Berkley Flicker Shad 

Product Review

Tackle Talk Thursday is here!!  This week’s highlight bait is going to be the Berkley Flicker Shad.  This is a well-known bait when it comes to walleye fishing.  However it will put a wide variety of species in the boat.  

    Berkley flicker shad has a few options, 4cm (1/8oz), 5cm (3/16oz) 6cm (1/4oz), 7cm (5/16oz) and 9cm (1/2oz).  Now each size has a special time of year I will use them during.  Along with several size options, Berkley offers pretty much every color option one could think of!  Some of my favorites are black/gold, black/silver, flashy pearl and slick purple bengal.  Of course several other colors play a factor depending on if its cloudy vs sunny.  

    I’ll start with the 4cm and 5 cm flicker shads.  These are the smaller of the series, but both run a lot different from each other.  The 4cm ran on braided line can dive to 9’ being trolled, where the 5cm gets down to that 11’ range.  Now these I use generally as early season baits or when mid-summer the fish are not taking to the bigger baits.  I will either troll these on braided line targeting outside weed edges that tapper off around that 10’ range.  They have great diving action with a nice tight wobble when being trolled.  I will run these slower normally then I do the bigger ones in this series at around that 1.5mph up to 2.5mph when then fish are really feeding.  Speed always depends on how the fish are eating that day and I vary it every time I’m out to maximize my bites.  Not only will I troll these, but in areas that are too small to troll they work just as good casting and reeling in.  I like to cast these using a med-light 7 1/2’-8’ med to med-light spinning rod, the longer light tipped rods will make it easier to cast these lighter cranks further.  Now my approach is find the edge of the weeds where they top out around that 10’ range.  I will toss these on the outside edges of the standing weeds and mix pauses in when reeling them in.  A lot of the bites you will get will come on the pause so make sure to mix these in rather just use a straight retrieve.  I will also mix in some rips with this as well speeding the bait up from time to time for those “reaction” strikes.

    Now on-to the 6cm, 7cm and 9cm baits in this series, the 6cm baits will get down to around 16’ when trolled on braid with 150’ of line out.  Where the 7cm and 9 cm will run around that 15’ range when trolled on braid with 150’ of line out.  Now these are a bigger profile than the smaller ones in this series so I tend to use these when the walleyes are done spawning and pushing out eating bigger bait fish and into the early fall.  I will also do a mix of trolling these baits and cast and reel them just pushing out my approach to a little deeper water around that 13’-15’ range.  Sometimes when marking these fish suspended on Lake Mille Lacs I will run them into the depths of 20’+.  Now rod setup I do tend to use a 7’-7/12’ med action on either spinning or bait casting set-up.  Being these are bigger they are easier to cast.  These baits can be lethal when the fish are feeding!

    Overall these baits I will cast or troll all depending on the area I want to fish.  The price point is a big seller on these costing only $3-$4 a bait!  From what I have experienced they are fairly durable for being a plastic molded bait but will break from time to time if you bounce them off enough rocks.  They can catch several species but I really think these baits excel when it comes to the walleyes.  I’ve had several big walleyes on Lake Waconia, Lake Minnetonka and Lake Mille Lacs come top-side on these tight fast wobble crank baits!  I’ve done it all cast, trolled braided line and lead-core and caught fish with these baits.  If you do not have any of these in your tackle box check them out.