As far as Ohio pro Frank Scalish is concerned, less really can be more at times – and one of those time is when he picks up a rod that’s rigged with a YUM Houdini Shad.
Ask Frank Scalish how to work a YUM Houdini Shad, he’ll tell you not to work it at all. Scalish, who won a recent BASS Open on Lake Erie and who earned rookie of the year honors his first year on the Pro Tour, prefers to allow the Houdini Shad do all the work.
Scalish simply rigs the bait like a Texas rig, except weightless, casts it out, lets it fall through the water column on a loose line and watches for the line to race off. When it does, he sets the hook and reels in a bass. Occasionally, if no fish hit on the initial drop, Scalish will lift the bait a few feet off the bottom and let it fall again, just to extend the presentation. More often, he’ll simply reel his Houdini Shad back and fire it back out to fall again.
A soft-plastic jerkbait with a diamond-shaped tail, the Houdini Shad darts from side to side as it falls freely through the water column. It’s an incredibly inviting natural action, Scalish contends, and he believes that any working of the bait takes away from that action.
The Houdini Shad’s tail is designed so that the center of the diamond can be punched out to change the action, or the bait can even be made into a v-tailed jerkbait. However, Scalish always leaves the original tail intact, preferring the slower fall and more pronounced action.
Dead-sticking is not a good fish-finding tactic. It’s a slow way to go. Scalish dead-sticks a Houdini Shad in areas where he knows (or very strongly suspects) there are fish. When bass are schooling and won’t take a topwater plug or the school has gone down, for example, a Houdini Shad is an ideal tool. It also works wonderfully well over rockpiles and reefs in big northern lakes, where smallies tend to bundle up.
A Houdini Shad also makes an ideal follow-up bait for missed strikes on topwater lures. Any time a fish misses Scalish’s plug or he sees a bass break the surface within casting range, he’ll land a Houdini Shad right on that spot. More often than not, he’ll end up catching that fish.
Scalish keeps his color selection extremely simple. He fishes with a baitfish-imitating color pattern like Arkansas shiner or gobee if baitfish are plentiful and visibility is high. For all other situations, he sticks with green pumpkin.
While the Houdini Shad clearly is Scalish’s go-to dead-sticking bait, he will sometimes try some casts with a 5-inch YUM Dinger, Floatin’ Jitter Worm, Houdini Worm or Shakin’ Worm. The Dinger falls faster than the Houdini Shad; the Jitter Worm painstakingly slow. The Houdini Worm and Shakin’ Worm, each narrow in profile, look extremely vulnerable.