As you probably know, we are very fortunate to have partnered with Z-Man Fishing Products, a world-class fishing company right here in Charleston. Trout Eye jigheads will be distributed by Z-Man starting in 2015 as part of their product line. We should be seeing press releases on it soon. It’s all very exciting for us!
Today we had Joey P., sales manager at Z-Man on the boat as our guest. If you follow Z-Man on social media you might recognize Joey as having recently caught a 42″ redfish inshore on 10lb test and a TroutEye jighead. He had a much bigger beard then! Our target was trout, and we started out throwing plugs and the Z-Man Pop ShadZ. We had a lackluster bite with Ralph landing the only trout – We had many swirls and non-committal swipes with most of our offerings getting at least a little attention. Still not a real aggressive topwater bite yet for us, but that will change any day now.
The sun came up and we moved locations and started fishing sub-surface. Joey brought with him some samples, namely 3″ MinnowZ with the tails colored chartreuse using a new “special sauce” that Z-Man is cooking up. Joey and Ralph started throwing this while I fished the original Trout Trick (now a Z-Man product as well). It didn’t take long for Joey and Ralph to start whacking em. I held out for a while with the TT and managed a nice trout at about 19″ but the numbers were with the paddle tails.
Ralph and I don’t often fish paddle tail grubs, instead favoring jerk shads most of the time. It has most to do with the way we are used to working the lures. Well, this day has awakened me to the MinnowZ. I eventually switched over and we caught some beautiful fish on them. Big trout (We had 4 gators over 21″ today), a 23.0″ red and an 18″ flounder. We were catching big trout and you can imagine the smiles on all our faces 🙂
We had a really fun day. The wind kicked up to a gale by 11AM and that is when we put it on the trailer. Keep an eye out for Z-Man press releases coming in the next few months about Trout Tricks and Trout Eye Jigs!
I recently purchased a bulk pack of your jigs with all the different colors. That was the easy part. Now deciphering when and where to use them and what colors to use is the hard part. I understand that this could get tricky depending on water clarity, sunlight/overcast, depth and so on. Is there an instructional video out or forthcoming soon?