ENJOYING THE OUTDOORS: NEWEST LURE PROVES IRRESISTIBLE TO BASS

You could invent a new lure and spend the national budget on promotions and not get the popularity burst that the Bomber Fat-Free Shad received in a single sweep.

Before hitting tackle shelves, Arkansas angler Mark Davis used the deep-diving crankbait in winning the 1995 BASS Masters Classic. The result: a guarantee it will sell like snowcones in Hades.

First of all, the Fat-Free Shad is an efficient fish-catch. Its prototype was tested on Kentucky Lake, incidentally, where bass ate it up.

Capable of running to 15 feet on 10- to 12-pound line, the plug is a long-lipped 3/4-ouncer with mostly flat, shad-shaped body. It will put its parent firm, PRADCO, at the front of the deep crankbait race.

It might well have done that before Davis used it in part on North Carolina's High Rock Lake to catch 47 pounds, 14 ounces of bass in three days to win fishing's most coveted title. It's certain now.

When it became clear that the Fat-Free Shad was a Classic-winning lure, a PRADCO officer phoned home from the tournament site to call an emergency retooling for doubling production. By the morning of the next work day, major tackle buyers were phoning to increase existing orders for the new lure in multiples.

PRADCO spokesman Joe Hughes said, "With a new hard bait, you'd expect to do perhaps 200,000 or 250,000 units. For the Fat-Free Shad, I think you're looking at something in seven figures."

Hughes said the company is working to have the new crankbaits in hands of retailers as early as Sept. 24 -- the scheduled date on which "The Bassmasters" television series on The Nashville Network will feature a show on the BASS Masters Classic. If fishermen aren't already hungry to snatch up the bait, they will be then.

"We're making them just as fast as we can make them," Hughes said. "We'll have hundreds of thousands out before the end of the year, but event at that, we expect they'll be in limited supply because of the demand."

PRADCO is not the only lure manufacturer sent hopping by the Classic. Some of the fish Davis caught to win the tournament, some of this better bass in the final round of fishing, came on a one-ounce Strike King Pro Model spinnerbait.

Strike King already had underway the development of a new line of Pro Ledge spinnerbaits for deeper water, according to Doug Minor of Strike King. What Davis' use of the Strike King blade bait did was intensify that push an set the stage for a special Mark Davis Model of the lure line. The Davis model will duplicate a customizing job the Classic winner did on the bait he used on High Rock Lake.

Davis, a Strike King pro team member, downsized the tandem blades on his Pro Model spinnerbait, dropping to No. 4 1/2 and 3 1/2 blades to get a faster drop for fishing the deeper water. That's the same combo on the once-ounce head with .035 wire that will be offered in the lure to bear his name.

"We'll do it to his specs," Minor said "It will be a Classic Pro Model that will be the same exact thing he used to win the tournament. The bait will be designed next week and will be in production by mid September. By spring, it will hit the market."

Minor said the company has sold one-ounce lures for years, but the mass market was never strong for them. Only a small percentage of bass anglers, those working blade baits in deep water, have used them regularly, he said.

"But we've had more requests lately for heavier spinnerbaits as more fishermen have begun to get into spinnerbaiting in deeper waters," he said. "And now with Davis having used one to win the Classic..."

There's simply no better way to launch a lure.

Steve Vantrees is outdoor editor for the Pacucah Sun.