Fall 2018
breaking down
PENCIL POPPERS
®
As the 2017 Forrest
Wood Cup champion,
Justin Atkins turned the IMA Little Stik into
a $300,000 payday Credit: Ricky Bodsford
by Sean Ostruszka
page 22
walking with the Big Boys
A
fter any major championship there’s always
one lure or technique that grabs everyone’s
attention. After the 2017 FLW Forrest Wood Cup, it was pencil poppers.
In case you didn’t hear, what was supposed to be a
typical brutal August bite on Lake Murray turned into a
smashfest.
For those who tuned into the online live broadcast, they
witnessed winner Justin Atkins using an IMA Little Stik 135
to crush 20+ pounds a day offshore. And he wasn’t the only
one.
Nine of the top 10 anglers were throwing giant walking
baits over sunken cane poles to target bass that were
schooling and gorging on the lake’s blueback herring.
Obviously, watching anyone crush 20 pounds on a bait
you don’t have is going to prompt many to run out and buy
some.
So, what exactly did they buy? After all, pencil poppers are not new – the original Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper has been a striper and inshore go-to for decades – and in essence – they’re nothing more than giant, louder versions of the walking stickbaits you already have plenty of in your tackle box.
We asked two of those top-10 pros from that event, Anthony Gagliardi and Scott Suggs, what exactly made these large surface baits so indispensable at the Cup and how to best use them on your home body of water.
LONGER, HEAVIER, LOUDER
As we said, pencil poppers have been around for decades, but it’s best to identify what distinguishes a pencil popper – in the way these pros think of them – from any other walking bait.