Entry 83-1

Shaw Grigsby on 3X Salt Impregnated Soft Plastic Lures

Shaw Grigsby on 3X Lures?

Editor's Note: New this year from Strike King is the 3X Salt Impregnated soft plastic lures. This week, well-known professional bass fisherman Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Florida, will tell us how, where and why to fish them.

Grigsby: The major difference in these new 3X soft plastic lures and the original 3X soft plastic lures is that Strike King has pumped salt into the 3X this year. One of the properties of the 3X material is that it floats. But in some fishing situations, you want soft-plastic lures that sink.

To create a soft lure that will sink and be more appealing to the bass, Strike King has used salt with its 3X lures. The salt helps the bass to hold onto the lure longer, and it does very little to decrease the positive effects of the 3X material. Even though Strike King has added salt to these new 3X lures, the lures themselves still have just as much lifelike action and as much strength as the originals.

With the ZToo, which is the new salt-impregnated Zulu shad-type bait, you can twitch it across the surface of the water like you did the original Zulu. But when you stop it, instead of floating up, the ZToo sinks slowly. Too, when you stop one of Strike King's new salt-impregnated 3X lures, a bass will try to swallow the lure once it bites one. Then you'll get a deeper hook set and have more time to set the hook. Usually when you get a bite, and set the hook, you've got the bass.

Both the original 3X lures and these new salt-impregnated lures, I'm convinced, will catch every fish that swims. I've used the Zulu and the ZToo to catch largemouth, smallmouth, spotted bass, tarpon, speckled trout, redfish, bluefish, king mackerel and just about every fish that swims in the Gulf. What we've been able to do by adding salt to the 3X lures is to give fishermen the option of having a soft-plastic bait that floats up - the original 3X lures - or a soft-plastic bait that sinks - the salt-impregnated 3X lures.

These new salt-impregnated 3X lures aren't quite as tough as the original 3X lures, however, they're still much stronger and tougher than other soft-plastic baits. These baits will fall fairly fast - about 1-1/2-feet a second - but they shake and shimmy as they fall. The salt-impregnated 3X lures look a lot like the standard 3X lures. You can tell the difference because Strike King's original 3X Soft Plastic Lures will be in a yellow-and-red package. The new sinking 3X Salt Impregnated Soft Plastic Lures will be in a yellow-and-purple package.




 

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