Drop Your ‘Zipper’ to Catch the Big Girls!
Category: new products
Jan 3rd, 2013 by OutdoorsFIRST
Modified Jan 3rd, 2013 at 12:00 AM
Go deeper, a long-time strategy once used by a few has now become the voice of reason for many. The secret has been out for a while now and the doors have been opened for muskie lure manufacturers to bring us new tools to reach the fish that for so long now have roamed the basin without ever feeling a hook. Nothing has changed in the underwater world – baitfish still migrate on the same deep water patterns they always have, and close behind them the muskies have been following them from the beginning. New and improved electronics have enhanced our minds by quite literally showing us the imagery once only imagined by anyone who ever wondered, “What’s down there?”
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Still, while the cat’s been out of the bag for a while now, the challenge hasn’t gotten any easier to put some slime on the bump board. Confidence is still an issue that has many boats still casting shadows over community weed beds and tracing breaklines. Learning how weather patterns and seasons affect baitfish migration is only a fraction of the battle when going deep, while locating and ultimately reaching them with a solid presentation that can maintain sufficient time in the strike-zone and keep it’s action is where the difference between hope and expectation is defined.
So what to do when you slide out into the abyss and see that the bait is on the bottom?
Here is where I’ve seen a lot of basin fishermen slide in to fish cover looking for that snake in the grass. Muskie anglers, for the most part, are active fishermen. We like to be on the move covering as much water as we can in search of an active fish. My tournament partner says it best, “Why leave fish to find fish?”. We literally spend hours hovering over a single piece of structure we know is holding a fish just waiting for that window to open up when that fish decides to eat. We know that as long as we’re there when that window opens up, we’ll capitalize on it and we’ve proven this technique enough times to put us on the board nearly every time we’ve fished together in or out of competition. So what do we do when the bait is on the bottom?
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We go vertical!
One of the newest baits to hit the market, The Zipper has the ability to hang in the strike zone no matter the depth and literally come to life while it’s down there with plenty of ease on the forearm. Vince Weirick, founder of Migizi Custom Big Game Fishing Rods, has taken his years of experience chasing muskies and created this lure to be in a class all of its own. The action of the lure stays versatile in that you can drive it fast or slow, yet maintains a mind of its own giving it that natural lifelike look and feel. This thing moves water in a major way, so much so a blind muskie could find it like a homing missile.
Zippers have become an absolute staple in my boat thanks to a prototype Vince put in my hands this past season, and is one of those weapons that has quickly become part of the growing revolution of vertically jigging those hard-to-reach big basin dwellers that follow the bait down to depths beyond the effective strike-zone of most muskie-sized lures on the market today. When you first see the Zipper in the water, you wonder how we could have gone this long without it.
There’s a great video clip demonstrating the action of these baits right here on OutdoorFIRST Media: Watch it!
Drop your Zipper to catch the big girls!