Wake 'Em Up
by Pete Robbins


It's late October, and in a quiet cove just off the main lake there's a slight surface disturbance. A big threadfin shad, in the last stages of its life, makes its way across the water in a haphazard fashion.

It goes a few inches to the left, then straight ahead, then veers sharply right. But in addition to its side-to-side motion, the shad also makes full use of the upper inches of the water column. One moment it's up on the surface, the next it seemingly freefalls down a foot, then it knuckleballs back up a bit. But all the while its motions are marked by a surface disturbance, displaced water and a bubble trail.

Wham! A big bass comes out of nowhere and nails the shad, but doesn't get it.

The shad is jolted into a panic state. It sits half-above, half-below the water line, tail trembling and scoots toward the far shoreline in a spastic rhythm. The bass tracks its moves the whole time, and before the baitfish makes it another 2 feet, it's gone, sucked under, an easy meal.

Body Language

There's a fine line between predator and prey. If a small watersnake makes a beeline for a target, he's a hunter. But if he lazily meanders back and forth, he's an easy meal.

One of the most terrifying moments in movie history occurs in Jaws, when the shark, in hot pursuit of human prey, hasn't pierced the surface yet, but has displaced enough water that it's pushing a surface wave in front of it. That wave is moving quickly and purposefully – the viewer still doesn't know quite what it is, but it's apparent that if you get in its way you're lunchmeat. If that same shark were to slowly swim to and fro, in no particular direction, either on the surface or underwater, then it's not nearly as terrifying. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in the water with the big girl either way, but the body language says a lot.

There are certainly times when a straight retrieve can produce fish. A lipless vibrating crankbait produces limits of bass year after year. A buzzbait retrieved steadily in a straight line is a killer for big bass. But those are generally reaction strikes.

A lure that not only screams out "easy meal," but also draws attention from long distances, like the dying shad, can be dynamite. Topwaters are of course great for this application, but at times a lure that wakes the surface, breaking it intermittently and creating the image of a gasping, dying, protein-filled main course can be even better.

Old School Waking

The concept of a lure that wakes the surface is nothing new. For decades, anglers in the Ozarks have taken the venerable Cordell Red fin and waked it across the tops of clear lakes like Table Rock and Bull Shoals to tempt outsized bass.

"It's a clear water deal," said Oklahoma pro O.T. Fears. "You can use it over twenty feet of water and just watch those big females come out of deep water and crush it." He added that in the Midwest its application extends primarily to springtime prespawn bass. "When they come up to get it, they mean business. They mean to kill it."

Fears has taken the lure outside of the Ozark region to other clear water lakes, like Georgia's Lake Lanier, in pursuit of both largemouths and spotted bass. "Ninety per cent of the time those suspended fish won't come up for a steadily reeled spinnerbait," he said. "If you slow roll it, it goes down, so the Redfin fills that gap. I'm not sure if it's the slowness or the wiggle, but it certainly gets their attention."

Ozark region anglers long ago learned to modify the Redfin to make its wake even more noticeable. They take a cigarette lighter, gently heat the small diving lip until it's pliable, and then adjust it a fraction of an inch to prevent the lure from diving. The result is a minnow with an inclination to dive, but no ability to do so.

American Innovations

For years, the chief aim of crankbait manufacturers was to attain the maximum depth possible. This "race to the bottom" produced lures like the Bagley's DB3 and DB3 Dredge, the Bill Norman DD22, and the Mann's 20+. Eventually, the race topped out at the Mann's 30+. On a long cast with light line, the magic 20 foot depth could be attained with any of these lures – as long as you had forearms like Popeye to work them all day.

But while the need for deep divers never waned, lure designers also realized there was a need for hard-bodied plugs that had the body shape and other characteristics of a crankbait, but only slightly more depth-range than a topwater lure.

Mann's may have been the forerunner in this effort. At the very least, it's still-popular One Minus was the first lure to popularize the trend on the national tournament scene, when Kentucky's Dan Morehead won the 1996 BASS Maryland Top 150 tournament on the Potomac River.

Subsequently, most of the major crankbait manufacturers came out with an ultra-shallow diving plug. Included among them were the Storm Sub Wart, Bandit Footloose, Strike King Series 1X and Worden Timber Tiger DC1.

None of these lures dives more than a foot or so, and some, like the Footloose, don’t approach even that shallow depth. As Morehead showed, they're perfect for pulling over grassbeds when the tide is high on waters like the Potomac or the California Delta. They also shine around shallow laydowns, as their buoyancy allows them to be burned directly into the cover and then backed up before swimming forward again.

Meanwhile, some of these American manufacturers pushed the shallow diving crankbait trend to a new extreme. Perhaps it was catalyzed by the success of the super-shallow divers across the country. Or maybe it built primarily on the long popular technique of waking a spinnerbait – as recently as a few years ago, Gambler lures produced the Wake'n Bacon, a large bladed spinnerbait named after veteran pro Basil Bacon and meant to remain upright and on the surface during a brisk retrieve.

Regardless of the impetus, Bagley's Introduced the Bulgin' B and Norman came out with The Wake. Fears throws The Wake "any time there's shallow water with heavy cover. It's comes through wood very well. I also like it in laydowns and it's really good on docks." Around cover, he casts it on a heavy pistol grip rod. On those occasions when he throws it in open water he uses a 6'6"-7' medium or medium heavy cranking stick. In either case, he uses 14-17 lb. test monofilament.

While some anglers have had success with these American-made wake baits, they have not gained a widespread following or, if they have, the technique is a closely guarded secret.

Eastern Renaissance

In the mid to late 1990s, there was a surge in wake bait popularity among many anglers in Japan. BASS Elite Series pro Kota Kiriyama said this trend coincided with the introduction of Florida strain bass to Japanese waters. "It became a big deal to catch those big fish," he said, and many of the finesse tactics that had gained popularity in Japan were not the most effective way to tempt them.

California tournament angler Adam Koda traces the boom back to "guys in Japan modifying the old Budweiser beer can baits. The Japanese are tinkerers. They'd move the blade on the back up a little bit to make it clack more. It was real hush-hush for a while, but it gradually grew in popularity and over here (in the United States) we started seeing them on Ebay for $12 or $13 apiece."

Kiriyama confirmed this report. "The Big Bud has a lot of action and it caught a lot of big fish. That's when everybody got into it. Lots of companies started to make wake baits, but only a few made them right."

One of those companies was HMKL ("Hand Made Kazuma Lures"). Kazuma Izumi, the dean of Japanese lure designers, developed the K-0 Minnow, perhaps the first dedicated wake bait. He has made jerkbaits (commonly referred to "minnow lures" in Japan) by hand for over 30 years, but his approach has never been to create a jack-of-all trades lure that will suffice in various circumstances. Instead, each lure is intended to fill a particular narrow niche.

The K-O Minnow, a lightweight 115 millimeter lure was among the first lures specifically designed to wake the surface. "If you try to rip it, no matter what you do, you cannot get it under," said Idaho tournament angler Terry Battisti. "It also has a unique rattle in its tail that sounds like a metronome. The lure has a side-to-side roll along the axis of the bait, and depending on your speed of retrieve that metronome may be 'tick, tick, tick' or 'tick….tick….tick.'"

"He's a small manufacturer and he's niche-market oriented so he's never going to sell a zillion baits, so he never looked into coming across to the United States. Nevertheless, he teaches lure making at the only bass fishing school in Japan. You can actually get a 4 year degree in bass fishing there. So he spread a lot of his knowledge and everyone tried to mimic him. That opened the floodgates."

At that point, said Matt Paino of Optimum Baits, the sole US importer for several Japanese lure companies, "wake baiting took off in Japan," but when the lures were first brought to the United States in small quantities they didn't sell particularly well, probably because they didn't look markedly different from a typical jerkbait.

Day of the Jackall

Kiriyama worked with Jackall Lures to develop an assortment of wake baits that would enable him to respond to varying conditions. These include the Aragon SSR, the Cherry Zero Footer, the Mikey/Mikey Jr. and the Dagored. Each fills a particular niche. Additionally, Jackall's Japanese arm has also developed a modernized and technically superior group of baits in the general design of the Big Bud, known as the Bunny series of lures.

Jackall has two lures that look like conventional super-shallow divers, the Aragon SSR and the Cherry Zero Footer, but each has characteristics which separate it from the herd. The former is a jointed bait, like its medium and deep diving siblings. With the rod held low, it will dive as deep as a foot, but with the tip held high it will wake the surface. "It came out a month ago and it has a small profile and probably catches the most fish of any (wake bait). It's great over grass and great for the spawning bite," said Kiriyama Unlike traditional lures in its class, the reinforced joint makes a violent cracking noise, even at slow speeds.

Upon the retrieve the Cherry Zero Footer attempts to dive, but the bill is angled so violently that it cannot get beneath the surface, thereby recreating the painful dance of a dying shad.

Jackall also makes larger wake baits that more closely resemble swimbaits. The first is the Dagored, a 4.6" jointed beast with a lip and a rear prop that is angled to strike the screw that holds it upon rotation. Kiriyama likes this lure primarily in clear, shallow water situations when there are big fish around. He has used it effectively on lakes including Amistad and Santee Cooper. One application that is not immediately evident is its usefulness as a bed fishing tool. "You cast it out, make one jerk and then let it sit over the bed and they eat it," he said. "It's so different than anything else they've seen."

He also employs the Mikey and the Mikey Jr., three-piece jointed lures that are 5.5" and 3.8" respectively. He uses the larger size on waters like the California Delta and Clear Lake, but is more likely to utilize the smaller version on fisheries that do not have similar populations of oversized fish. He also uses it as a search bait. "It gets their attention so well that I use it to cover large weed flats. At the recent BASS event at Lake Champlain I would see them come up behind it and pull it away from them."

Both the Dagored and the Mikey come in an array of colors. On cloudy days, Kiriyama prefers translucent colors such as Ghost Minnow. When it's sunny, he gravitates toward Tennessee Shad. He likes similar hues in the more traditionally-shaped wake baits, although he'll also add crawfish shades if he thinks the crustaceans are the primary forage.

He throws the lures on a Shimano 6'10" glass/graphite composite rod paired with a 6.2:1 gear ration Shimano Antares reel (the Japanese version of the Shimano Calais). Another key element of his presentation involves his chosen line. He likes Varivas Big Bait Monster Line in 16 to 25 lb. test. "Normally I use Varivas Ganoa fluorocarbon for crankbaits, but the Big Bait Monster Line is high floating and low stretch. What I really like about it is that I can make a long cast in clear water and still get a good hookset."

A Good Buzz

While Jackall has developed a multifaceted line of lures for waking, they are by no means the only manufacturer who continues to explore this technique. While some American lure manufacturers have caught on, it is primarily the Japanese who have developed different shapes and actions for different situations. Examples include the Evergreen Ratatat, the Tiemco Wake T, and the several members of the OSP Buzzin' series, developed by tour pro Toshinari Namiki.

Adam Koda believes he's found the ultimate wake bait in the Deps Buzzjet and Buzzjet Jr. The larger of the two is 4" and a full ounce, while the smaller version is 3" and one-half ounce. As with the appearance of the larger Jackall baits, the increasing popularity of the Buzzjets may be a direct effect of the growth of swimbait nation. "I think they're interchangeable with swimbaits," Koda said. "It fills a niche. When they plant trout in the four to eight inch range the big one is just the perfect size."

The Buzzjet is a schizophrenic-looking creature. It appears that the back half of a Tiny Torpedo, complete with a rotating prop, has been mated to the front half of a 1980s vintage Bomber Smilin' Minnow crankbait. But, as the old saying goes, it's neither fish nor fowl, but rather a species all its own.

"The biggest mistake I see people make is that they look at it like a Devil's Horse," Koda said. "All you really need to do is throw it out and swim it back. Start with your rod tip high at 11 o'clock and drop the tip as it gets closer. Reel real slow. You want it on top pushing water."

In addition to its use as a swimbait substitute, Koda also uses it when other anglers rely on a Zara Spook. "The bigger version of the Buzzjet is really good for big fish but it's not as overwhelming and overpowering as the Super Spook. For example, on Lake Mead the Spook bite can die because everybody and their mother throws them. They get over pressured."

"Not only will you get more bites on the Buzzjet, but they have a better shot of getting the bait into their mouth. It sits just under the surface so they don't have to suck in a whole mouthful of water to get it. The strikes will just be a slurping down, not explosions."

He uses the Buzzjet and its smaller counterpart whenever the water gets above 58 degrees, from the spring all the way up through November. "Once it gets below 58 they don't want to chase," he said. "But that still means I use it the majority of the year. It's fantastic around bluegill beds and in the summertime."

Optimum's Matt Paino, the US importer for Deps, has worked extensively with his Japanese counterparts to understand the engineering behind the Buzzjet. The critical element is the internal weighting system, which features four stainless steel balls. While many lures allow front-to-back movement of such weights, Deps has created an internal chamber that also allows side-to-side transfer. "This makes it rock back and forth as it wakes and that creates more commotion, which in turn draws fish from further away. It dives a little but because of the body volume it won't stay underneath and it gets forced back up, which creates a huge wake."

Paino believes that because of the wide wobble and distinctive noise, the Buzzjet series excels in open water, above rocks or where vegetation is sparse. He echoed Koda's belief that it may replace a specific topwater in certain circumstances, but instead of the Spook, he prefers it as a buzzbait substitute. "In night tournaments, a lot of guys on Clear Lake and the Delta will throw a black one where others fish a buzzbait. It has a big profile and makes a lot of noise and that draws fish from a long way away. In fact, in clear water, for example over a long submerged point, you can use it to draw fish up 30 or 40 feet."

Both Paino and Koda prefer to throw the Buzzjet on swimbait tackle. "It throws like a rocket on any tackle, but it's a big fish bait," Paino said. Koda likes a Shimano 7'11" F711H rod and Shimano Calcutta 250 round baitcasting reel (5.0:1 gear ratio), which he spools with 20 lb. test Maxima Ultragreen line. The Buzzjets come in a wide variety of colors, but some of their preferred shades include Jet Black (especially for night fishing), Ghost Bass, Glass Cat, Bone Crackle and Olive Shad.

Swimbait Similarities

California BASS Elite Series pro Vince Hurtado believes that there are appropriate times to swim a swimbait, and other times when it makes more sense to use a waking retrieve. "If there's any chop on the water and I'm fishing a 5 inch or bigger bait, I'm more likely to wake it than swim it," he said.

He stressed that any time an angler fishes a wake bait, boat positioning is critical. "I always make sure that the sun is at my back. What happens is they'll see the shadow of the lure, their eyes are looking up, and they follow the shadow. Then they look up and there's the bait. I've seen it at Lake Mead when throwing a spook, there will be 10 fish trying to eat the shadow."

"It's the number one key thing that everyone makes mistakes with. Pay attention to it and you'll catch many more fish."

Like Kiriyama, he stressed that line choice also plays a large role in proper presentation. "Stay away from fluorocarbon," he said. "You want heavy buoyant monofilament without much stretch. His preference is 20 pound P-Line CXX X-Tra Strong. "It goes away in the water and it doesn't have nearly as much stretch as normal 20."

He also occasionally makes modifications to the lure itself. "I don't hesitate to put a stinger hook on it. I'll actually tie a 3 inch piece of heavy mono or even braid to the back hook and attach it. It's such a big bait that if they slap at it, it gives you a free hanging hook to get them. Sometimes I'll also had a feather to the back hook, which gives it more action as well."

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

So if wake baits break the surface, why not just use a topwater?

Kiriyama said that they're not entirely interchangeable, and in fact the waking lures may be more versatile. For the beginner, "it really takes no effort to work them right," he said. "You basically cast it out and retrieve it." For the expert, these lures allow anglers to show the fish something they have not previously seen while also covering water. "Topwater tends to be slower. Even though you usually fish the wake bait slowly, it's a steady retrieve and it's great for covering large flats and points."

Additionally, Kiriyama believes that the wake baits produce more hookups than the erratic cadence of the typical topwater. "You just retrieve it. It moves predictably and the fish can track it easily, which results in better hooksets and more fish."

Koda rues the fact that American anglers tend to jump on trends the Japanese develop too late in the game. "Some of the western guys have thrown them, and you see some of them bid on them on Japanese Ebay stores for up to $60, but for the most part guys over here are missing the boat with this stuff. The Japanese have been dropshotting for years. They've done all sorts of things like fishing a senko wacky style on a 3/32 ounce jighead that we're just catching onto. This is another technique that may remain hush-hush for a while."