Entry 202-3
Shaw Grigsby on What Makes Strike King Lures Great
Editor’s Note: Fifty-one-year-old Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Florida, a longtime member of the Strike King team, has won over $2 million in tournament bass fishing. He’s fished professionally since 1984, and he’s the host of the “One More Cast” TV show on the Versus Channel. This week, we’ve asked Shaw to tell us what makes Strike King lures great.
Day 3: King of Shads – King Shad
In last week's journal, you learned how Mark Davis used Strike King’s King Shad, a jointed swim bait, to win a $100,000 tournament. Therefore, you know that when there’s money on the line, the King Shad can help you win. You can wake this bait on the surface, crawl it and make it rock back-and-forth on the surface, reel it down 4 or 5 feet quickly or slowly and jerk it and twitch it to make a bass bite. Too, it tracks well. If I have a bass following the King Shad, I twitch it to make the bait change direction, which almost always produces a strike. The King Shad is also smaller than most other swim baits. Therefore, it will solicit more strikes, more often than a big swim bait will.
My two favorite colors are the Tennessee Shad, which looks like a shad, and the Rainbow Trout. I’ve used the Rainbow Trout color in lakes where there’s never been a rainbow trout. There’s something about the pink line that runs down the side of the Rainbow Trout-colored King Shad that really produces bass strikes.
I’ve always caught tons of bass fishing a rainbow-trout-colored bait. I know you’re wondering why I’d fish a rainbow-trout-colored swim bait in a lake where there are no rainbow trout in the system. All I can say is that even if a bass never has seen a rainbow trout before, it will eat a bait that resembles one. Therefore, if you’re fishing the rainbow- trout-colored King Shad in a lake that doesn’t home these fish, you’re presenting a bait to the bass it’s never seen before but still will eat.
Remember, anglers who fish the same lake you fish and know that lake never has homed rainbow trout, more than likely won’t fish a rainbow trout-colored lure. That’s another reason to fish this lure, and it’s the same reason why I fish this color in lakes all over the country that don’t home rainbow trout.
My second choice of color is the Tennessee Shad, which looks like the shad bass see every day. When they see a big shad waking the surface, it offers an easy meal they can catch and eat. If you’ve never fished a swim bait, you should try it. Fishermen on the West Coast have used swim baits for a long time and caught large bass. Many East Coast fishermen don’t use them, but should try them. Once again, you’ll be fishing a bait most people don’t fish, using a technique most people don’t use.
Contents:
- Part 1: Pure Poison – There’s Nothing Like It
- Part 2: Catch the Red Eye
- Part 3: King of Shads – King Shad
- Part 4: Computers and Bass Fishing
- Part 5: Become a Jack-of-All Trades
