Entry 262-3
Fishing the New Strike King Lures with Mike Wurm
Editor’s Note: “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a Strike King pro,” laughs Mike Wurm of Hot Springs, Arkansas, as he tries to remember when he actually began working with Strike King. With two tournaments left in the season, Wurm still has the chance to qualify for the 2008 Bassmaster Classic. This week, we’ll find out where Wurm has been fishing this year and how he’s catching bass.
Part 5: The Stronger, Bigger Football Head Jig
Question: Mike, I understand you’re fishing the new Football Head jig.
Wurm: Yes, we’ve modified the Football Head jig to put a much bigger, stronger hook in it. When you get a bite with the Football Head jig, your hook ratio will rise tremendously, and the chances of losing bass are much less. One advantage Strike King has over other lure companies is Strike King has tournament pro fishermen on its staff who are out on the water in all the major tournaments. When we find ways to improve any of the Strike King products, we make those suggestions. Then Strike King develops a better lure or uses different components to make its lures better.
The other thing that makes the Football Head jig one of the best jigs on the market is the new Rage Tail Craw and Rage Tail trailer. The Football Head jig also has several great skirt colors. If you match these new skirt colors with the Rage Tail trailers, or if you use the Rage Tail Craw as a trailer to get a bigger profile, you’ve created a unique lure with a lot of color-combination possibilities. I like the Football Head jig because the head of the jig has a more-rounded shape on each end instead of coming to a sharp point on each end of the football. 
This rounded shape helps the bait go through rocks and cover much easier, and it allows you to drag the jig around and through cover and along the bottom better than a football head with points on each end of the lead-headed jig.
Strike King also has a nice brush guard on its Football Head jig. If the brush guard is too thick, you lose hook-setting power. If the brush guard isn’t thick enough, you stay hung-up all the time. Many fishermen don’t realize the importance of a brush guard. The brush guard has to be designed to give the fisherman maximum hook-setting power, yet still be able to keep him from getting hung-up.
Strike King’s Football Head jig is a great bait by itself. But when you add the Rage Tail trailer or the Rage Tail Craw to the back of the Football Head jig and match-up the colors of the trailer or the Craw to the skirt colors of the Football Head jig, you’ve got a tremendous bass lure. The Rage Tail trailer and the Rage Tail Craw have phenomenal swimming action and pincers that flap back-and-forth, creating commotion. When the Football Head jig sits on the bottom, those pincers stand up like a crawfish in defense mode because it’s been alerted by a bass about to eat it.
The combination of these two lures produces one of the most-deadly ledge-fishing baits on the market today. When you pull that Football Head jig with the Rage Tail Craw off one ledge and let it drop to the next, the skirt shakes and the pincers flap back and forth, creating enough commotion to get a bass’ attention. Bass often will take the bait as it hops from one ledge to the next. If they don’t take the bait as it moves from ledge to ledge, when the Football Head jig hits the bottom, and those pincers come to attention, the bass will take what it believes is a big crawfish. The bass can’t resist the Football Head jig with a Rage Tail Craw trailer when you’re ledge fishing. It’s the deadliest lure in my tackle box when I’m ledge fishing.
Contents:
- Part 1: The Shadalicious - A Deadly Swim Bait
- Part 2: The Ocho
- Part 3: The Space Monkey
- Part 4: The Sexy-Shad Colored Red Eye Shad
- Part 5: The Stronger, Bigger Football Head Jig
