Of all the products I’ve reviewed thus far, I have been using the NetBait Mini Kickin’ B the longest. My earliest recollection of this bait being a standout came in 2013 when I was fishing the FLW EverStarts (now Toyota Series). I had a solid tournament on Lake Guntersville that year and finished 15th, catching most of my fish on a football jig out deep but one key 6-pounder and a couple more keepers shallow on a Z-Man ChatterBait trailed by the Mini Kickin’ B.
Not just a trailer
The Mini Kickin’ B can hold its own alone as well. Offering up a finesse bait for flipping scattered vegetation or wood, the Mini Kickin’ B has just enough action without too big of a profile. That can be key on high pressure, sunny days when the fish are locked on cover but won’t quite commit to a more aggressive moving bait or even a jig.
And this bait makes a good edition to the shaky head lineup. If you’re looking for something other than the typical finesse worm to throw around, give it a shot. The bait fits a shaky head hook well and gives you a lot more action than you get with a worm or even a smaller bait with appendages like a Missile Baits Baby D Bomb. Using this bait on a shaky head around rock in the winter when fish are targeting crawfish can work really well.
Story time
The combo had landed a 6-pounder in practice as well. It helped me find a super-shallow area where fish were cruising around scattered hydrilla. I caught that 6 on the final day of practice and then had a 4-pounder and a 3-pounder follow the bait to the boat a couple casts later and knew then I had stumbled onto something. I had also stumbled onto something with the Mini Kickin’ B. This was the first time I noticed how much of a difference the right style trailer makes when trying to fish a certain depth of water.
When fishing in deeper water, even just 5 to 6 feet, I had often used a swimbait-style trailer on my ChatterBait. The swimbait added a little action and elongated the profile. And the bait came through the vegetation well. This is something other people were doing obviously but something I had dialed in personally down in Florida over the previous couple of years. However, the swimbait wasn’t working on Guntersville. The bait was staying too deep and bogging down in the near topped-out hydrilla.
That’s when I changed to the Mini Kickin’ B, which I had used on a ChatterBait before, but this time I noticed how much higher I could get the bait to ride in the water column without speeding up my retrieve. Wider craw-style baits with claws help create a lot of lift and resistance to get the bait up and slow it down. This switch was integral that day and has helped me many times since. Now let’s dive a little more into the details of the Mini Kickin’ B.
Not a chunk
The Mini Kickin’ B is one of the first baits I used to offer a slightly longer trailer option without going too big. NetBait actually makes a Kickin’ B Chunk as well that is similar in size to all the other chunks from Zoom, Strike King and the like. But for certain baits, a chunk really isn’t what you want. A chunk works great on a flipping jig for instance. The claws don’t stick out far behind the skirt, keeping the bait compact and adding a nice kicking action on the fall while the larger claws slow the bait’s decent.
That’s all well and good. But for baits like a swim jig and ChatterBait, you want the claws to be a little smaller and farther back and you want them to stay in tighter, so they’re not catching a lot on whatever you’re fishing the bait through. A trailer also combines better with swim jigs and ChatterBaits if its body isn’t as wide as that of a chunk. And all of that is what you get with the Mini Kickin’ B. This bait doesn’t bulk up the body of whatever you’re fishing it on and flare out the skirt the way a chunk would, making the over all profile a lot cleaner and helping the bait slip through submerged vegetation unscathed.
In conclusion
Whether fished alone or as a trailer, the Mini Kickin’ B offers something a little different. On its own, you’ve got a small bait with a lot of action helping you dial into a sweet spot somewhere between power and finesse. But when you slip this bait on the back of something else is where it truly starts to shine.
The Mini Kickin’ B makes the perfect trailer for certain baits, marrying the right elements of a longer, slimmer swimbait and the beefier wider chunk in those situations. Baits like a ChatterBait and swim jig come to mind first, but this tailer option also works well on buzzbaits and night blades. Any bait where you’re looking for a trailer that will slow the bait down a little and help it ride higher in the water column without bulking the bait up too much, that’s the equation the NetBait Mini Kickin’ B solves every time.
Find the Kickin’ B at these online retailers:
