I’ll admit, I have not fully embraced the urchin bait craze. That’s because they don’t really fit my style, but I do think it’s incredible how a bait can become that dominant.
There’s no denying the impact the urchin has made on tournament fishing, and I think it comes down to the fact it’s still something relatively new to the forward-facing sonar game. I know guys are catching them on urchins without forward-facing sonar, but that’s obviously the main deal.
One thing I’ll point out is this bait is great in certain aspects, but in other aspects, it doesn’t do the job that everybody thinks it does. The drop shot, the minnow, the jig — those techniques are all still playing, but whatever you’re throwing, you still have to find ‘em.
Here in Oklahoma, the urchin bait is doing very well, but guys are still winning tournaments on a Carolina rig. I don’t think the urchin is going away anytime soon, but at the same time, it’s not all over for the other baits.
I think if we identified the key detail that’s driving the urchin’s popularity, it would have to be the ability to hold that bait in front of the fish. Forward-facing sonar has given us more insight into what’s going on around that bait so you can get the fall rate just right.
It’s not a guaranteed bite, but when you see a fish, the likelihood is a lot higher when you can get different baits in front of it. The urchin bait is good for this because it’s so slow, and it can stay right there in the strike zone much longer.
By comparison, our whole lives we’ve talked about slow rolling a spinnerbait to keep it in the strike zone longer, or crawling a jig along the bottom so it stays in the strike zone longer. The urchin just stays up a little higher in their face, more like how a drop shot holds a bait in their face until they can’t stand it, and they have to bite it.
When you think about it, a bass is an opportunistic feeder that will eat whenever it can. It’s like us; if you put a Twinkie in front of us long enough, we may not want it, but we’re gonna eventually eat it.
I have thrown the urchin during Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series events because we all had to get that bait in our boats. Bass anglers like new trends, but I’m still an old-school guy at heart, so I prefer picking up a worm, or a topwater, or a crankbait, because I have more confidence with those baits.
When I fish an urchin, I Texas rig it on a big hook with braid, and I hit ‘em hard. I really haven’t spent a lot of time learning the different rigging styles. I can see that changing in the near future when one of my sponsors comes out with their version of an urchin bait.
It’s hard to say how long the urchin craze will last. You think about other trends like the Alabama rig and the jighead minnow. They both had their peaks, but guys are still winning tournaments on them.
I think timing and location will have a lot to do with how the urchin bait plays in future Bassmaster Elite seasons. Next year, we could have floods or we could have low water at some of our venues.
If we fish a lot of clearer water, we’ll probably see the urchin play a big role. If we go to five muddy water fisheries, the urchin won’t play. A spinnerbait will play.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
