BY WALTER CLAXTON
With recent wins coming on both the BASSMasters Elite Series and the MLF trails by anglers using the new urchin baits it appears the whispers are true. The newest trend in angling has arrived and it looks like a koosh ball!
During the BASSMasters Elite event on Santee Cooper Lake in South Carolina, the winner, Canadian Chris Johnston set out to erase his one-dimensional identity as a northern smallmouth guru on the massive and shallow southern bass fishery. He succeeded without the aid of forward-facing sonar (not permitted at this tour stop).
His lure of choice? Johnston used the Hideup Coike Fullcast in two colors (scuppernong and watermelon seed). He rigged both baits with a No. 1 Gamakatsu treble hook and pushed a 1/8-ounce tungsten sinker into the bottom of the bait so the buoyant material would sink.
Johnston won by a 19 pound, 12-ounce margin of victory with a winning weight of 113-12.
“To have the week I had, catching 5-, 6- and 7-pounders the whole time, you couldn’t ask for anything more.” Notably, he sacked impressive daily limits weighing 21-3, 32-8, 29-2 and 30-15.
The Canadian pro skipped and pitched the winning lure around main lake docks in less than 10 feet of water that he believed held resident largemouth. Skipping and pitching produced best. He opted for the lesser fished docks, given the most fishing pressure focused on cypress trees and the recent regrowth of aquatic vegetation.
Second place finisher Brand Palaniuk also employed an urchin bait to amass his weight of 94 pounds even targeting Santee’s prodigious cypress trees. His bait of choice was also the Hideup Coike Fullcast on No. 1 BKK Spear 21 SS Treble Hook with 3/32-ounce X Zone Lures Tungsten Pagoda Nail Sinker.
Combine this 1-2 finish at the recent BASSMasters event along with a first place finish for Fisher Anaya at Lake Martin earlier this year (in only his second Elite Series event) and you have a trend we identified in our April edition that has created conditions where these spiky ball lures are sold out in many places.
Urchin-style baits are manufactured by several companies and are made from high-density, durable plastic, more similar to silicone rubber than soft plastic. It’s a buoyant one-piece design with multiple tentacles sprouting from a center core.
With such a unique look, many debate what it most resembles for a bass. Many think it most mimics spiders, bugs, or sea urchins. In a recent Bassmaster Magazine article by David A. Brown, he found that Hideup founder Hideo Yoshida has a different opinion.
“Everyone thinks of the Coike as a weird shape, a spider of a sea urchin, but I believe the bass think it is many small fish biting the center ball. It’s like a bait ball, so I’m always shaking it because a bait ball is always moving.”
W2 asked a number of region semi pros and guides if they were using the urchin baits yet on their home waters around Virginia.
“I first tried a fuzzy dice bait on the tank at the Green Top Outdoor Expo last October. The baits were called Spider Bites and given to me by the owner of Tiger Baits. Those bass in the tank gobbled them up every time I casted it, so I was intrigued that something so odd looking would fool a fish,” noted W2 Publisher and Lake Anna guide C.C. McCotter. “I know they work on Anna and I have used the urchin style baits around docks, too, with success. I was hoping to keep it quiet a bit longer but the secret is out now.”
Specialty tackle retailer Lin Bell of Fishing Pro Tech has long had a knack for identifying bass tackle trends early. He stocked the Hide Up Coike lures over the winter and quickly sold out.
“This last BASSMaster tournament threw more gas on the fire for sure. I saw those baits three years ago in a Japanese magazine. It started with the fuzzy dice from OSP by threading skirt strands and then it went to the spikey elastomer version. It’s like the Slug-Go or Senko, which each created new bait categories,” Bell said and added, “Beware of knock-offs as they can be better or worse.”
Bell also noted there will be some new types of hooks on the market specifically designed for fishing urchin baits.
