By Dustin Wilks
Special to BassFan
(Editor's note: "Catching Bass with Dustin Wilks" airs five times per week on Sportsman Channel – 2 p.m. ET Sunday, 4:30 a.m. Monday, 6 a.m. Tuesday, 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and 5:30 a.m. Saturday. The six-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier writes about various aspects of the sport in these periodic submissions.)
One of the first things I do for summer is get stocked up on big plastic worms, specifically the 10-inch Culprit Original, my No. 1 summer plastic.
It started on Kentucky Lake, during practice for a Bassmaster Elite Series tournament years ago during the summer. I had all the traditional tried and true colors, but a new one that year in the mid-2000s was called wine with blue flake and I had picked up a few bags of this great-looking color.
It is widely known in tournament circles that plum apple, red bug and red shad are great deep-water choices for worms. This new color was so good looking, several spying competitors took note and asked me, "What color is that?”
"I’m not sure," I said with a suspicious smile.
Reds are the first color to lose their visibility the deeper you go in the water, just appearing as black or a dark shade, but it is these shades that are the most important factor. I’m sure many of you have experienced this with various companies' green pumpkin hues. Some companies literally have 10 or more, all in this family. Same thing goes with reds ... the shades can matter in getting the fish to commit to bite. Sometimes it doesn’t matter at all, but most of the time, color is a big factor in catching fish, especially with slow-moving lures like worms.
Wine with blue flake quickly became my well-guarded secret favorite color. I was so confident in this color that for years, it was the first one I would use in any structure-fishing tournament and also for fun-fishing at home. Stained water is best – less than 2 1/2 feet of visibility, or for deep water in any clarity.
For those of you who are new to structure fishing, you're looking for hard areas on the bottom (like gravel or shells), near depth drops to fish this bait. It doesn’t have to be really deep, either – some of the best ones are less than 10 feet. Once you find this, you’ve likely found a great area for years to come.
Fish this worm with a 3/8- to 3/4-ounce Texas rig or shaky-head jig, depending on depth. For line, 14- to 16-pound fluorocarbon works great. Smaller hooks (3/0) allow your bait to have more action when Texas-rigging.
A few years back, Culprit did the unthinkable and dropped this color because of poor sales. Thinking this was the best thing since sliced bread, I wondered what the problem was. Well, it turns out a lot of buyers typically put in for the top 12 or so sellers every year and try a new color or two, so this bait got overlooked by almost everyone.
Just last week a buddy of mine said he had a friend who was dying to get this color after catching lots of bass with it and wondered if Culprit could do a special run. Then I got a couple messages from old friends about it, too. Well here you go, friend of a friend and other friends. This is for you and everyone else who knows now.
Culprit is doing the special run this month only in 10-inch. The worms will be available on their website in June.
