John Cox’s Jerk Shad Shuffle

John Cox remembers the splash of a 3-pound largemouth erupting onto a Lunker City Fin-S Fish when he was still in elementary school. His mom had just bought him the pack of 4-inch soft-plastic shad replicas at a local Walmart minutes earlier. “We went down to Gemini Springs, and I threw it off the dock,” Cox tells. “I remember twitching it and seeing it go down. Then, I saw the fish come up behind it. It had its nose on it, and as soon as I popped the lure, it came up and inhaled it. I probably thought it was a 7- or 8-pounder.”

Cox’s experience is a familiar one repeated across North America each May. At fishing rodeos