It seems like every year or two a new bait shows up and all of a sudden revolutionizes bass fishing and it’s all everyone seems to focus on. Last year it was minnows…before that it was poop baits and at the moment the most talked about lure on the market right now is the urchin bait. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last six months you don’t have to go far to start learning about these…simply look up bass fishing videos or head over to the urchin bait section on Tackle Warehouse and you will see all sorts of different brands and styles of these things. I guess bass fishing picked up significantly after covid and if you think about it that means more fish got caught and these things sort of look like the covid virus so maybe that’s why bass hate them and they seem to work? Ok maybe not but the fishing industry definitely seems to think a lot of people will believe they will catch a lot of fish and as a result they’ve invested a significant amount of time, energy and money into them.
So at this point if every other lure at ICAST was an urchin bait, and if every other video you see is related to one then you are probably thinking I’ve had to of tried one by now…and as it turns out I have not. Before I explain why I do want to point out that there’s nothing wrong with trying out new lures (even if they are trendy) and I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’m some guy that just throws old school lures and believes that you should just stick to the old school tried and true stuff that’s out there. But I also have no desire to try one of these things, and there’s a few reasons why. For starters, I already have more lures than I have time to fish, so if I do try something new it’s going to have to be really appealing. These things are also very expensive, and as an example the Hideup Coike 13mm is currently selling for $20.49. Granted, they have less expensive options available and you can get a 3 pack of the 8mm for $14.99 but that’s still $5 per lure and I have to wonder if I were to figure out the ratio in terms of price between that and something like a standard Roboworm and this lure would this one catch enough fish to justify the price? These things also seem boring to me. Yes you can put one on a drop shot but so what, I already use worms or small shad profiles on a drop shot and those both work great.
I realize I’m definitely in the minority with my opinion on these, but was watching a video on Jacob Wheeler’s YouTube channel yesterday and it seems I’m not completely alone as the look on his face sort of sums of my feelings on these:
So I suppose if you are wanting to learn all about Urchin baits this probably isn’t the website for you. For the record I love trying out new lures and while it’s easy for me to get excited about something like Duo Realis crankbait in morning dawn or a Lucky Craft jerkbait in phantom chartreuse, I just don’t seem to find myself being drawn to these things. On another note I never tried poop baits either, and have not seen a single video about a poop bait lately, although I can still remember when everyone seemed to be talking about them. The poop bait section on Tackle Warehouse also looks pretty bombed out lately…then again I could always be wrong and urchin baits could end up dominating bass fishing for years and perhaps poop baits will even make a comeback one day as well!
