BOB MAINDELLE: The evolution of lures for the cold-water season – The Killeen Daily Herald

In June 2020, and after several years of experimentation, I brought to market a lure called the MAL Lure. This lure was intended to fill a gap where standard presentations fell short, especially during the summer months.

There was once a time when, as a full-time professional fishing guide focused on the year-round pursuitof white bass, I just dreaded the summer months.

This tough fishing would persist right up until turnover, typically in mid to late October.

Through the years, Ive been successful in eliminating unproductive water and getting white bass to biteduring the summer months by making myself become well-versed in interpreting all forms of sonar, andby covering water quickly and efficiently via downrigging.

Still, during those times when downrigging led me to concentrations of white bass, be they located onbottom or suspended, I was hard-pressed to catch more than just a handful immediately after quicklytransitioning from a horizontal approach to a vertical approach.

Slabs, spoons, soft plastics and jigs generated a spurt of initial interest, followed by a very predictable,frustrating shutdown.

I bought some Do-It lead molds and started making my own custom horsehead jigs, complete with theircharacteristic, underslung, spinning blade. That experiment was largely unsuccessful due to my luresslow sink rates, but I did walk away observing that the jigs small spinning blades were a definite triggerfor white bass.

Several summers ago, I decided to venture outside the box to try to crack the code on warm waterwhite bass. I tried doing things on my home waters that no one else was doing. I also traveled to

Queensland, Australia, to fish for Australian bass with professional fishing guide Matthew Langford onLakes Boruma and Somerset during the Australian summer to check out some of the approaches theAussies had come up with using heavy metal tactics for suspended summertime fish holding above thethermocline.

Next, I made my own modified tailspinners. This kept the spinning blade feature of the horsehead jig,but added more weight. I also tried to engineer out of my tailspinners some of the flaws I noted inthose tailspinners already on the market, namely the tendency for the hook to catch on the line or thespinner shaft, and for the blade to spin lazily.

I enjoyed great success with these tailspinners, but I noted that my clients did not do nearly so well onthem as I did. As I analyzed this, I noted that many did not have the fish-fighting experience needed tokeep hooked fish on the hook as the fish was transferred from the water into the boat; we lost way toomany fish during that transition for my satisfaction.

Additionally, many clients had trouble getting and keeping my tailspinners blades turning as needed toattract fish in the first place. So, now I had an effective lure, but it was not user-friendly.

This led me to begin experimenting with inline spinners. I experimented with making my own spinnerswith brass bodies, lead bodies and tungsten bodies, and after many iterations, found something I felthad both fish-catching potential and user-friendly attributes.

I introduced a few clients to the lure and they did very well with it. Then, I began to keep these custom-made versions tied on for general, daily use by all of my clients, including kids and rookies. No one hadany difficulties catching white bass on these lures during the tough summer months. I was amazed atthe results.

Since I had no desire to get into lure production, I brainstormed about how I might have these luresmade to ensure a continuous supply of these for my business. I assumed it was a long-shot actually, Iassumed it was rejection just waiting to happen, but I called the Mepps lure company of Antigo,Wisconsin.

Mepps spinners were the closest in appearance and construct to the effective prototypes I haddeveloped. I worked with them to take characteristics and components from several of their existing

products to form a new product which was deadly for white bass.

Last year, in December, as the water temperature fell to 58, the magic of the MAL Lure all but ranout. The speed at which the lure had to be moved to get the spinner spinning around the lures wire

shaft was too fast for cold-blooded, lethargic fish.

I knew two things for sure first, that a spinning blade is an ultra-attractive feature so far as white bassand hybrid stripers are concerned, and second, that the slab -- a shad-shaped hunk of lead - has puttens of thousands of fish in my boat in the winter months. I wondered what might happen if I combinedthese two powerful entities.

Long story short, this curiosity gave rise to the newest cold-water bait now on the market, introducedand made public this week.

That bait is the Bladed Hazy Eye Slab. This combines a classic, shad-shaped lead body with a smallwillow-leafed spinner blade which is affixed to the lures treble hook using a tiny swivel bonded to thehook.

This bait comes in three sizes: 3/8 ounce, 5/8 ounce, and 3/4 ounce. The baits come powder-coated fordurability in either white or chartreuse.

Most of my field-testing was done last winter in January and February once the water fell into the 50s.

The Bladed Hazy Eye Slab produced extremely well then, and continued to do so even after the severewinter storm took water temperatures into the mid-40s. I have already begun keeping my rods riggedwith these slabs on my boat for times when fish get too finicky to chase hard after the MAL Lures.

On Wednesday, the last 30 of the 100 fish my clients landed were landed on the Bladed Hazy EyeSlab.

In mid-January last year, just before the Tuff-Man Series championship event was to take place, I guidedone of my clients to a 38-plus-pound, five-fish limit of largemouth bass on Stillhouse, all of which werelanded on the standard Hazy Eye Shad -- proof positive that largemouth bass congregate in deep waterin the winter and strike slabs despite the lure being more closely associated with white bass and hybridstriped bass fishing.

I count on the lures I have tied onto the rods I carry on my boat to make my clients successful. Theselures have earned a place on my boat from this time of year right up until the water temperature nips at60F once again in the spring.

If you are like me, you want to see and hold a new lure in your hands before buying it, mainly so you canget a sense for its shape, weight, profile, etc., and see how the fine-tuning which went into the creationof this bait makes it different from a standard slab. These are all things which photographs just cannotconvey. For this reason, Dean Thompson has kindly put on display a full lineup of these new baits atTightlines Premium Fishing Tackle on Business Highway 190 in Killeen.

I also have these available online at http://www.WhiteBassTools.com. Just as necessity truly is the mother ofinvention, I believe fine-tuning inventions is the father of success.

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BOB MAINDELLE: The evolution of lures for the cold-water season - The Killeen Daily Herald