| 30 LAVENDER SHAD |
31 TABLE ROCK |
32 YELLOW PERCH |
33 GH OG SHINER |
34 GH SILVER |
35 MS SILVER |
36 MS COPPER GLASS |
37 MS CHROME |
38 MS CLOWN |
39 MS OLIVE GREEN SHINER |
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SK JERK 100 Length: 4" (100mm) Weight: 5/8oz (16.0g) Suspends: 5-7' |
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“Bass Pro Shops sold the High-Back Shiner jerkbait about 15 years ago and it was one of my ‘go to’ lures,” says King. “The high back gave it the same profile as the big threadfin shad that are so prevalent in Ozark impoundments and I won a lot of money with it.”
The problem, however, was that the original High-Back Shiner was a floating jerkbait made of balsa. In order to get it to cast far and suspend down deep, King had to spend hours drilling, weighting, filling and repainting each one by hand.
Now those modifications are no longer necessary since King has teamed up with Lucky Craft Lures.
“I basically took the high-back body concept and put it on Lucky Craft’s superior suspending jerkbait design that features their patented Weight Transfer System,” King adds. “Now, long casts and pinpoint suspension down to 5 or 6 feet are standards right out of the package.”
Determined to build his lure to his exact specifications, Lucky Craft even asked King to provide some of his own unique paint schemes.
“I worked with Tim Hughes, the renowned custom lure painter, to come up with some of my favorite colors and their all available at Bass Pro Shops.”
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“Anytime the water visibility is 1 to 2 feet or better and the water temperature is 65 degrees or below, you have the right ingredients for suspended jerkbaits,” King notes.
The first requirement for getting the most from the Stacey King Jerkbait is the right equipment.
“I prefer a 6-foot, 6-inch rod that’s a medium-light action for getting the right snap on the bait,” King explains. “Eight- to 10-pound test fluorocarbon line is perfect and I like a slower 5.1:1 or 5.2:1 ratio reel for achieving the right cadence.”
Each retrieve begins with a very long cast, made possible with Lucky Craft’s patented Weight Transfer System. Then King cranks the bait down 4 or 5 turns and brings the bait to life with his favorite twitch-pause action.
“It’s mostly a cold-water technique, so think ‘slow,’” Kings offers. “Once I get it down, I like a twitch…long pause…twitch, twitch…long pause…twitch…long pause…twitch, twitch…long pause cadence. The colder the water, the softer the twitches and longer the pauses. As the water warms up above 55 degrees, the twitches become more erratic and the pauses become shorter.”
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As late summer gives way to fall and the first few cold fronts drive the water temperatures down into the low 60’s, Stacey King begins looking for bass with his namesake Lucky Craft Jerkbait.
“As shad migrate back into the creeks in the fall, I key on secondary points in the back halves of creeks and major pockets,” King says. “Since the water temperature is still fairly warm and the fish tend to be scattered, I’ll cover a lot of water by twitching the bait along pretty fast.”
But when winter kicks in and water temperatures plummet into the low 50’s and mid 40’s, that’s when King really loves his jerkbait.
“December through March is the peak time for this bait,” Kings says. “When the water is 45 to 55 degrees, that’s when the big fish bunch up and suspend to ambush schools of large threadfin shad.”
During this premium window, King targets vertical structure: steep bluffs, ledge rock points and submerged timber.
“I get the jerkbait down and fish it as slow as possible, twitching it in between long pauses and those big bass can’t stand it.”
As the water warms in the spring, King stays with his jerkbait and adjusts his pattern.
“When the water starts back up into the 60’s, I’ll fish the more gentle sloping gravel banks in pockets where the fish are going to spawn,” he notes. “Also, I’ll speed up my retrieve with a more erratic cadence, snapping it harder and pausing less.”
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The suspending jerkbait – it’s a bass fishing tool that arose from the submerged hollows of Ozark Mountain impoundments nearly 30 years ago when a few of the Ozark’s best bass anglers began tinkering with traditional floating jerkbaits in an effort to make them freeze in the water column, like a shad that just detected the presence of a predator.
Having grown up in the Ozarks, well-known BASS pro Stacey King inherited this rich fishing tradition from some of the best suspended jerkbait fishermen in the region.
“I can remember spending countless hours in the shops of the best bait modifiers in the country, learning their tricks of drilling and weighting lures so they would cast far and suspend deep,” King recalls. “Those hand-modified baits allowed us to access hard-to-reach populations of suspended bass in the winter months. We could occasionally catch them on small hair jigs or spinnerbaits, but nothing fired up those suspended fish like a jerkbait that twitched, hovered and quivered in their face.”
For years King has always hand-modified his jerkbaits and dreamed of a day when he could have a lure company take his thorough knowledge of suspending jerkbaits and produce a package-ready suspender built to his exact specifications.
Now that day has arrived.
“To team up with Lucky Craft, a company that demands absolute quality and precision in every lure they make, and have them custom-build a suspending jerkbait for me, is a dream come true.”
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