Modify Your Summer Mentality
IT’S HARD TO picture David Fritts fishing with anything other than a crankbait, but if you look in his boat anytime during the summer, you’ll also discover more than a few bags of soft-plastic stickbaits, specifically the 5-inch models of Berkley’s The General. There will be a bag of nails close by, too. In Matt Herren’s boat, stacked in with the spinnerbait boxes, you’ll find a box of blade baits similar to the Gay Blade developed by Cotton Cordell more than half a century ago. And over in Mark Menendez’s boat, his warm-water arsenal includes a couple of boxes of Strike King’s 3/4-ounce Red Eye Shad lipless crankbaits, only they’re not exactly what they appear to be.
In a word, these veteran pros, along with many of their peers in the Bassmaster Elite Series, have developed special lures and presentations for what are
