Entry 269-4

Greg Hackney Squeaks into the Classic, Thanks to the Zero, the Finesse Worm and the Red Eye Shad

Part 4: Don’t Be Afraid of the Red Eye Shad

Question: You said the Red Eye Shad was the third most-important bait for you this year, and it helped you make the Bassmasters Classic. How did it help you?

Hackney: The Red Eye Shad is a utility lure. Often I caught one or two key bass in every tournament on the Red Eye Shad. For instance, at Lake Amistad, I’d catch 18 or 19 pounds of bass early in the morning on the Red Eye Shad. Then I’d have the confidence to go offshore to go after the bigger fish with a swim bait. The Red Eye Shad helped me on the BASS circuit and the FLW circuit. I had two top-6 finishes in the FLW Series right off the bat in 2008. In both tournaments, all the fish I weighed-in were caught on the Red Eye Shad, which gave me a lot of confidence to fish that bait the rest of the year.

Question: What color Red Eye Shad do you like the best?

Hackney: Brown craw and red. I caught a lot of good fish in the spring on the red Red Eye Shad. The hottest color this year has been the chrome sexy shad. And the reason I think the Red Eye Shad has been so hot is that it’s such a unique lipless crankbait. No one else has a lipless crankbait like the Red Eye Shad. And the reason is, when you kill the bait, it doesn’t flop over and fall to the bottom like an anvil. It swims to the bottom, giving it a really-natural action that drives the bass nuts.

Question: What’s the real secret to catching bass on the Red Eye Shad?

Hackney: I think the biggest thing that anglers have to learn about fishing the Red Eye Shad is don’t fish it with a steady retrieve. Instead, yo-yo the bait, pull it up, kill it or burn it (reel it really fast), stop the bait, and then let it fall. I’ve learned if the bass are chasing the bait, and you stop it, the Red Eye Shad has what I call the dying quiver. It acts like a shad that’s just had a heart attack and is slumping over and heading toward the bottom. From what I can see, the Red Eye Shad has the same side-to-side wobble that the Zero has when you cast it out and let it fall to the bottom without a weight. Bass just can’t stand that dying quiver. It really excites them and makes them want to bite.

Question: On what pound-test line are you fishing the Red Eye Shad?

Hackney: I usually like 16- or 20-pound-test Gamma fluorocarbon line. But if the water’s cold, or I’m trying to rip a lure out of the grass, I’m catching it on 50-pound braided line. I call the way I fish the Red Eye Shad “fishing the bait.” I’ll burn it, stop it, kill it, yo-yo it, jerk it and let it fall. I’m pulling it and stopping it. I’m giving the bait a lot of different types of erratic racehorse, dying kinds of actions, instead of just chunking it and winding it.

Question: What rod and reel do you like to fish when you’re fishing the Red Eye Shad?

Hackney: I use the 6:1 Quantum PT Reel and I like a 7-foot Quantum Energy Cranking Stick.

Question: Around what kinds of places are you fishing the Red Eye Shad?

Hackney: You know, the more I’ve learned about fishing the lipless crankbait, the more I’ve discovered that you can fish it anywhere. There’s not a bad place to throw this lure. Many times, I’m looking for the heaviest cover I can cast it to, and yes, I will get hung-up some. But I’ll get a lot more bites than people who don’t cast to that heavy cover. I’m showing the bass a lure in a place that they’ve never seen a lure like this. Most people are afraid to throw a lipless crankbait into heavy cover because they don’t want to get hung-up. And, yes, you will get hung some if you throw into heavy cover. But if I can get a few good bites by casting the Red Eye Shad into places where nobody else will cast it, I don’t mind getting it hung-up every now and then.

Question: How do you get the Red Eye Shad unhung?

Hackney: Many times you can pop it loose. But because the Red Eye Shad has a fairly-wide nose, it doesn’t get hung-up like a lot of other lipless crankbaits do. If you watch it run through the water, you’ll see that it runs with its nose down, which puts both sets of the treble hooks above and behind the lure. Therefore, the bait will hit the cover long before the hooks get to it. So this bait really deflects well off of the cover because of its wide nose.

Another thing that helps me not to get hung is the way I hold my rod. Instead of pointing my rod at the cover when I’m reeling the Red Eye Shad in, I’ll hold my rod tip up high. Then when the nose of the bait hits a tree limb, the lure deflects off and comes up, rather than deflecting off and going down. I’m keeping those hooks away from the branches where the bait can get hung-up. By holding that rod high, you can get that bait out of the cover and get bites that you don’t ordinarily get. Many times, when a bass hits my bait, the strike will come just as the bait hits a limb and bounces off.

Next: The Classic Comes Home

Contents:

• Part 1: I Almost Missed the Train
• Part 2: Beefed-Up Finesse Fishing
• Part 3: The Finesse Worm Saves the Day at Lake Oneida and Lake Erie
• Part 4: Don’t Be Afraid of the Red Eye Shad
• Part 5: The Classic Comes Home