There are alternatives for days when the tuna just don’t show up at Louisiana’s hottest offshore spot.
For something so light, it sure is strong. That’s the 0.032-gauge super stainless steel wire being used for one of the hottest artificial lures of the fall season in 2006.
Talon Leadhead Lures owner Andrea “Andi” Sanders of Milam, Texas, challenged one of the company’s pro staffers to break a new Talon Light Super Stainless Red Series spinnerbait. Sanders asked the pro because she couldn’t break one.
Well, Dave McCormick, 40, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., a Kansas City suburb, swung 4-pound-class bass in the boat for as long as he could with one of the spinnerbaits and, yes, it did break. The spinnerbait broke on the 45th fish, Sanders said.
That’s why the word “super” is part of the spinnerbait’s name, Sanders said last month. Sanders, her husband, Ivan, McCormick and Larry Cupper, who owns Country Station in Broussard, put their heads and knowledge together last spring to design an artificial lure she hoped would compete with some popular spinnerbaits in South Louisiana.
Mission accomplished, said the former Bass N Gal pro who moved to Milam in 2002 from St. Louis, where her disabled husband worked as a firefighter before suffering a major back injury in the line of duty. He had started Talon Leadhead Lures 25 years ago, and she took over the company in 1996.
The Talon Light Super Stainless Red Series spinnerbait was introduced at the Southeast Louisiana Oilman’s Bass Tournament on Toledo Bend last September. It went on shelves at nearby Toledo Town & Tackle, Country Station and elsewhere, and since then “we’ve probably sold several thousand,” Sanders said.
Bass fishermen have raved about them from Texas to Louisiana to Missouri, where McCormick uses a 1/2-ounce version to wake the spinnerbait and tattoo the bass on the Lake of the Ozarks.
His buddies are catching on to the red-hot spinnerbait, too, he said, and the word is spreading fast.
Sanders said she’s pleasantly surprised because it really isn’t “spinnerbait season.” But she knows the spinnerbait is a good one.
The standard Talon Leadhead Lures spinnerbait uses a 0.040-gauge wire, she said. Cupper, McCormick and others urged her for a long time to come up with a spinnerbait with a lighter wire.
They chose the 0.032-gauge, and started testing for the right measurement and tuning it before coming up with the final design, she said.
“It’s wonderful stuff to work with, great to work with as a bait. It’s springy. When you fish it, it really transfers vibration to the frame of the bait. It has a wonderful action on it,” she said. “We’re one of the very first to make a 1/2-ounce bait on that wire and, boy, is that nice.”
McCormick is 40-year-old pro who qualified for last year’s Elite BASSMasters tournament trail but opted against fishing it to devote time to his thriving business. He concentrated instead on local tournament trails such as the Heartland Pro-Am and BassWorld’s Ozark Division. He plans to fish the Wal-Mart Stren Series in 2007.
“It’s a great spinnerbait. I’ve won over the last 45 days probably $3,800 on it in local weekend tournaments at Lake of the Ozarks,” McCormick said.
He points out that some 1/2-ounce spinnerbaits made with heavy wire fold or turn to the side at a fast retrieve, which it takes to “wake” a spinnerbait under and around one of the docks at the Lake of the Ozarks. He and others put an oversized blade on them and try to tick the wire ropes holding the docks in place to trigger strikes.
McCormick’s doing that now, this winter, with the spinnerbait and having plenty of success, he said the first week of December.
“I helped design it. I promise you, it’s one of the finest spinnerbaits out there,” he said.
The spinnerbait is made in 1/4 -, 3/8- and 1/2-ounce models, Sanders said. Talon will make a 3/4-ounce model for whoever special orders it in that size, she added.
The Talon Light Super Stainless Red Series spinnerbait also features a Sampo swivel, Mustad Ultra Point Red Hook, tough painted heads with the manufacturer’s trademark eyes, custom Lakeland Premium Finish 24K gold, nickel or sealed copper blades, and three skirt options, including the popular flat rubber spinnerbait skirts.
It is available in a dozen colors, but more are planned, such as a “ghost minnow” color, Sanders said. Suggested retail is around $6.29.
She and her husband are as excited about this light-wire spinnerbait as they are about their new Talon Series Lipstickers Jig for fishing soft plastics shaky head-style, a technique that swept the nation last year.
For more information on the Talon Light Super Stainless Red Series spinnerbait and the company’s other products, call 409-625-1261, or go to their Web site (which features a unique customizing tool called Create-A-Lure) at leadheadlures.com.
