As anglers, we talk a lot of jack. If you don’t know what we mean by jack, we’re talking about bragging about our catches, how good we catch them, our awesome equipment and any other way we can find to one up our fishing buddies. We love to hear a good story on a great fish catch or a new product. But mostly it’s just to get a rise out of a good friend.
Well there is some new “Jack” out there that will probably get a rise out of some big bass. I ran into Shin Fukae and his lovely wife Miyu at the Forrest Wood Cup. I always like to talk to the Fukaes because I’m pretty sure Shin sleeps with a smile on his face from ear to ear. I just like to be around people that love fishing that much and are so focused on the details of the sport.
Miyu introduced me to Takeshi Matsumoto, designer of Fish Arrow lures. Fish Arrow has a big following in Japan but they are just now starting to bring their creations stateside, and we found one of their first baits in the U.S. to be very interesting.
The bait is called a Huddle Jack 125 S. It’s a swimbait with one single joint. The huddle part of the name sounds familiar to swimbait afficianados. That’s because the bait was built in cooperation with Huddleston, namely in using their very recognizable “boot tail,” designed by legendary swimbait maker Ken Huddleston.
The Huddle Jack features a narrow minnow profile more like a smelt or herring as opposed to a wider shad or perch profile. The bait is 125 cm or 4 3/4 inches long. It has an awesome weight system and sinks slowly. You can cast it like a rocket.
I picked one up at the FWC Expo and got to throw it some this weekend. It swims with a nose straight but good tail kick. It’s like a narrower, smaller version of a Hud in a hardbait. Just another size option. The bait has three hook hangers but only two hooks. You can take the hook off the bottom and put it on the tail if you feel you’re getting some short strikers.
We didn’t fish the bait long but we’re already happy with the new bait. So I think when the bass are cruising chasing some bigger forage on the flats, this is going to be the deal. I can’t wait to throw it around some big schoolers.
