July 01, 2014
By Ned Kehde
On May 29 Mike Poe of Siler City, North Carolina, posted a brief on the Finesse News Network about Zoom Bait Company's four-inch Curly-Tail Worm.
Poe said that he crossed paths with Dewey Rheems of Durham, North Carolina, at a wintertime outdoor show, and Rheems, who is a veteran and talented finesse angler, heralded the many virtues of the Zoom's Curly-Tail Worm. To motivate Poe to use them, Rheems gave him a bag of them.
On May 24 and 25, when Poe was struggling to elicit strikes with a 2 1/2-inch Strike King Lure Company's Zero affixed to a 1/16-ounce Gopher Tackles' Mushroom Head Jig, he removed the Zero and affixed a June Bug Curl-Tail Worm with the tip of its tail pointed up. Straightaway, he garnered strikes and caught largemouth bass from areas where the Zero-and-jig combo failed to entice a largemouth bass.
He caught the largemouth bass along the outside edges of patches of American water willows, which were beginning to turn green. He presented the worm-and-jig combo by executing a cast that paralleled the edge of the water willows. After the worm hit the surface of the water, he allowed it to plummet to the bottom and his rod to drop to the three o'clock position. Then he lifted his rod to the one o'clock position and allowed the worm to glide back to the bottom. He employed this lift-and-glide presentation until the worm reached the depth of five feet of water. Most of the strikes occurred in three to four feet of water and on the second or third lift and glide. He noted that the tail undulated and vibrated so dramatically that he didn't add any shakes to the presentation. In addition to the lift-and-glide retrieve, he also worked with a straight swimming presentation, which inveigled one largemouth bass.
According to Rheems, Zoom's Curly-Tail Worm and Gopher jig will catch five largemouth bass for every one largemouth bass that the 2 1/2-inch Zero and 1/16-ounce Gopher jig will catch during the post spawn period.
It's available in 11 colors: Black, Black Red Glitter, Chartreuse Pepper, Cherry Seed, Electric Blue, Green Pumpkin, June Bug, Plum, Pumpkin, Pumpkin Chartreuse Tail, and Watermelon Seed. The price for a package of 20 ranges from $3.19 to $4.19.
