Sexy. That descriptive single word became synonymous with a shad looking color on a hard bait overnight, made famous by Kevin VanDam when Strike King slapped a little dull metallic blue on the back of a shad colored crankbait and painted a chartreuse stripe down its side. They were right. It was sexy. But now they are bringing sexy to popular style of bait that has a lot of sexy offerings already with the new Strike King KVD Jerkbait.
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Some of us in the avid circle of anglers, have a bait addiction. We probably have as much fun buying the lures as we do fishing with them. Okay that’s probably a stretch but there is something soothing about getting a new sexy looking bait in the mail or at your local tackle shop. I couldn’t get the packaging off this jerkbait fast enough when I finally got a couple. The KVD Jerkbait comes in two sizes, 4 1/2 inches and 4 3/4 inches, with 19 color options hand picked by KVD himself.
Fishing a jerkbait is not every anglers cup of tea. And we find that a bit funny because in small windows of the year, there are no more effective lures for catching big sluggish coldwater bass than jerkbaits. And they also work well in warmer water when worked with a super erratic retrieve around feeding bass. We’re coming into the time of year when jerkbaits shine and it’s always nice to have a new ace in the hole the bass haven’t seen too much.
This jerkbait has a great weight in both sizes. The smaller 4 1/2 inch bait has two sharp treble hooks while the 4 3/4-inch bait has three trebles. The lure features a weight transfer system that coupled with its body shape, help it cast well. Our first day of testing was in high wind on some secondary points in a major creek arm, and we were able to cast to specific targets and get very close to land on our casts for full coverage on every cast.
Some attributes that separate the KVD Jerkbait include an oval split ring line tie and on the 4 3/4-inch model, the bottom hook hangers are perpendicular to the lure. That’s by design as they found that gives the bait a little extra dart and kick on a jerk jerk pause cadence.
The bait darts really well if you’re sure to throw the bait back some slack. Many anglers mistakenly jerk and reel constantly. A jerkbait like this one, will behave better and appeal more to the bass if you snap the rod tip downward quickly and instantly return the rod tip back towards the bait. Throwing the Strike King KVD Jerkbait some slack, allows it to dart and glide to the side then pause and suspend in the bass’s face. We were able to catch several bass to 3 pounds on it on our first outing. We even caught a couple other fish including a white bass and a crappie. That’s always a good sign that you’re bait looks like a real baitfish when it fools all the fish in an area.
We really like the Strobe Shad color as well as staples like Pro Blue, Chrome Blue, Sexy Ghost Shad and several others. We fished the lures on 8 and 10 pound line and got good response with both baitcasting gear and spinning gear alike. The bait fishes nicely both fast and slow. It suspended well out of the box without any split ring additions or hook downsizing to change the float or sink of the bait. We like how it sits in the water and the bass seemed to like it as well.
When we visited with the Strike King pros at ICAST, they were pretty amped about the new jerkbait. A quality bait with good engineering, good colors and fishability for under $10. We can see now why they were so excited about them.
To check out the colors and pick up a few for the jerkbait bite that is already happening around much of the country, visit these online retail partners:
