StreakZ

Steve Quinn noted in his feature article in In-Fisherman magazine’s June issue that Berkley Glup! and ElaZtech continue to dominate bass fishing.

Since Oct. 12, 2006, several of Z-Man Fishing Products’ ElaZtech baits have gradually become the dominate baits in the repertoire of Midwest finesse anglers.

For the finesse practitioners in northeastern Kansas, Z-Man’s Finesse ShadZ, Finesse WormZ, Rain MinnowZ and ZinkerZ are the mainstays. The ZinkerZ is five inches long, and Midwest finesse anglers cut it in half, making 2 1/2-inches long. All of these baits are affixed to a jig, and many Midwest finesse anglers opt for Gopher Tackle’s Original Mushroom Head Jig.

When Z-Man introduced the 3.75-inch StreakZ in 2011, many northeastern Kansas finesse anglers thought that it would quickly become part of our mainstays for plying our flatland reservoirs, but most of us haven’t been able bewitch enough bass with it to develop a lot of confidence in it.

Clyde Holscher, who is a multispecies guide from Topeka, Kansas, has worked with it more than any northeastern Kansas angler, and he has occasionally tangled with nice-sized smallmouth bass at Coffey County Lake and Melvern Lake.

But it wasn’t until May 9, when Clyde Holscher was guiding a pair of anglers at Coffey County Lake, that the 3.75-inch StreakZ performed the way many of us thought it would.

On this outing, Holscher and the two anglers wielded the 3.75-inch StreakZ in the shiner hue. It was affixed to either a blue or chartreuse 1/16-ounce round-headed jig with a No. 4 hook.

These three anglers were using spinning outfits to cast the StreakZ around shallow flat points and across shallow sections of submerged roadbeds. In fact many of the spots that they were fishing were cover with only three feet or less of water.

Their most productive retrieve was the one that the late Charlie Brewer of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, called the do-nothing retrieve, which consist of slowly turning the reel handle, holding the rod dead still and allowing the bait to swim without any shakes, twitches or added action.

By the time this threesome executed their last casts of the day, they had caught 86 smallmouth bass, six freshwater drum, five wipers, two walleye and one channel catfish.

This is one of the 86 smallmouth bass that the StreakZ inveigled on May 9 at Coffey County Lake, Kansas. A StreakZ and chartreuse jig is still impaled in the bass' mouth.

The problem that confounds many Midwest finesse anglers who ply the flatland reservoirs in northeastern Kansas is that the bait fish population is often paltry. Therefore, the largemouth and smallmouth bass are rarely piscivores. Instead, they seem to spend most of their days and nights foraging upon a variety of invertebrates. Perhaps that is why the 3.75-inch StreakZ, which emulates a bait fish, isn’t as alluring to the black bass in northeastern Kansas flatland reservoirs as it is elsewhere.

For instance, last September at Table Rock Lake, Missouri, it was the best bait we found for alluring the suspended and surfacing spotted and largemouth bass that were foraging on schools of threadfin shad. Then it was used on a 3/32-ounce Gopher Mushroom Head Jig.

What’s more, anglers who plied mesotrophic lakes in Canada that were graced with smelt found the 3.75-inch StreakZ and jig combo was the best way to entice smallmouth bass that were foraging upon smelt during the late summer of 2011. These anglers were also amazed by the durability of the StreakZ.

We also heard that smallmouth bass anglers on several of the Great Lakes have been impressed with its effectiveness.

Top StreakZ is the shiner hue. The bottom one is pearl.

Despite the trying times that we have experienced with the 3.75-inch StreakZ in northeastern Kansas, we are impressed with what Holscher and his clients’ achieved on May 9. Thus, we will start testing it on a regular basis, and we suspect that it might pay exceptional dividends in August and September, which is when our largemouth bass inhabit offshore patches of coontail and pondweed and become more piscivorous than they are during the other 10 months of the year. In addition, we will employ the do-nothing retrieve rather than the swim-glide-and-shake, drag-and-shake, hop-and-bounce, and drag and deadstick retrieves.

They should be a fine addition to the repertoire of the temperate bass anglers who ply several of the reservoirs along the northern Ozarks and similar waterways across the nation.

In essence, at any waterway where the old-fashioned plastisol fluke-style bait works, the StreakZ should work better.

As 2012 continues to unfold, we will post more information about the 3.75 StreakZ, which is available in eight colors. The suggested retail price for a package of six extremely durable baits is $4.89.

Anglers who are interested in talking or fishing with Clyde Holscher about the StreakZ can contact him at 785-640-5463 or 785-267-0065.

Ned Kehde

After we posted the blog about the 3.75-inch StreakZ, in which we noted that it hasn’t worked for the Midwest finesse anglers in northeastern Kansas as well as many of us had hoped, several anglers said that we should try wielding it devoid of a Gopher Mushroom Head Jig.
Instead of employing the Gopher jig, it was suggested that that we should affix it to an extra-wide-gap hook and devoid of a sinker. Then we could retrieve it the same way we gingerly twitch a jerkbait.
A few other anglers thought that we could also use the extra-wide-gap-hook rigging and make a split-shot rig or a light Carolina rig out of it.
We know that those tactics work with the traditional Fluke-style baits, and the 3.75-inch StreakZ is part of that motif. The primary aim of these baits is to replicate a bait fish, such as a smelt, threadfin shad or gizzard shad, but the flatland reservoirs that we ply in northeastern Kansas are not graced with significant populations of bait fish. The bulk of the largemouth and smallmouth bass that we catch, and we caught a total of 16,983 of them from Jan. 1, 2008, to Dec. 31, 2011, seem to forage upon a variety of invertebrates rather than gizzard shad.
What’s more, we have found across many years that a soft-plastic lure affixed to a jig is more alluring to the largemouth and smallmouth that we focus upon than other alternatives, such as a slip-sinker rig, Carolina rig and split-shot rig or a variety of weightless methods.
We were hoping that the green-pumpkin 3.75-inch StreakZ on a 1/16-ounce Gopher jig would provide an effective alternative for our largemouth and smallmouth bass whenever the effectiveness of the Rain MinnowZ, 2 ½-inch ZinkerZ and four-inch Finesse WormZ periodical waned. But as of May 25, it hasn’t become a fruitful substitute for those three soft-plastic baits for us at the flatland reservoirs that we fish in northeastern Kansas.
In the outings to come, however, I am going to experiment with a 3/32-ounce Gopher jig and green-pumpkin 3.75-inch StreakZ, and initially I will use the hop-and-bounce retrieve. This retrieve is achieved by holding the rod somewhere from the three to five o’clock position. The more the wind blows the lower we hold the rod. After the cast, we shake the rod as the jig falls to the bottom. Once it bounces on the bottom, we hop it off the bottom by rotating the reel handle twice, and as it falls back to the bottom, we shake the rod. We repeat this sequence until the bait is back to boat or out of the area that we are focusing on. If this retrieve fails to allure enough bass for our taste, we will experiment with the drag and deadstick retrieve.
Ned Kehde

Yesterday a friend reminded me about another application for the 3.75-inch StreakZ.
Last week, he attached one to a half-ounce jig on his spinning outfit that was spooled with six-pound-test line. Then he spent a little time probing 40 to 50 feet of water with it and tangled with a 10-pound and 14-pound lake trout. He described each encounter “a 30-minute tug of war” with his Midwest finesse rod and reel and line.
By the way, back in the good old days of Bass Buster Lure Company of Amsterdam, Missouri, a half-ounce white marabou jig is what Bill and the late Virgil Ward used to catch deep-water lake trout with. (It should also be noted that Bill Ward tied the first marabou jig known to mankind in 1957. It was a white 1/16-ounce one. Bill tied it for his father who was going trout fishing on the White River below Bull Shoals with Harold Ensley of Kansas City, who was shooting a TV show. The jig replicated the marabou stream that the many of the fly rod anglers used on the White River in those days.)
In 1960, Harold Ensley initially created the first Reaper to probe deep-water haunts for lake trout, and Ensley used his Reaper on a heavy jig.
In essence, the 3.75-nch StreakZ is an extremely durable and alluring replacement for the old marabou jig and Reaper.
Josh

I find that often times baits which prove to be initially evasive in showcasing their true merit eventually become trusted and generously effective favorites.

I am also experimenting with this bait. It seems as though it's true value as a fish-catcher rests with two main behavioral capacities:
- gliding / flitting about whilst unfettered by a direct abutment with a given weight source
and…
- do-nothing, dead-sticking approaches

I have done exceptionally well on occasions when drop-shotting this bait on very short 1" to 4" droppers affixed to 1/32 – 1/4 oz. sinkers of various design, depending on depth, wind, fish preference, and so on. The key here is to Texas-rig the bait on lighter gauge EWG style hooks. The slight distribution of weight along the lures length that these hooks afford gives the buoyant StreakZ a more horizontal orientation with bottom than nose hooking does.

Split-shotting has also proven fruitful, along with Neko rigging when target fishing for tentative fish.

Just last week whilst perusing around a small local impoundment on a milk-run, hitting various high percentage post-spawn areas like rock-piles in the 5' – 12' zone, isolated wood cover and docks hovering over deeper haunts adjacent to shallower spawning areas, the Neko-rigged StreakZ coerced a respectable number of largemouth. Initial efforts at each locale were executed with various topwater options and mid-sized swimbaits. Beyond the obvious value as a follow-up bait option for inaccurate or passively reacting miss-strikers, the StreakZ often allowed me to scrounge a few more fish off of these respective targets.

Although I tout my rigging as a Neko rig, it was actually slightly divergent. Nail-weights were not actually poised directly within the nose of the bait. Weight placement was something that I experimented with throughout the day, inserting them at various angles within the bait in an attempt to generate more glide and / or spiral. A thicker gauge yet quite sharp sewing needle helps to establish a channel for the weight to follow upon insertion.

Again, this was purely a target-oriented approach. The key was to work the bait slowly and subtly, with long and "painfully protracted pauses", before reeling in for successive casts. I would patiently saturate targets from various angles, and when convinced that my bait had over-stayed it's welcome, moving on was in order.

I am convinced that these fish were well fed, having foraged heavily on abundant baitfish and young-of-year brood. After nabbing the more aggressive tenants at each spot, their neutral, passive and gorged brethren would require deliberate and light-handed coercing. Interestingly enough, the largest fish of the day was nabbed with this rigging of the StreakZ.

Though just preliminary, this successful outing has spurred my intrigue for helping the StreakZ aspire to it’s fullest potential within an ever-evolving repertoire.

I am curious to hear the finding of others regarding this bait.

- Josh
- nkehde
  
  Josh:
  As always your insights are delightful to read and ponder.
  We are eager to read more about your Neko endeavors with the 3.75-inch StreakZ as the year unfolds.
  Can you reveal what kind of reservoirs you normally fish? Are they flatland, highland or hill land?
  Can you tell us what state they are located in?
  As ever,
  Ned

StreakZ

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