Strike King

[Shannon]

Hi Guys

I?ve noticed that a lot of people seem to view Strike King products as either inferior or a cheap alternative to better products, I would like to set this assumption straight.

Fab made a comment the other day that I push the Strike King brand because that is all that I stock, well it is a gross error on his part as I am sponsored by XFS which are the importers of Norman, Bandit, Stanley, Venom, Bitters, American Rodsmiths and Falcon rods. In my online store apart from these items I also stock Yum, Zoom, Excalibur, Bomber, Double X, Yo-Zuri, Shimano and Daiwa. (I?m not having a go at you Fab, just setting the record straight).

The reason I push the Strike King Products is because they are some of the best products in the world and they are quite often cheaper than opposing brands.
Now I am not saying that they will always outfish other brands, but in certain situations they will be the best lures to use, at other times a Zoom, Yum or Norman for instance would be better.

I must also state that a lot of people mistake the Strike King Brand for the Strike Pro Brand ? They are not the same! Strike Pro lures are knock-offs of successful lures in the market place.
The biggest problem with the Brand in this country is that almost no money has been spent on advertising.

In the most hotly contested tournaments in the world, Strike King and their Pro Staff have had some ?Fair? success, here are the details, you decide??

? Bassmasters Classic 2001 ? 1st Kevin VanDam ? Wild Thang
? Elite Series 2006 ? Lake Sam Rayburn ? 1st Greg Hackney ? SK Zero
? Elite Series 2006 ? Lake Champlain ? 1st Denny Brauer ? SK Pro Model Jig
? Elite Series 2007 ? Guntersville ? 1st Kevin VanDam ? SK Pro Model Spinnerbait and Series 5 and 6 Crankbaits

These are a few that I can remember, but there are quite a few more.

Of the 4 tournament wins I had last year 3 of them came on Strike King products.
Team Mercury in Natal (Rob Hardy and Kelvin Lloys Ellis) are trying very hard to keep secret the fact that they use SK products quite extensively.

These are the most extensive brands that I keep in my boat during any day on the water: (Just to show that I am not being biased towards Strike King)
? Strike King
? Norman
? Bandit
? Zoom
? Yum
? Bitters

OK, I have had my 10c worth, Use it, Don?t use it?.?

[robfisher]

Yum rules! ;-)

[Shannon]

Yum rules! ;-)

Sometimes
Show me when last an Elite Series Tournament was won on a YUM product

[Fab]

Bliksum..... Consider myself K@KKED out!!!!! :-? 8O

Ok.... Just a short explanation on my comment.... I didn't know you had the Bomber range as I didn't recall seeing it on your site a while back.... That is why I said you would advise on the Strike King as that is what you stocked.... I have also bought a few Normans from you ( Oh yes, I also bought a Strike King Tenesse bleeding shad from you if my memory isn't shot..... ).... I know you not having a dig at me and no offence taken!!!! Just wanted to put my comment into perspective....

Ppl... Go have a look at Shannons website (<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.sabasstackle.co.za">www.sabasstackle.co.za</a><!-- w -->) to see what he has to offer.... Don't let comments like mine bias you into not looking or thinking he has inferior quality products!!! He has good stuff and I'll be talking to you soon Shannon!!!

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

[Shannon]

:lol: :lol: :lol: Fab I'm not K@king you out :lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm also not using this as a promotional platform as most tackle shops now stock the Brand, (But thanks for the punt anyway )

People obvioulsy have their favourites, I have mine, but I have noticed that people will often go and clean out a store of a particular product because someone says they won a tournament on it. The Inanda Classic is a perfect case in point, try go and find a Zara Puppy in Firetiger in any store right now. In a months time the Bass will run for the hills when they see a Zara Puppy in Firetiger.
My point is that most tournament anglers will not tell you what they really caught their fish with, I am telling guys what I catch a large portion of my tournament winning fish on but because his brother who has fished 3 times says they don't work he won't try them.

Like I said, Use it, Don't use it

[hero]

well i see u keep lots of XFS producks well some of top fisherman in south africa fishing for my product LUCKY CRAFT,TERMINATOR,GAMBLER,SPIKE-IT,SNAPBACK,POWELL rods
EILAND RURES LEE SISON
i hope u have some of my products

:)) 8O

[tolla]

yip you are right shannon they do make good quality products, i fish with their jigs and spinnerbaits!
the problem i had back home , when i walked into a shop they would be out of stock or did not sell strike king.
Shannon try and stock some of the pro stuff like danny bruer premier pro elite jigs and tube baits, they also do a swimbait called king kong - looks wicked.
The problem i have , being stuck in London for most part of the year i order from bass pro shop and i got loads of terminator spinnerbaits and jigs because basspro did'nt have what i was looking for.
you can sponsor someone with a couple of lures and get some feedback from other people to put on your site.
Strike King is cool 8-)

[Shannon]

well i see u keep lots of XFS producks well some of top fisherman in south africa fishing for my product LUCKY CRAFT,TERMINATOR,GAMBLER,SPIKE-IT,SNAPBACK,POWELL rods
EILAND RURES LEE SISON
i hope u have some of my products

:)) 8O

Hero I didn't even know you are the guy bringing them in :roll: Lets talk.
Send me an email with some details, pricing and so on.
<!-- e --><a href="mailtohannon@sabasstackle.co.za">shannon@sabasstackle.co.za</a><!-- e -->
Thanks

[bassmaster]

I think everyone has their confidence lure and confidence manufacturer to go with it. There have been many Tournaments won by many different baits/manufacturers, half of them we have probably not even heard of?! So basically we can?t really say that one is better than the next, pros are always catching fish on lures that don?t work like jigs and buzz baits? LOL. If one manufacturer was winning all the tournaments it would be a different story about which bait is better or the best.

I have the utmost confidence in Cull'em Flukes and Senkos although I can't tell you if they have ever one any tournaments? I do have the choice to purchase other brands and sometimes do, but am always confident using the Cull?em range. I think it is purley a preference of choice?.

A lure is only as good as the confidence that guides it....

[Shannon]

Tolla, I have just brought in the Premier Pro Model Spinnerbaits in standard and Compact version and the Tour Grade Crankbaits (These were the baits that KVD just won with last weekend).
The King Kong Swimbait is on my mind but they will retail for about R200 each, so I am a bit hesitant. (This was the bait that KVD finished 4th with at Lake Amistad in Feb).

[Shannon]

BM has a very valid point here as well. Because Cullem and Ratfink are locally produced people automatically shy away from them, but they are actually pretty good lures as are the Cats lures. In general most baits will catch fish at one time or another, but it's when you need that 1 extra Kilo that the bait can sometimes be the difference between winning and loosing.
An example of this was last years Ten Grand Challenge that we won on Albert falls, we fished half the day without a single crankbait bite, but we knew that it was our only chance at winning the comp, so we persisted. Now we normally throw Norman crankbaits first and foremost because they catch fish, but they weren't working. So we started playing, we eventually found that the Strike King crankbait would get bit if it was pulled extremely slowly through the water. The Norman crankbait lost it's action at this speed but the Strike King crankbait didn't and that was the ticket to getting good albeit subtle bites. We won the tournament by 2.5kg, but the best part about it was after speaking to Martin De Kock we were the only people to get any fish on a crankbait for the day.
In conclusion the bait was the difference between winning and loosing on that day.

[robdog]

Shannon, if I place an order, can I collect and pay for it at the tour??

[Shannon]

Hi RobDog
You are welcome to do that.
Thanks

[bassmanic]

Thought of the day,

All baits are good, Bassmaster , Shannon and Hero make good points! Most baits have the ability to catch fish (remeber their brains are only the size of a pea :lol: ) and different people will use different products, there is however allot of research that goes into making a lure and tackle companies spend tons of money into research and marketing. There are a few fundamentals that a company cannot deviate from that should they deviate from these principals the baits would be sub-par (So yes some baits are better than others).


In North America baits are classed by tournament winnings and marketing strategies, but what people don't realize is that the pro's do not buy their baits from off the shelf at Wal-Mart or Bass Pro Shops. Prior to the no information rule (by the way, that is only for 30 days prior to tournament cut-off today) the pro's have teams of local people (fishing guides etc) collecting lake data, they still do that today. They have guides scoping out the water, collect samples of what fish are feeding on, recon for shoals and brush piles etc get the local hot spot information. The pro's have their sponsors design custom made baits for them, specific to that water (Why do you think that allot of tournaments are won on baits that people have not heard about until the tournament win.)

Case in point - Dean Rohas was throwing a variation of frog and won 2 tournaments on it before it was released to the public and then boom everbody is forking out thousands to buy frogs (if you look at the stats though all the guys fishing a shallow top water pattern (traditional top water baits) did well, Rohas only won by ounces. The same goes for Andre Moore with the beaver, there was big hupe about this bait, he placed second (all the marketing guys jumped all over it, you did not hear about the brush hog that won the tournament (because brush hogs are old news and everybody has one), it's all about hype and sales. Kevin Van Dam won a tournament on a old "wiggle wart" you can't even buy these things any more and the week they released a new line of wiggle warts.

On the other hand you have a no-name brand make it big due to a string good placements by a good angler endorsing the products like Aaron Martin's and the ROBO Worm, nobody had heard of the Robo worm before. Now you have the mighty Bass Pro Shops brand the people who dip their tubes don't even fish (they live in Mexico) :evil: , the product is only quality controlled for cheapness and these tubes are made to the cheapest standards possible, they are unscented the, plastic is often brittle due to heat stabilisers being missing and they lack in salt and other products.

The point that I am trying to make is that all baits, if well manufactured, have good science and biology behind them will win tournaments (like lucky craft baits, rapala, strike king etc etc), but remember the real pro's have huge companies with millions of dollars backing them. They put resources behind their pro's to help them win and believe me it gets really "nasty" on the water, off camera there are allot of arguments and unpleasant rivalries going on and very often you do not get to see the winning bait (but does it really matter) regardless if it is always a zara spook and by the way spooks are brilliant anyway :lol: :lol: :lol:

I hope I have not offended anybody, just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning :oops: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[robfisher]

Bassmanic I was looking at your web site and noticed the Anaconda?s? they look really interesting? when the Mustang Jacket arrives I wonder if you could include a few packets of Anaconda?s? I prefer greens and chartreuse. Do you not export to SA?