April 16, 2018
By Ned Kehde
Since August of 2011, it has been our never-ending quest to publish gear guides of all the soft-plastic finesse baits that Midwest finesse anglers can affix to a jig.
As these years unfolded, we were surprised about the vast number of finesse baits that are available for anglers to use.
Consequently, there are scores of them that we have not written a word about, and Bizz Baits' Dizzy Diamond is one of them, which was introduced to the angling world in 2011.
Bizz Baits is a small company, and it recently moved from Illinois to Huntersville, North Carolina. Brian Souza is the proprietor, and he resides in Huntersville, too.
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It manufacturers five soft-plastic baits, and none of them were designed for Midwest finesse applications, but with some minor customizations, their Dizzy Diamond can be made into an affective Midwest finesse rig.
It is a six-inch finesse worm.
The Summer Craw Dizzy Diamond. The dorsal of the Dizzy Diamond's torso possesses a semicircular shape, and some folks describe it as its "rounded top." Its ventral is flat, which is sometimes called its "flat bottom."
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From the area that anatomists describe as its prostomium and mouth to its clitellum, the Dizzy Diamond's dorsal is encompassed with 16 segments, which most anglers call ribs. The ventral is flat and smooth-skinned. This circumference of this portion of its torso is the Dizzy Diamond's biggest circumference.
Its clitellum or egg sack is smooth-skinned.
Unlike a real earthworm, the Dizzy Diamond's anus is endowed with a somewhat spade-shaped and swollen tail. From the clitellum to the junction of its tail, its dorsal is adorned with 37 segments or ribs. Its ventral is flat and smooth-skinned. This is the Dizzy Diamond's longest section, and its circumference becomes smaller and smaller as it approaches the junction of its tail.
The dorsal portion of its tail is somewhat pyramid-shaped, and it is adorned with nine segments or ribs. Its ventral is flat and smooth-skinned.
It is available in the following colors: Black and Blue Laminate, Black and Red, Bruised Olive, Cinnamon, Embers and Ash, Green Pumpkin, Green Pumpkin Blue, Green Pumpkin Candy, Green Pumpkin Magic, Green Pumpkin Orange, Green Pumpkin Red, Junebug, Magic Craw, Mud Craw, Okeechobee Craw, Sprayed Grass, Summer Craw, Watermelon Candy, Watermelon Red, and White.
It is impregnated with salt and a scent that is called "Jack'em Juice." Even though it is salt impregnated, it is said to be buoyant and surprisingly durable. Some anglers call it a hand-poured worm, but Souza says it is manufactured with a hand-injected system.
The tail's buoyancy allows it to move upwards, and thus, it will be above the bottom, when an angler is employing either a drag-and-shake presentation or a drag-and-deadstick presentation.
The folks at Bizz Baits say that their favorite way to rig it is on a shaky-head jig, a drop-shot rig, and a wacky-rigged jig. A six-inch finesse worm is too long for Midwest finesse applications. Therefore, Midwest finesse anglers will amputate 1 1/2 or two inches from the front section of the Dizzy Diamond before they affix it to a mushroom-style jig with an exposed hook, and they will opt for the lightest jig possible, ranging in size from 1/32-ounce to a 3/32-ouncer. Its flat ventral will accentuate the glide element of the swim-glide-and-shake presentation when it is rigged on either a 1/32- or 1/16-ounce mushroom-style jig. Besides the swim-glide-and-shake retrieve, the Dizzy Diamond will work with the entire repertoire of Midwest finesse retrieves. (See endnote No. 2 for details about how to employ the six Midwest finesse retrieves.)
A package of 10 costs $4.99.
Endnotes
Here is a link to Bizz Baits' website: https://www.bizzbaits.com/collections/dizzy-diamond . Here is a link to the Midwest finesse column that describes how to execute the six standard Midwest finesse retrieves: http://www.in-fisherman.com/midwest-finesse/six-midwest-finesse-retrieves/ . Sometime in the future, we will publish gear guides about Bizz Baits' Sassy Stick and Cutter Craw, which Midwest finesse anglers will customize a touch before they wield them on a mushroom-style jig. In fact, Souza recounted in a telephone conversation on Jan. 18 that he knows several anglers who are customizing the Cutter Craw and affixing onto a Midwest- finesse-style jig. Nowadays, there is a mistaken notion that the jigworm and shaky-head jig was created by finesse anglers in the Western states. A jigworm has played a prominent role in Midwest finesse tactics since the 1950s. In fact, the late Harold Ensley of Overland Park, Kansas, used one to win the first World Series of Sport Fishing in 1960. In that tournament, Ensley used the Skworm-N-Jig, which was manufactured by the late Ted Green and his Mar-Lynn Lure Company of Blue Springs, Missouri. This tournament was created by Hy Peskin of Sports Illustrated magazine fame and Ted Williams of baseball fame, and it was staged at Union Lake, Michigan, on Oct. 15-24, 1960. And eleven years later, Drew Reese of Rantoul, Kansas, used a jigworm and two other Midwest finesse rigs at the first Bassmaster Classic at Lake Mead, Nevada, in 1971, and he garnered seventh-place honors.The jigworm is no longer the day-in-and-day-out piscatorial jewel that it once was, but there will be spells throughout the calendar year when a jig affixed to a worm like a Bizz Baits' Dizzy Diamond becomes Midwest finesse anglers' dominant rig, and some of those spells can endure for weeks (and perhaps months) on end. Fred "Taco" Bland of Birmingham, Alabama, created the first shaky-head jig. Here is a link to a Midwest finesse column that explores the history of the jigworm and shaky-head jig: http://www.in-fisherman.com/bass/skworm-n-jig-wacky-jig-history-jigworm-many-modern-day-manifestations/ .
