Columns
The Matrix Shad
There are sound reasons behind the growing success of one of the hottest soft plastics for saltwater and, even, freshwater fish from Biloxi, Miss., to Houma and beyond in the Sportsman’s Paradise.[…]
Lure Review
Bass Fishing
Bass Trap back in action
A machinist’s touch has made all the difference in the world to a spinnerbait made in the Sportsman’s Paradise. Just ask some bass anglers by the name of Shaw Grigsby and Kevin Van Dam, who make sure they get their hands on the lure any time they get to Louisiana. Or ask accomplished Louisiana bass angler Jamie Laiche of Gonzales.[…]
Columns
Bass Kandi’s Coastal Crippler
Mike “Redbone” Holland of Ragley, who owns Bass Kandi Baits — a Southwest Louisiana artificial lure manufacturing company specializings in soft plastics — and his 11-year-old son Payton were deer hunting the week before Christmas near Kerrville, Texas.[…]
Bass Fishing
Vision Prop Limited Edition Buzz Bait
Leave it to someone with great vision for designing artificial lures to put a “boat prop-style” blade on a buzz bait that consistently catches bass coast to coast.[…]
Columns
Poppa Chop Jigs
Got a Poppa Chop?
If so, chances are you are using the fine-hair jig and catching sac-a-lait on the creation Paul “Chopper” Viator and his wife Angela make at their home in Delcambre.[…]
Bass Fishing
Bass drawn to the Poc’it Craw
When a Port Allen bass angler needed to cull some fish in his livewell during a recent Bassmaster Southern Open on Lewis Smith Lake near Jasper, Ala., he started fishing with a soft plastic that had been on the market no more than three weeks.[…]
Bass Fishing
KVD crankbaits are proven winners
During his meteoric rise to the top on the B.A.S.S all-time money list with more than $5.3 million won in tournaments around the United States, Kevin VanDam relied on artificial lures he had utmost confidence in.[…]
Columns
Not your typical creature bait
Just look at those rows and rows and rows of soft-plastic creature baits, the success story of the 21st century, on the shelves at the main outlets and the local fishing tackle shops. It can be a mind-boggling challenge to pick up the right one(s).[…]
Bass Fishing
‘D’ Shad does its job
Take it from some people who don’t throw this particular soft plastic as often as others: the “D” Shad catches bass after bass after bass. That may sound strange at first glance, but let me explain.[…]
Columns
MirrOdine Suspending Twitchbait
What’s 2 5/8 inches long, weighs 3/8 of an ounce, has a wide-body profile, hits the surface and sinks a little bit before suspending and drives speckled trout, redfish and other saltwater species wild with side-to-side movement and sound from fish-calling rattles?[…]
Columns
Chug’n Spook sure to be favorite
Is anything sacred any more?
Yes and no.[…]
Columns
Small, compact spinnerbait a hit
For a man who has been making some of the finest artificial lures in the country for 31 years, Texan Lonnie Stanley sure was talking excitedly — gushing, actually — at length a few weeks ago about his newest baby: a Wedgetail Mini Wedge Runner.[…]
Columns
Lil John new go-to bait
Month after month for the last year or so, Jeff Poe has talked glowingly about a soft plastic that he wasn’t sold on until his son and fellow charter boat captain Nick Poe threw him some one day when the younger Poe was tearing them up while very few, if any, speckled trout were going into the boat skippered by Jeff Poe.[…]
Columns
YUMbrella Rig
The newest wave of artificial lures has taken the fishing world by storm within the past few months.[…]
Bass Fishing
Instigator Lures spinnerbait
A growing number of bass fishermen in and around the Atchafalaya Basin are tuning into a spinnerbait that hums through the water much the same way a piano makes its melodic music.[…]
Bass Fishing
Yellow Magic
Sixty-year-old Texan Butch Ray can relate to the buzz heard for months this year around Toledo Bend and on Southwest Louisiana waters about a high-end topwater bait with a beautiful body and a seductive sound.[…]