Spinnerbaits have so many applications in bass fishing. One of my favorite is to use a spinnerbait to help me locate where the fish are in the water column.
That is exactly what I intended recently when I took the Strike King Tour Grade Spinnerbait out to Lake Lanier for some testing.
Construction
The wiring on the bait is pretty good, but does feel a bit brittle. I tested the double willow blades, and was pretty impressed with the finish on the blades. They are pretty well detailed, and look very good in the water.
Out of the box, the bait comes loaded with a trailer hook. I suggest to you that you remove it immediately.
Where this bait runs into problems is the way that the skirt, blades, and trailer hook interact.
Bait Action
The skirt that comes on the bait out of the box is very long. In fact, it’s too long. What happens is your skirt gets tangled around your wire, or your blades, or your trailer hook, and absolutely kills the action. You can feel it right away when you retrieve because the blades are not spinning. You don’t feel the tension you should feel when retrieving a good spinnerbait.
Unfortunately, this happens about 40-50% of the time that you will be casting the bait. To fix the issue, again, you need to remove the trailer hook, trim the skirt, or both—but doing this will also change the action of the bait.
This is the major draw back of the bait, and I can’t really describe to you how frustrating it is to fish this bait without modifying it.
Conclusion And Overall Rating
Unfortunately, because of the action issues of this bait, major points are lost. If you are waisting 40-50% of your casts because the blades are tangled in the skirt, you will not be having a very good time on the water.
Overall, this bait gets rated 1 out of 5 stars.
See ya on the water…
I agree that the skirt gets tangled up sometimes. Every few casts I have to straighten them out.
Otherwise, it’s an awesome bait. I’ve lost track of how many fish I caught with this thing in 2011. They always hit it hard and harder. Largemouth bass, walleye, crabbie and big channel cats all loved smashing it.
Also, I never take off the trailer hook, it’s a must to have!
Can’t wait to use it again for the 2012 season.
Good to hear from you Geoff, I’m glad that you’re having success with this bait. Strike King produces some real winners that are always in the front of our tackle boxes. Unfortunately, this spinnerbait is not one of them for us. But that’s the great thing about fishing, just because a particular lure doesn’t work for one angler doesn’t mean it won’t catch fish for another. Look forward to hearing from you again in the near future.
See ya’ on the water ….
It’s true that everyone has his/her own confidence lure. This spinnerbait may not be yours but I’m glad it’s mine. đŸ™‚
I used the 3/8 oz. The parrot colored one was the best color, along with white and sexy shad. One weekend on a local lake in mid-September 2011, I caught almost 100 largemouth bass to 4.5 lbs – average weight was about 2-2.5 lbs – on these spinnerbaits. They were schooled up in the main lake, feasting on baby sunnies. I even had a double-header on the spinnerbait! A 3 lber and and 1.5 lber. It was that crazy.
I also had some success with a black Tour Grade spinnerbait with double Colorado blades. Retrieved straight at medium speed, I had some tremendous strikes on it. But the night bites were nowhere near the number during the day. A trailer hook was a must for the night fishing as bass often missed the mark or just bumped it the first time only to come around and hit it a 2nd or 3rd time. Typically they were hooked on the trailer.