He said that he’s not sure why they perform better than the more recent iterations, but he’s convinced that they are.
“Supposedly they still have the molds, but the newer ones are just slightly different,” he said. “Even if they’re custom painted, I can tell if they’re old or new. I was told that when they poured them, they used a type of plastic that is so toxic they’re no longer able to use it.”
He typically fishes it on 10-lb. Gamma fluorocarbon, but will go down to 8 on occasion and keeps his color choices simple, doting on craw colors much of them time, but in northeastern lakes with yellow perch he throws “straight gold” and fire tiger.
KEITH COMBS: BAGLEY’S BB2
The Texan hammer has caught hundreds, if not thousands, of bass on Strike King’s KVD series of square bills, but under certain conditions he
says that the old
Bagley’s
balsa bait can’t be beat. It’s always in the boat, but only gets used in emergency situations. “It’s probably once every three or four years,” he said. “But it has bailed me out a lot of times.”
The situations where it excels is when the water is muddy and the fish have trouble locating crankbaits with a more subtle wobble. “It has a big body, and produces a lot of deflection,” he explained.
The only problem is that they weren’t constructed extremely well, and the balsa is naturally inconsistent.
“It’s one of the junkiest baits on the market,” he said. “If I get 10 of them, only two or three will work right. There are such variations in the weight of the bait. Some run 24-inches under the water and others run 4-ft. If you hit them on a rock, it ruins the bait. That makes it hard, but it’s worth it.”
SUMMER 2016
CLARK REEHM: BOBBY D’S GRINDER
Texas pro Clark Reehm knows the power of a vibrating jig from coast to coast, but he also knows that on many versions “quality control is lacking or the hook quality is not there.” That’s why he relies on his Bobby D’s Grinders, which feature quality components and what he calls a perfect design.
“I got turned onto it by Mike Andrews when the Elite Series went to California in 2010,” he recalled. “That year, I made $50,000 on that bait alone. Unfortunately, it’s not made anymore; so I baby the ones I’ve got.”
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