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Swimbait Review

 

Glide Ready? Baitsanity’s Explorer Gill Might Just Be Their Best Lure Yet (continued)

Real World Tests: Baitsanity headquarters is just a few miles away from us and over the last year we learned more about these new baits and had a chance to fish prototypes and the first run mass production baits. Before receiving the mass production baits for this review I fished with Fahad Ahmed, Baitsanity’s co-founder and lead designer, who walked me through the design and gave me some insight into the design and production process, as well a sneak peek at some new optional accessories.  


Each bait comes with two tungsten adhesives for fine tuning and altering sink rates

Glide Ready? The new Baitsanity Gill Glides pull elements from both the Explorer and Antidote swimbait lines. These new lures have the new paint finishes, textured 3D scales, HatchMatch system with two extra tails, and even adds silicone dampers and tungsten tuning weights. These Gill Glides are the most feature rich Baitsanity baits yet. I really like the profile and size of the bait and it looks anatomically like a slender bluegill. These baits have more depth and texture than previous Baitsanity lures. For example, the progression of the scales is greater than that of the Antidote and raised cheeks on the bait are designed to give more substance to the head of the lure, mimicking flared gills, and even looks like the gill is holding its breath. Either way the design really gives the lure some additional character.


Another nice refinement is the addition of silicon pads in the joints

Once in the water it doesn’t take much to bring the Explorer Gill to life and there are a variety of ways to effectively fish either the floating or sinking models. Both baits exhibit a smooth and tight S-action on a constant retrieve and can be burned without washing out. I was able to get followers and a few strikes with this constant retrieve, and even more so with the sinking version utilizing this style. One of the reasons the bait glides so smoothly is that it includes black silicon pads between the joints which act as impact buffers, helping to minimize noise and unnatural tail swinging action.

Where the Explorer Gill Glide baits really shine is when employing a crank and stop retrieve. This retrieve style gives the bait a much sharper and more erratic turn and flash action. By imparting some additional rod tip movement, the Explorer Gill can glide and stop in a very convincing manner, successfully mimicking the behavior of a panicky sunfish.


Flaring gills add to the bait's genuine looking profile

I caught most of my bass on the Explorer Gill employing this stop and go presentation and constantly varying retrieves depending on how aggressive the fish were helped draw extra attention to the bait, and kept the lure in the strike zone longer, resulting in more fish.


A closer look at the HatchMatch 3.0 Paddle Tail

The Explorer Gill Glide comes with flat tails which gives the bait the traditional gill, or small sunfish, profile. Like the Explorer Gen 2 these baits can change out their tails with a variety of different tail types. At the time of launch Baitsanity is also offering the HatchMatch Paddle Tail option, which is more of a traditional paddle-tail design. This tail gives the bait a longer slenderer look, to the extent that it starts to mimic a shad, but what is most exciting is how the tail affects the action of the bait.


Installed the HatchMatch 3.0 drastically alters the bait's profile and gives it a harder tail whipping action

While the original bait exhibits a smooth and stable glide, unless aggressively popped, the Paddle Tail helps the lure produce a much harder kicking action. The lure will still engage a natural S-shaped swimming action but when it is paused and worked with some slack line combined with accompanying rod tip action it will dart even more aggressively and exhibit a two-stage kick like what we saw on the Explorer Gen 2 glides.


Fahad gets it done with the Explorer Gill Glide on a stop and go retrieve

These tails are hand painted and designed to match up precisely with each of the four available Gill patterns. Anglers can get creative by mixing things up or even further customizing the tails with a marker or dip to add additional flash, like that bit of chartreuse that often seems to be a hot ticket in the summer, or when the water is stained.


The Atom Tail is a wacky looking prototype tail

When fishing with Fahad he saw me working one of the floating baits on the surface with the HatchMatch Paddle tail and I remarked how much more water the tail was able to move. He reached into his bag and pulled out a third prototype tail and asked me to give it a shot. This strange looking tail had a large bulb at the end which split into a tail made from the same durable nylon mesh that is used in the center of the other tails.


The Atom on the floating gill gives the bait a unique tail wobble that moves even more water creating wide ripples

The shape of this tail was unique and looked more like a ball of a mace than a fish tail. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot and immediately was impressed how much more water ripple this tail was able to generate with each crank. On the third retrieve as I was mixing a series of pauses and cranks the Gill Glide got absolutely hammered by a largemouth. A few minutes later another bass crushed the same configuration in the shallows. Less than ten minutes later I caught a third fish and this wacky looking tail cemented itself as my favorite option.

This wacky looking, yet deadly effective, HatchMatch prototype is called the “Atom” tail and is yet another example that what we as anglers see is very different than what fish perceive. Whether it is the unique profile, or the additional high float and high kick action that the Atom produces fish seem to love it, and now so do I.


Three fish later and I was sold on the Atom configuration

Next Section: The Best Baitsanity Glide Yet?

 

   

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