Entry 182-2

Why We Do What We Do

Part 2: Pure Poison

Editor’s Note: Have you ever wondered why Strike King has some of the nation’s best professional fishermen on their pro staff? Does the company have pros only to make public appearances and represent their lures? Does Strike King use the nation’s top pros because they win the most tournaments? Does the company have top pros to use their pictures and images in advertising? We asked Mark Davis what’s the most-important role Strike King pros play for Strike King. “Our main jobs include helping develop new products, finding niches in the fishing lures on the market that no company’s selling, and looking for those subtle, overlooked aspects of fishing that we can incorporate in our baits to give our customers the best, the newest and the most-unique lures in the fishing tackle market today,” Davis says. This week, Davis will take a look at some of the new lures Strike King will introduce in 2007 and tell us what makes these lures special.

Strike King’s new chatterbait, Pure Poison, is basically a swimming jig. I’m just beginning to learn how deadly a chatterbait like Pure Poison can be. Chatterbait-fishing is a whole new method of fishing. The Pure Poison is a swimming jig, but it does more than swim. You can fish it in shallow water or deep water, crawl it through brush, fish it on top of the water like a top-water lure and/or fish it like a crankbait or a spinner bait. You also can catch suspended fish with this bait. It’s unlike any other type of jig because it has a shimmy to it, it has a blade on it and it wobbles.

If you really want to give the bait some action, put a trailer on it. The Pure Poison is a very-versatile lure, and you can make it even more versatile with the type of trailer you put on it. Many times, I’ll put a split-tail spinner bait trailer on the back of the Pure Poison. Other times, I may put a 3X Denny Brauer Chunk on the back of it. Often I’ll put the chunk on the back of the hook like you will with any other type of jig. I’ll thread that Denny Brauer Chunk on the hook, push it all the way into the skirt, and glue it up under the skirt, making the jig look more like a swimming crawfish.

Another thing I’ll do with the Pure Poison is completely remove the skirt and put a shad body like a Zulu behind the head. I’ll probably use the Z Too instead of the Zero. Rigged this way, the Pure Poison is really effective on schooling bass because it has a shad body on a jig that makes noise and shimmies. You also can use this rig to fish Pure Poison around suspended bass.

This lure is so new it presents the fishermen with so many new ways to fish it that we’re just beginning to discover all the different ways we can use this lure. I can talk all day about the different possibilities and ways you can change up the Pure Poison to make it look, act and swim different than any other lure on the market. You can take the skirt off, put a crawfish body on it and fish it a completely different way. You also can change the color and make this lure look like any type of critter a bass will eat.

I don’t really know why Strike King named this lure a chatterbait because it doesn’t chatter – it shimmies, shakes and doesn’t make any noise. If you want it to make noise, attach a jig rattle to it. The main thing I like about Pure Poison is this bait allows fishermen to be as creative as he/she wants to be and mix and match various types of skirts, bodies, rattles, trailers and colors to make this bait be anything you want it to be to fish it in any depth of water. It gives bass a different look and action that they’ve ever seen before out of this style of bait. As time passes and we get more experience fishing this lure, we’ll see more anglers catching more bass using this lure in more different ways than we’ve ever dreamed. I’m really excited about this lure, and I’ve just begun to learn how to fish it.

Next: The King Shad

Contents:

• Part 1: Why the Flat Shad
• Part 2: The King Shad
• Part 3: The Sand Blaster
• Part 4: The Red Eye Shad