MarkH024 Posted July 27, 2016 Report Share Posted July 27, 2016 Awesome. Can't wait to get a hold of one of these. Nicely done Wayne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waynem Posted August 6, 2016 Report Share Posted August 6, 2016 I've now had the 7.5" bait for about 2 weeks and have fished it quite a bit during that time (I usually get to fish about 6 days a week since selling my company). I'm up to somewhere around 40 fish on it including a great fishing day Tuesday when I caught at least a dozen on it including a 5-9. Of the fish taken, 3 have been better than 5 pounds, quite a few 4's and lots of 2s & 3s. Carl did a fantastic job going over the bait itself in the video that started this thread. I can't add much more to that aspect but I thought I would give my comments on how the bait fishes. I've included a few photos including one of the 7.5" bait next to Deps 175& 250, a Hrdgill, and a 9" Slammer to give a better size perspective. TACKLE I've been fishing it on either 20 or 25# PF mono which has worked fine. I have a swimbait setup with 15# fluoro but that is out of commission while I wait for a reel part so I haven't tried it on fluoro line yet. I've tossed it on Dobyns 795 and 806 as well as a LDC heavy. The 2 Dobyns were fine but the LDC is a bit overkill. ACTION When you buy a 3 piece bait from Matt ,or Mickey at 3:16, or Scott at 22nd Century you know you're dealing with guys that have spent years dialing in the action they want in a bait. But each has their own characteristics. Mickey has the piano hinge that lets you fish it at any speed, Triple Trouts have a unique side sashay and Matt gets thump and versatility in his design. The comments I'll make pertain to the 7.5" bait that I have. Per Matt the action on the 6" is pretty similar and the 9" bait has a bit more semi-glide characteristic. The bait I fished is a slow sink that i've fished in water from a foot deep to about 10 feet. I'll compare the action to 2 other baits- a Hardgill and a Triple Trout. If you've fished a Triple Trout you know it has a swim that not only has the S shaped action but also tips onto the right and left sides as it moves. I always think of it as a fish that is struggling to stay upright and not flip belly-up. Kill the retrieve on a TT and it sinks on its side like a dying fish. If the TT looks like a fish close to receiving last rites, then the Strong Shad appears more like a healthy to mildly injured fish. Swim it slowly and steadily and it has a nice sinuous S shaped swim and also rocks slightly on its sides. Increase the speed to a medium fast steady retrieve and you hit a point at which the bait really thumps. Hand the rod to a blindfolded angler and he'd probably think he was reeling in a Colorado blade spinnerbait. If you have fished a Hargill you will find the swim to be similar. I've caught most of my fish by imparting action with the reel rather than the rod. Reel a few turns and then stop reeling and the bait will automatically turn about 90 degrees to one side or the other. This gives it the appearance of a baitfish stopping and turning to look if there is anything following behind it. The more erratic you reel the more it looks like an injured fish. If you twitch using the rod you get it to turn wider and swing about 120 degrees. Doing that you can make this bait work for quite a long time in a small area. Again, this is similar to what you can do with a Hardgill only you now have a bigger bait with a shad profile. Some baits will nose up when you give them a quick turn of the reel or a rod twitch. Even with heavy mono the Strong Shad never nosed up. In fact it instead seems to nose down slightly, dive a couple of inches deeper, and then quickly return to horizontal. With slack line the lure sinks horizontally. My 5-9 hit while I was unzipping my raincoat and the lure was slowly sinking with no added action. APPLICATION In the Massachusetts waters I fish there are no resident shad- they would not survive the winters here. We do have white perch in most waters which look somewhat similar. We do have resident alewives in some waters and sea-run herring and shad in waters connected to the ocean. I have not yet fished it anywhere there are herring present because I haven't been close enough to the ocean these couple of weeks. I've also left the bait in the tackle bag a couple of times that I fished good alewife waters because they also contain some big pike. Having just the single bait I was not willing to risk it to the toothy critters. Even without and shad present the bass (and a few chain pickerel) had no issue striking at a good rate. Our weather has been pretty hot with a lot of days with lots of sun and not much wind- not ideal conditions. On those days I've gotten fish along weed edges, along lay downs, and over broad weedy flats. We had 3 days of rainy, overcast cooler weather Sunday through Tuesday. On Sunday I fished with WallyC with the intent to knock Mossypumpkin out of the SUB tournament. The lake we fished was far muddier & dingy than we had ever seen it. Baits that moved a lot of water (Toxic Wade Hoggs & 9" Slammers) were best early when the fish were roaming out away from shore in 6 to 9 feet of water. The 7.5" Strong Shad did not push as much water as those baits but I would have liked to have had the 9" version to try then. As it got lighter the fish moved more to the shoreline weed & timber and I started catching them on the shad including a 5-0 that hit in 2 feet of water. Monday was also nice and overcast and I fished a tannic color lake where the Slammer is often the best producer. Overall I managed about 15 bass with half on a Slammer and the other half on the Strong Shad. Tuesday the weather was more of the same on a lake with crystal clear water. On that day the Shad was the clear winner with 12 or 15 fish including the 5-9. The fish were mostly away from the shore roaming water 4 to 10 feet deep. Again I was using a somewhat erratic reeling method so the bait would pause and turn 90 degrees. The lack of shad in these lakes did not seem to matter to the bass. All in all the Strong Shad has been a really good producer and a fun bait to fish. it's solidly made with no real wear yet and Matt"s painting is second to none. The hookup and landing ratio has been good- about what I have usually done with a Hardgill or TT. I'm itching to get my hands on the 9" version when they become available. Hope you found some of this useful. Primus, Bigbasser, Darth Baiter and 4 others 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeepinItReelFishing Posted August 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2016 Awesome information Wayne. Thanks for picking up the slack there, because I really didn't do a great job going into that kind of real world nuance. I had some outings on it, but I think you fished it way more in one week than I did in total. My schedule has allowed 1/2 a day of fishing, once a week, for the past few months....horrible My fish here have not been cooperating at all on much of anything recently. I'm glad you were able to get a bunch on it to observe hook-up ratio and wear and tear on the lure. Great stuff man! -Carl fishnchips35 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattlures Posted August 8, 2016 Report Share Posted August 8, 2016 Wow you guys are awesome and thorough to! thank you to Keepin it reel and to Wayne for taking the time to do such in depth reviews. I greatly appreciate it! fishnchips35, wallyc and Darth Baiter 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishnchips35 Posted August 8, 2016 Report Share Posted August 8, 2016 I love the review. I can't wait to get my hands on one. I can't wait to get my hands on a couple of them (shad and golden shiner). I just looked at the review again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waynem Posted August 9, 2016 Report Share Posted August 9, 2016 Just one last thing to add: this is what the bait looks like after putting about 50 fish in the boat. Hard to tell its not brand new. Bigbasser, fishnchips35, jhoozie1 and 6 others 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilcatfish Posted August 10, 2016 Report Share Posted August 10, 2016 I don't get very excited about new baits these days, but this thing looks outstanding mjw2121 and BigSlant 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Baiter Posted August 12, 2016 Report Share Posted August 12, 2016 Good reports guys, can't wait to see these and whatever else Matt is coming out with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilcatfish Posted August 13, 2016 Report Share Posted August 13, 2016 Anybody know a release date? Come Fall when the smallies are making their way down river to the wintering holes this will be deadly swimbaitman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattlures Posted August 27, 2016 Report Share Posted August 27, 2016 release will be very soon, here are the production colors jhoozie1, thastickybandit, waynem and 6 others 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkH024 Posted August 27, 2016 Report Share Posted August 27, 2016 Looks so good. Can't wait! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjw2121 Posted September 2, 2016 Report Share Posted September 2, 2016 Quick heads up.Theyre up on the site MarkH024 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilcatfish Posted September 5, 2016 Report Share Posted September 5, 2016 Quick heads up.Theyre up on the site Well darn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish45 Posted October 3, 2016 Report Share Posted October 3, 2016 nice those look great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yev14 Posted October 3, 2016 Report Share Posted October 3, 2016 Just ordered mine. I'm drooling. MarkH024 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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