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? |