the bass are feeding and the water clarity for all the different areas you fish. Many times you'll be fishing a jerkbait in really-clear water. If you're fishing a jerkbait that's the same color as the forage fish the bass are feeding on, you're going to get the bass to react to your lure much more readily. So, that's why I'm excited about the six new colors in the Wild Shiner line. They give me more choices of colors to fish to match the forage in any lake I'm fishing at any time that I'm fishing.

Kevin VanDam on Strike King’s New Products

Six New Colors in the Bleeding Wild Shiner

Next: Fired-Up About the Bleeding Premiere Elite Spinner Bait

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