One of my favorite bass fishing techniques is snapping a jerkbait in cold water. And one of the jerkbaits I was most looking forward to fishing this winter was the Berkley Stunna 112.
The Stunna 112 was designed with the help of Hank Cherry, an obviously talented jerkbait fisherman, having won two Bassmaster Classics and nearly a third on jerkbaits. With his help the folks at Berkley were able to pack a ton of features into this jerkbait to give anglers a very versatile tool for cold winter bass as well as open-water fish on real-time sonar. I’ll give you a quick rundown of my experiences with this jerkbait and closer look at how it’s built.
You can find the Berkley Stunna 112 at these online retailers:
Lots of details
So the first thing I will see is the bait uses good hardware and did a great job on nailing the details. There is lots of shape details that contribute to the action of the bait. But there are also a lot of intricate details that make it look like a real minnow. Scale detail is very well done as well as the paint jobs on them. Nice big eyes that combined with all of the other details make for a very appealing looking jerkbait.
The lip is very solid and durable so you can rip the bait hard and hit it off of stuff and it keeps on trucking without worry of busting a lip off on every trip.
The hook hangers are solid as are the split rings so you can latch on to a big bass and pull hard without worry of the bait failing at any weak point.
One of the most impressive things to me about this jerkbait is how sticky the Fusion19 hooks on these jerkbaits are. Like borderline annoying how much they wanted to grab onto your hand while handling them. They are crazy sharp and that has translated into a bunch of bass hooking themselves for me. They will snatch it up on a pause, and when I go to set the hook, they pull tight and hook themselves.
Weight transfer system
Berkley created a solid weight transfer system on the Stunna 112 jerkbait with arched track and single tungsten bearing. The jerkbait throws very well in most applications. I’ve fished it on medium baitcasting tackle with 12-pound fluorocarbon. It throws straight without the knuckballing, toppling or helicoptering on the cast on a close to medium cast. On a long bomb cast, it has a tendency to blowout some at the end of the cast. But, I’ve had much of my success earlier this winter by roll casting it to rip rap and getting it right on the rocks without hitting the rocks.
Lots of action in a small space
The Berkley Stunna 112 dances and moves a lot without moving forward terribly. You can get it to dip and dart with snaps of the slack. You can long pull it. Snap it. Violenting jerk it. Move it quick with a few pops. And the bait really comes alive in the water.
I’ve enjoyed getting fish to find and commit to the bait on Livescope. I really love the interaction with fish and seeing which “move” trips their trigger. The narrow profile, upswept tail and weighting of the bait, really help this jerkbait come alive under the surface.
A balanced jerkbait
The Stunna 112 is balanced very well thanks to a fixed belly weight that keeps the bait oriented even on the most violent rips and jerk cadences. The bait stays level with a slightly nose down posture and it also slowly sinks. This is by design and as my jerkbait fishing has evolved over the the last decade, I’ve been weighting all of my jerkbaits. I’m glad to see a jerkbait manufacturer finally do it out of the box. I regularly fish jerkbaits down to 20 feet and I’m watching them work and fish follow in 20 feet of water all the time thanks to Garmin Livescope.
That has also led me to fish most shallow jerkbaits for two reasons. First, I think a shallow jerkbait has more action. They are typically made to be the most erratic. And since you can add suspend strips to get jerkbaits to sink faster if you want, I’ve just been getting shallow jerkbaits down to depth instead of having to switch to the deeper or double deep models. I can control my depth with weight, cadence and rod position. The Stunna 112 is one of the baits I’ve been experimenting a lot with this winter.
Fun jerkbait that gets it done
I’ve had a lot of fun fishing the Stunna 112 jerkbait. I’ve fished it shallow around rip rap, docks and laydowns. I’ve fished it deeper over brush piles, on channel swings and points. It fishes well both shallow and deep. It will throw a long way so you can cover a lot of water in one pass. It draws fish with its look and sound.
I’ve had a lot of fun catching a variety of fish on it including largemouth, smallmouth, drum, bluegill and crappie. It darts hard side to side and can draw fish from a distance. It mimics dying shad really well and I’ve had some slack-snatching strikes on the pause from fish bee-lining out of deep water to get it.
The Berkley Stunna retails for $14.99 and comes in 14 great colors. That’s been one of the things I like most about it is that every color in the lineup is a good one depending on time and locality.
You can find the Berkley Stunna 112 at these online retailers:
