Entry 246-5

Fishing Strike King’s New 2008 Lures with Mark Menendez

Part 5: The Shadalicious and the Sexy Spoon

Question: Mark, at the 2008 Bassmaster Classic, Strike King introduced a new spoon, the Sexy Spoon, and a new swim bait, the Shadalicious. What do you think about these two lures?

Menendez: The Sexy Spoon will be a great lure to fish, especially during low-water conditions. Bass will gather and school-up on long points when there’s not much cover in the water. You can be deadly effective fishing the Sexy Spoon on the ends of drop-offs, ledges and points. The Sexy Spoon primarily will be used as an offshore bait to fish on structure and in deep-water situations like we often have during the hot summer months and the cold winter months. The Shadalicious has been developed from what we’ve learned from West Coast fishermen. West Coast fishermen use techniques for catching bass that fishermen in the East are unaccustomed to using.

I’ve been fishing a swim bait like the Shadalicious for a long time. However, I’ve never seen a swim bait that will be more effective in producing bass than the Shadalicious. The prototypes Strike King has sent me to test have been better than any of the other swim baits I’ve ever seen. As more East Coast fishermen learn these West Coast tactics and become more familiar with how to fish swim baits, the Shadalicious will become a hot lure for Strike King. Most swim baits only have tail action, but the Shadalicious has both tail and head action. The Shadalicious comes in two sizes with subtle colors as well as bright colors. Although swim baits are relatively new to the East Coast, they’ll become a staple for bass fishing just like our other crankbaits have.

Question: The Shadalicious has a hollow body. What’s the advantage of a hollow-bodied swim bait over a solid-bodied swim bait?

Menendez: The hollow body allows the bait to suspend more as well as have a slower fall than the solid-bodied swim baits of the same size with the same type of hook and weight. The hollow body will enable the bait to stay in the strike zone a little bit longer than the solid-bodied swim baits will.

Question: Around what type of cover do you fish the Shadalicious, and under what conditions will you use it?

Menendez: I use the Shadalicious like a spinner bait when I’m casting to isolated targets like docks, stumps or logs. I prefer to wind it through trees laying in the water. But I also use it to pull bass out of thick cover into open water. This bait is a great birddog. If big fish are deep, they’ll come up and follow the swim bait, whether they hit it or not. Some days the bass will eat this bait every time they see it, but other days, they’ll turn off the bait.

I may return to that spot where the bass have followed the Shadalicious but not taken it and fish that area with a Strike King Football Jig. If I’m using the Shadalicious on a day when the bass aren’t really biting, I’ll use it to birddog the bass and get them up where I can see them, and then use another lure like the new Strike King Coffee Tube or the Strike King Rage Craw to go down deep and catch those bass where they live.

Contents:

• Part 1: Six Points Away from Fishing the Classic
• Part 2: The Rage Craw and Jig Combination
• Part 3: Don’t Rush the Football
• Part 4: The Sexy Shad Isn’t a Gimmick
• Part 5: The Shadalicious and the Sexy Spoon