Entry 154-1
A Lure is Born with Denny Brauer
The Big King Kong Swim Bait
Editor’s Note: Have you ever wondered why lure companies come out with new lures each year? Well, Strike King’s professional fishing staff are some of the best fishermen in the world, and one of their jobs is to identify new trends in the marketplace. These pros work to determine which lures will catch bass better, to define fishing problems that can be solved with better lures and to identify new colors and patterns that appear to make bass bite. Most of these anglers are on the water at least 200 days out of the year. Thanks to their research, Strike King brings its consumers the latest and greatest fishing lures and tactics. This week you’ll see the thought processes that take place before a new lure is put on the market and learn how and why Strike King has become the leader in the lure industry.
Question: Denny, what is the King Kong?
Brauer: The King Kong is a new swim bait that Strike King will be introducing this year. I know that when a fisherman looks at this bait he may say, “Wow, this bait is too big to catch bass.” But my eyes were opened three years ago while fishing on a deep, clear lake in California.
I had previously read about the big swim baits that California fishermen were using to catch trophy-sized bass, although I never had fished one of them. While on vacation in California, I experimented with these swim baits while practicing for the tournament. I noticed the bass followed them, but they didn’t seem to want to eat the big ole’ baits. Since the sky was clear, and the sun was bright, the conditions were not right. However, we did catch a couple of 6-pound bass using this big swim bait.
During the first two days of the tournament, the fishing was mediocre, and I was catching bass here and there. However, I felt like I was not in contention to win. On the last day of the tournament, the weather conditions changed around noon. When a windstorm blew up, and cloud cover moved in, I looked at my observer and said, “I’m about to show you how to catch a big bag of fish.” I made a 10-mile run to the same area where those big bass followed the swim baits during practice. I started casting a big plastic swim bait and caught the biggest stringer of bass on the last day of the tournament. My standings completely changed. Thanks to that big swim bait, I received a better check.
When I came back from that tournament, I called Phil Martin, one of the lure designers for Strike King. He asked me what the lure looked like in the water. So, one day while fishing on a small lake, I took a swim bait out of my rod locker to show him how it worked. Since the water was clear that day, I handed him my rod with the swim bait tied to it.
He cast the lure out about 10 yards just so he could see the bait swim. While reeling in the lure, a 4-1/2-pound largemouth bass nearly jerked the rod out of his hand. It didn’t take a lot of convincing on my part to get Strike King to start looking at the possibility of developing a big swim bait. The swim baits that the California anglers used were made of soft plastic, which was easily destroyed. Typically, too, these baits were very expensive. We began to look at how to build the same type of bait using hard plastic.
Next: The Marlin Bait
Contents:
- Part 1: The Big King Kong Swim Bait
- Part 2: The Marlin Bait
- Part 3: The Ability of the King Kong
- Part 4: How to Fish the King Kong
- Part 5: Where to Fish the King Kong
