This week’s lure deserves a drum roll, however it loses its effect in type. Let me just say that in our little test pond behind The River Reporter, this lure performed better than anything else we’ve thrown yet. Just yesterday the sky was partly cloudy but the heat was up in the nineties and sweat was rolling off my head within minutes. The water was fairly calm, little to no wind, and I had just tied on a 3” white grub by Kalin’s from Acme Tackle Company. I had it on an eighth ounce ball jig head, painted lime green with a red eye from Eagle Claw hooks. For those of you who don’t know, you insert the jig head into the grub such that the hook goes through the middle of the grub and comes out the belly facing forward. The head of the jig then sits at the front of the grub like the head of a bait. This is the same way you assemble a jig and swimbait as I described a few weeks ago. The grub which was plain white, was to match the water clarity. The water was slightly clear, but with about a 3 foot range of sight, as is typical in this pond. On the second cast, I picked up an aggressive sunfish, barely large enough to fit the hook in its mouth. I threw a few more casts, getting strikes but none fully taking the hook.

I moved down the bank and on my second cast there, I caught what I thought was another sunfish at first, but upon retrieving it through the bank algae, I realized it was a crappie! For the record, I was not aware that this little pond had any crappie in it, but I was happy to find one. As you can see from the photo to the right, I wanted to show the difference between these fish for anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to see the difference for themselves.

I released both after the picture and I hope to catch more crappie in the remaining days of summer. Starting to get really excited about this grub, I moved back to my original spot on the bank and threw another cast. Right away I got a huge strike on the line. I didn’t know what it was because it stayed deep, but it was heavy and began to make my drag work. Eventually I landed a nice 18” two pound pike. As it happened, the line broke from its teeth just as it landed on the shore. I might be looking into heavier line with all the pike I seem to be catching.

Over the course of perhaps a half hour I managed to catch three species of fish, and I thought that was going to be great for this review, but this morning as I came to the office our power was out. So I grabbed my rod and started throwing the jig again with my coworker Amanda Reed.  The sky was overcast and rain was drizzling and the temperature had dropped considerably from yesterday. But just as fast, Amanda and then myself were into the money. No panfish this time though. I have to be humble because while the bass we hooked into were stunningly large. Neither of us managed to land one. Having been quick to get the rods in the water, neither of us grabbed a net, and all three bass we caught were just too heavy for the 6 pound line to hoist them up over the 3 foot drop bank. Again I’ll be looking into getting some heavier line.

As far as Kalins white grub is concerned. I give it two thumbs up. And I will be keeping a steady supply of these in my tackle box from here on out. Check out the videos of some of these catches below and feel free to Subscribe to the new Youtube channel Lure of the Week.

*If you have any luck with the lure of the week, feel free to email your pictures to events@riverreporter.com for an opportunity to share them on our website. If you have a favorite kind of lure we haven’t reviewed yet, feel free to send that lure to our office at PO box 150 Narrowsburg, NY 12764. We will add it to our weekly reviews and share the results. Check back each week on Mondays to see the new lure of the week!