Entry 158-3

Fishing With Randy Dearman

Perfect Skirt

Editor’s Note: Randy Dearman, an avid fishermen and professional angler from Onalaska, Texas, has fished professionally for 20 years. He works as part of Strike King’s Pro Fishing Team and has competed in seven Bassmasters Classics.

Question: What makes the Perfect Skirt perfect? Is the new Perfect Skirt that Strike King is using on its spinner baits and buzzbaits this year just hype or, does it offer some unique advantages that we haven’t seen before?

Dearman: I really believe that the Perfect Skirt is the newest innovation in spinner baits that we’ve seen in years. You can change the colors of your spinner baits with these unique skirts, and I like the idea of having that extra tail on the skirt to give you the advantage of a trailer without your having to add the trailer to the lure.

Question: Randy, most people when they think of the colors of spinner baits, usually considering white, chartreuse, white-and-chartreuse, black or blue shad. Why do you fish the Strike King red crawfish spinner bait?

Dearman: I like to fish the Strike King red crawfish spinner bait at this time of the year during the pre-spawn. After the bass spawn, I rarely use a red spinner bait except in very-dirty water.

Question: What kind of places are you fishing that red spinner bait?

Dearman: I think the idea of fishing a red spinner bait came from Texas. As Texan fishermen began to fish other areas of the country, they’ve taken the idea of fishing the red spinner bait throughout the nation. I usually fish it around logs, rocks, grass, timber, clear water and dirty water.

I think the time of the year is more critical for the red crawfish spinner bait’s fishing success then the structure on which you fish it. I believe that pre-spawn is the best time of the year. Before we finish talking about the spinner bait, there is one other advantage to the Perfect Skirt, the way the strands of the skirt are tied to the head of the lure.

In the past, we have had skirts that were solid colors, or, skirts that were mixed colors. A mixed-colored skirt would have several strands of three to four different colors, but the colors were all mixed-up. With the Perfect Skirt, the colors of the strands of the skirt can be layered like the colors on a baitfish are layered. You can have a dark, dominant color on the top of the skirt that fades in to a medium color in the middle of a skirt and a very light color at the bottom of the skirt.

The spinner bait now looks more natural, and imitates a baitfish better than the skirts we have had in the past. If you look at crankbaits, they usually have a dark back, a lighter colored mid-section and a very light-colored belly. We’ve never had those three different layers of colors segmented that way in our spinner bait skirts.

However, the new Perfect Skirt allows us to layer those colors. Too, you don’t have to buy a pork or a plastic trailer to put on the hook of your spinner bait because the new Perfect Skirt has the trailer element fashioned in to the skirt. The trailer part of the skirt also eliminates the problem that we have had in the past with pork or plastic trailers flipping over the point of the hook, and often causing us to miss the bass. When a bass takes the bait, the point of the hook is always exposed as is the point of the trailer hook. You are less likely to miss a bass when you’re fishing the Perfect Skirt.

Fishing With Randy Dearman

Perfect Skirt

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