Entry 145-2
Shaw Grigsby on Fishing Saltwater with Strike King
The Magic of the Redfish Magic
Editor’s Note: Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Florida, is one of Strike King’s most-visible pros with his TV show, his participation in Bassmasters tournaments and the promotions he does at boat shows, fishing events and anywhere sportsmen gather. Grigsby has taken Strike King Products into saltwater as well as freshwater, and this week, Grigsby will tell you some of the ways that Strike King lures have helped him to catch fish in both brackish water and saltwater. With Strike King in your tackle box, anywhere there’s water, you can go fishing and catch fish.
Grigsby: Something I’ve learned over the years is that many times you can trigger fish to bite when you fish inappropriate baits in inappropriate waters. This philosophy really proved true when I went to the Florida Keys to fish for redfish. The waters at the Florida Keys are pristine clear, and the real challenge for most anglers is getting close enough to the fish on the flats to catch them without being seen. In that really-clear water, you’ll find a lot of fly-fishermen using very small baits on very-light line to try to entice these fish to bite. They attempt to slip up on these big redfish, speckled trout, snook and tarpon and fish with sissy baits to try to catch these finicky-eating, very-spooky flats fish that are a challenge for most anglers.
I called my buddy, Rich, and told him I’d like to try the Redfish Magic, which is a big spinner bait with a 3X trailer, to catch redfish on the flats. Rich laughed and said, “Shaw, I don’t believe that big spinner bait will do anything but spook the redfish. But go ahead, and send a few of them down here. I’ll try it out before you get here.” I told Rich that I had a lot of faith in this bait and truly felt that it would catch those big redfish on the flats. So I sent Rich a few Redfish Magics.
The day I was driving down to the Keys, Rich went out on the flats to try this bull-in-a-china-closet type bait on those finicky flats redfish. When I arrived, he had just come in from fishing and was babbling about how many fish he’d caught on Strike King’s Redfish Magic. Rich admitted he was totally stunned and explained, “I would have never believed that the Redfish Magic could even catch a fish on the flats. But it didn’t just catch one fish. It caught tons of fish all day long.”
We went out the next day to film a TV show, and we caught an unbelievable number of fish. In this crystal-clear, shallow water, we would actually see redfish roll over on their backs to get under the baits and attack them. We’d see redfish cruising the flats that when they spotted the flashes off the Redfish Magic blades, they’d completely change direction, chase the Redfish Magics and crush them when they took the baits. And, redfish weren’t the only fish we caught. We also took snook and tarpon using the Redfish Magic in that really-clear water.
The Redfish Magic is what I call a Bubba bait - a big bait that’s brash, gives off a lot of flash and has tremendous swimming action. It’s not the kind of bait that a typical clear-water fisherman ever thinks of using. And, it’s definitely not the kind of bait that a Florida Keys flats fisherman ever thinks of putting in his tackle box. However, what we’ve learned is that you should never go to clear saltwater or actually any type saltwater without a Redfish Magic.
The only problem with the Redfish Magic is that it doesn’t cull fish. You can’t just go tarpon fishing, redfish fishing, snook fishing or speckled trout fishing with the Redfish Magic, because it doesn’t discriminate. It will catch every fish that swims. There’s just something about that flash coming off the blade that gets a fish’s attention, and that 3X grubs swimming on the backs of the hooks just makes those fish so mad they’ve got to come and eat those baits.
Another thing that makes that bait so great on the flats is often you’ll have multiple targets to cast to, and because the fish don’t tear up that 3X grub, as soon as you unhook one fish, you can immediately cast to another fish without having to put on a new grub. One of the greatest advantages of the Redfish Magic is that it’s basically a brainless lure. All you have to do is cast it out and reel it in without twitching it, speeding it up, slowing down the retrieve or really even know how to fish a spinner bait to catch fish on the Redfish Magic.
Contents:
- Part 1: Grigsby’s Double Zulu Rig...
- Part 2: The Magic of the Redfish Magic
- Part 3: The Glass Minnow – Stick It to ‘Em
- Part 4: Zuluing Tarpon
- Part 5: Snook
