YUM Delivers Multi-Species Appeal with NEW Hellgrammite Lure

Learn about YUM’s newest lure release, a highly natural hellgrammite imitation that provides an outstanding finesse soft plastic lure option for a host of situations.

Whether hopping across a gravel bar, sliding over tops of rocks, or drifting uninhibited in current, the new YUM Hellgrammite offers a highly natural hellgrammite imitation. Movement is constant but subtle, and the result in an offering that is irresistible to fish of many kinds.

Anglers who have purchased the March/April Bank & Creek Kit have gotten early opportunities to try out the new YUM Hellgrammite in the Copper Creek color, and catch reports have been pouring in to Lurenet. Now the entire YUM Hellgrammite color selection is available on Lurenet. Let’s take a closer look at this exciting new bait, which is well suited for a broad range of situations, rigs and lure presentations.

Matching Natural Forage

Exactly as its simple name says, the YUM Hellgrammite looks like a hellgrammite, which is the common name for a dobsonfly larva. Along with matching the appearance of a real hellgrammite, the YUM Hellgrammite is molded from soft plastic, so it wavers and wiggles to match a live hellgrammite’s behavior.

Hellgrammites are plentiful in moving water throughout the eastern half of the United States, with the best populations found in swift rocky streams. They mostly hold tight to rocky bottoms, often in shoals and rapids. They are probably better known than adult dobsonflies, which is likely due to the fact that a dobsonfly lives for about five years in a stream as a hellgrammite, before spending a brief time by the stream’s edge in the pupae stage and about one week of life as a winged adult!

As large nymphs that don’t mover super quickly, hellgrammites provide easy meals for smallmouth bass, trout, rock bass and much more, and any angler who has ever used live hellgrammites for bait could tell you that a hellgrammite is absolute candy to stream fish of all kinds.

Even in stream or lakes that don’t contain hellgrammites or where populations aren’t high enough to make hellgrammites a primary food source for the fish, a YUM Hellgrammite has a generally “buggy” look, and soft, wiggly natural movements that scream dinner to predator fish species.

Rigs & Applications

Because of where real hellgrammites live, the first application that will come to most anglers’ minds is to fish this lure close to the bottom in a stream, especially in shoal areas and at the heads of pools that are fed by swift water. That’s reasonable, and the YUM Hellgrammite is indeed outstanding for working these types of areas for smallmouth and spotted bass, rainbow and brown trout, and misc. other species, including rock bass and warmouths.

That said, the Hellgrammite’s enticing profile and many appendages make it much more than a creek bait. It is exceptionally well suited for assorted finesse techniques in lakes and larger rivers for all back bass species, walleyes, sauger and saugeyes. That’s part of why it comes in a broad range of colors that aren’t all natural hellgrammite colors.

For creeks and rivers, it’s generally tough to beat a small jighead, whether that’s a shaky head style or a mushroom style for a Ned rig. Use a jighead that’s just heavy enough for the bait to easily find bottom, based on the amount of current and the depth. Fish the Hellgrammite by orienting casts mostly upstream, letting the bait sink, and working it along the bottom as the current moves it. Experiment with horizontal pulls, gentle lifts and more accentuated hops, and watch the line closely any time the bait is sinking. The same bottom presentation works in pools. You just have to move the bait more intentionally when you don’t have current doing your delivery work.

If weeds or snaggy cover such as brush make it difficult to fish a Hellgrammite with an open jighead, two other options are rigging the bait weedless, Texas style, on a jighead or simply using a light Texas rig. Presentations are similar for either.

A split shot rig provides an excellent option for extra fussy fish. With a small weight separated from the Hellgrammite, the bait moves uninhibited in the current and generally stays just a few inches off the bottom, where it is among feeding fish but highly visible. In current, fishing a split shot rig mostly involves reeling to keep most of the slack out of the line and watching the line for any unusual movements. Cast upstream and let the current deliver your bait naturally. For slower water, let the rig find bottom and work it with slow drags, like a mini Carolina rig.

Speaking of Carolina rigs, a C-rig offers one of the best ways to present a YUM Hellgrammite in a lake or larger river. Because the bait is separated from the weight by section of leader, you can use enough weight for long casts and to keep contact with bottom, whatever the depth and in windy conditions. It’s ideal for working flats, long points, roadbeds, humps and much more, and the bait stays in the ideal zone all the time.

If fish are holding in more specific locations and less searching is needed, a drop shot rig provides an outstanding means for delivering a YUM Hellgrammite just off the bottom (or suspended), with a very free and natural action. For fishing shallower and closer to the bank, the same Ned rigs, shaky heads and Texas rigs that work in creeks also perform well in bigger water.

YUM Hellgrammite Details

The YUM Hellgrammite is 3 inches long, which nicely matches a full-sized Hellgrammite and is large enough to look like a worthwhile meal, but plenty small to suggest an easy target and to appeal to a broad range of fish types and sizes. Shaping features that help this bait match a real hellgrammite include a segmented body, pinchers on the front, legs going down the sides, and the short tail-like appendages at the end.

The Hellgrammite comes in 10 colors, including four that have distinctive top and bottom colors. Half of the colors –  Copper Creek, Cleveland, Natural, Mud Fleck and Tremor –  feature a lot of brown, like a real hellgrammite, each with different specific tones and fleck colors to appeal to fish in different water colors in conditions. A few of the others are natural colors that are popular for finesse bass applications but aren’t specifically designed to match a live hellgrammite. Bubblegum Lemon Swirl and Pearl White are designed for those time when you need higher visibility or are seeking to prompt a reaction strike but still want the Hellgrammite’s shape and action.

For Ned rigging the new Hellgrammite, the https://www.lurenet.com/yum-ned-jig-heads has a mushroom style head to stand up on the bottom, a sharp thin-wire hook for penetration with light line, and a keep and light weed guard. It comes in 1/8 and 1/12 sizes and in Brown, Green Pumpkin and Black.