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Fall 2025
page 58
Sakamata Shad and the RAID 5” Fish Roller. To go with these JDM soft plastic baits, new styles of jigheads have been designed and making their way on to the end of anglers in the United States, like the Owner Range Roller and Gamakatsu Horizon Head.
Fish haven’t seen many of these baits, so on bodies of water that are highly-pressured, using JDM baits allow you to put a bait in front of the bass that they may have never seen before.
Fishing these new style baits, has also brought new and specialized rods, reels and line to the United States, like the Seaguar PEX8, which is 22 percent thinner than a typical braided line, making it an optimal choice for FFS techniques, and other light line finesse fishing applications. Rods that manufacturers in the United States never had available, like a 6’0”, light- action spinning rod, are now becoming available.
Along with new baits and gear, the JDM tackle craze has also introduced bass fishermen to new rigging methods for not only JDM soft plastics, but domestic soft plastics as well. The Jika rig is where a tungsten weight is connected to the eye of the hook, this presents a soft plastic in a very different manner than other rigging
methods and is especially effective when bass are feeding on the bottom.
What’s unique when you look at JDM baits, is you don’t see the staple black and blue color that is readily available in pretty much every soft plastic bait in the United States. JDM baits are heavily dominated by very natural crawfish and shad patterns, along with the popular Scuppernong color.
“The trick is to try and predict who is going to win an Elite Series event, and on what bait,” said Ross. “Then we want to make sure we have those baits in stock and ready to go out the door.”
Retailers are trying to keep
up with the demand, and this
isn’t always easy, as sometimes
the minimum turnaround time
to get baits over from Japan is three to four weeks. So, if you are in search of some JDM fishing tackle, don’t sleep on making that purchase when you see something you like, as in the blink of an eye it could be gone, and gone for some time.
Like everything in bass fishing, it is about confidence and being comfortable with that you are fishing with, so if you want to change up your bait offerings, be sure to give some JDM fishing tackle a try, and you never know what may become your next go to fishing lure. •