Entry 289-3
Why I Worked On These Strike King Lures for Bass with Mark Menendez
Editor’s Note: Strike King believes that the best way to develop new and better lures is to have a team of professional fishermen, who earn their livings catching fish, identify how to design and improve lures that will catch more fish for more fishermen. Most of the lures developed by Strike King have been field-tested by some of the top fishermen in the nation. This week, Mark Menendez of Paducah, Kentucky, will tell us about the five Strike King lures in which he’s had the most input in developing, testing, fishing and promoting.
Part 3: The Mini 3 Will Catch Anything
Question: Mark, what’s another Strike King bait that you’ve had a lot of input in developing?
Menendez: When I first saw the Mini 3 in the prototype stage, I really liked the way the bait looked. I thought it would catch bass, so I wanted to test it. The Mini 3 is a little-bitty deep-diving crankbait approximately 2-inches long, which is a much-smaller bait than most bass fishermen use. Because of the weight of the lure, you can throw it on casting tackle and not have to fall back to lighter-weight spinning tackle. When the Mini 3 was in the prototype stage, I was sick with spinal meningitis.
So, Chris Brown of Strike King made sure I received the Mini 3 to give me a project that would get me off the couch and back to fishing. I took my aluminum bass boat and my child, and we went fishing with the Mini 3. The first day I fished the Mini 3, I caught 75 fish. Now, they weren’t all bass. I caught channel cats, drum, stripers, white bass, hybrids, spotted bass, largemouth bass and big bluegills. That one little bait stayed intact, while I caught all those different kinds of fish.
As I watched the effect that bait had those various species of fish, I decided that Strike King needed a hook that not only would hold a bluegill but also a big saltwater striper, a catfish, a drum or any other big fish that might decide to eat that bait. 
When I finally brought in the Mini 3 after catching 75 fish, I noticed the bait had scars and scratches all over it. That beat-up lure went into a Strike King ad to show the fishability of the Mini 3.By the time I received the Mini 3 in the prototype stage, Strike King wanted to know if it would catch bass and how many and the size of bass it would catch. By fishing the Mini 3, I learned that not only would it catch bass, that little deep-diving crankbait would catch any fish that swam and numbers of fish.
Question: When do you fish the Mini 3?
Menendez: I prefer to fish the Mini 3 when I’m fishing river systems because the fish in a river system don’t seem to grow as big as the fish in a lake do. 
I also like to fish the Mini 3 in late January when we get warming fronts with bright sunny days. The bass will pull up on main lake banks and points, and you often will find the bass holding on little shallow flats only 2- to 3-feet deep. The bass want to get on those flats and warm-up.
The Mini 3 fishes about 3-feet deep. Under these conditions, the bass don’t want a big meal, but when they have a little hors d’oeuvre running right in front of their nose, they have to eat it. At that time of year, the Mini 3 is hard to beat. Too, I like to use it when I take children fishing. Children like to catch all kinds and numbers of fish, and the Mini 3 fulfills that need better than any other lure.
