Ryan bass-Winner watch baits

07/15/2026

Been going through everything hitting shelves out of ICAST this year, and here's what actually matters — not the stuff that looks cool in a booth photo, the stuff that's going to show up in Top 10 lists this fall.
The JackHammer situation is getting real.
Z-Man's JackHammer — the bait that basically invented the modern bladed jig category — is a no-show in their new release lineup this year. Meanwhile they're rolling out the ChatterBait Elite EVO HD, a reinforced version of the EVO built specifically to be stronger than the standard one. Beefed up hook, beefed up line-tie, beefed up keeper. That's not a company letting a legacy bait quietly fade into the background. That's a company building the next generation of its replacement. My theory: if you've got a JackHammer setup you love, don't wait around on this one. I could be wrong. But that's the pattern I'm seeing.
Urchin baits aren't slowing down. They're becoming an ecosystem.
A year ago this was "one weird bait that keeps winning." Now Gamakatsu's building a hook specifically for Coike-style baits. SPRO's building a storage box just for them. Strike King, Missile Baits, Bait Cave Customs, and CrushCity all have new urchin-shaped entries dropping. When hook and storage companies start building product around your bait's shape, that's not a fad anymore, that's a category. The one I'm watching closest is the CrushCity CEO — that's the bait Connell ran unreleased to a 2nd place finish at Grand Lake, now available to everybody.
Tungsten shortage watch.
My prediction is Z-Man's about to be the first major manufacturer to answer the tungsten shortage head-on instead of just riding out the price spike. Their new Forge Premium Alloy Flipping Weights are pitched as harder and more sensitive than lead, priced way closer to lead than tungsten. Nobody engineers and launches a whole new alloy line unless the supply problem is real enough to design around. My bet is every other company's about to be racing to catch up.
Also worth knowing:
Z-Man's ChatterTail is a genuinely new hybrid — takes the ChatterBait thump and blends it with an inline spinner profile. Garmin's LiveScope 2 HD just dropped with 20% sharper resolution and finally kills the black box requirement, which might be the single biggest gear release of the whole cycle for anybody running forward-facing sonar.
Full breakdown with the JackHammer vs EVO HD comparison and the complete urchin bait rundown is up now — link in bio, or head to winnerwatchbaits.com.
What are you most excited to get your hands on this fall?

06/27/2026

Bassmaster Open | Upper Mississippi River | La Crosse, Wisconsin
Michael Harlin wins his first Bassmaster event with 47-1 over three days, edging La Crosse local Tom Monsoor by a pound and 3 ounces. First win. Classic bid to Hartwell 2027.
The bait that won it was a black Booyah Pad Crasher frog — his workhorse all week on shallow grass mats in Lake Onalaska. He was seeing fish first, making long bomb casts, putting it right on their head. He caught so many fish on it he had to re-color it back to black. When wind blew up Championship Saturday and killed the grass mat bite, he ran to a protected backwater and switched to a Fluke — caught three of his five weighed fish on it and two more on the frog to seal it.
Monsoor led wire-to-wire heading into Day 3 on a homemade swim jig — both a craw-style trailer version and an urchin-style bait on a custom long-shank head. At 77 years old he knows that river better than anyone. Came up just short.
3rd place Ryan Michl — Texas-rigged Berkley Flux Gill, flipping grass with current as the trigger. Said when the grass shook you set the hook.
No-FFS event. Frog and Fluke win it. Current and grass were the common thread throughout the field.

06/27/2026

Hey guys making a change to how I deliver content here.
Going forward, tournament recaps are moving to a shorter format. I was dropping full breakdowns on here but the reality is most of you are scrolling, not sitting down to read a report. So I'm adjusting.
Here's the new setup:
Instagram gets the quick hit — bait, weight, what won and why in a few sentences.
Facebook gets the recap — still detailed, still the full pattern breakdown, but tighter and more readable than what I've been posting.
The newsletter is where the real deep dive lives. Full analysis, rigging details, what it means for your home water, and intel you won't find anywhere else. If you're not on it yet, link in bio.
Same intel. Better format. See you on the water.
Ryan

06/25/2026

GRAND LAKE JUST TOLD YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHERE BASS FISHING IS HEADED
Banks Shaw won. Dustin Connell threw an unreleased urchin bait offshore for second place. Alton Jones ran a JackHammer every morning for fourth. Zack Birge frogged and flipped his way to third. Bobby Lane slow rolled a spinnerbait through flooded willows for fifth.
Five different anglers. Five different approaches. One tournament.
Grand Lake in June gave you every pattern in the book and the best angler on the water still won by committing to one thing and executing it better than everyone else. That is always the lesson and most people always miss it chasing the highlights.
But buried underneath Shaw's comeback and Connell's near miss is a thread that keeps showing up no matter which angler you look at. And it is not the crankbait. It is not the football jig. It is not even the bladed jig that has been winning money all year.
It is the Hideup Coike.
WHAT THE OFFICIAL ARTICLE DIDN'T TELL YOU
The MLF top 10 baits article mentioned the urchin bait twice. Once for Connell throwing an unreleased CrushCity CEO offshore. Once for Nelson rotating through one on a schooling point.
What it did not tell you is that five separate anglers in the field were fishing a Hideup Coike specifically and catching fish on it.
Jacob Wheeler threw a Coike Fullcast in dark smoke purple flake on deep river channel ledges on Day 2 and caught two scorable keepers on it before going back to his crankbait rotation. Wheeler does not throw baits he does not trust. When Jacob Wheeler has something tied on and is catching fish on it in the middle of a Bass Pro Tour event that is not an accident.
Drew Gill ran a 17mm Coike in okaebi green pumpkin brown around isolated timber and rock transitions during his Qualifying Round when the offshore minnow bite slowed down. Caught four scorable bass on it off secondary points that had been hammered all week. Four fish on a bait that the field was not throwing.
Alton Jones Jr. had a 17mm Coike in clear shrimp neon on a weightless nose hook and was casting it to individual fish he could see on FFS over shallow gravel flats during a dead midday period. Caught a 2-14 on it when the surface action completely died. Jones is not a guy who experiments during tournament hours. If it is tied on it is because he trusts it.
Matt Becker had a Berkley MaxScent Moeba prototype on a drop shot and caught a 3-2 off deep brush with it after a traditional fluke minnow got followed without a commitment. The fish looked at the fluke and said no. Becker put a ball of pulsing te****les in front of it and it ate.
Banks Shaw himself had an unreleased prototype swim jig in white ice on the deck during Period 2 of Championship day working the upper main lake arms. Then in Period 3 he switched to an unreleased 6 inch Neko rigged straight tail worm in green pumpkin purple flake on deep brush piles in 15 to 18 feet and caught a 4-6 that started his comeback run. The bait that kicked off the greatest Period 3 in Bass Pro Tour history was never mentioned in his post game interview.
SO WHERE DOES THE COIKE FIT
Every angler who had it on the deck was using it the same way. Not as a primary search bait. Not as a reaction bait. As the bait you go to when the fish have already seen everything else and stopped committing.
Wheeler caught his on ledges where the crankbait had already worked the school. Gill caught his on secondary points that had been pressured all week. Jones caught his on individual fish that were visible on sonar but refusing other presentations. Becker caught his after a fluke got followed and rejected.
That is the pattern. Pressured fish. Neutral fish. Fish that have seen the standard menu and decided they are not hungry. Then someone puts a Coike in front of them and they eat it.
The reason is simple. The bait does not look like anything that has ever been thrown at those fish before. The te****les pulse on the slightest movement. On a Neko or a ball rig the bait barely moves and the arms never stop. A fish that has refused a Senko, a drop shot worm, and a fluke in the same hour will eat a Coike because it has never been conditioned to reject it.
THE COIKE SPECIFICALLY
Winner Watch has been tracking this bait since Chris Johnston won Santee Cooper on it earlier this year. At the time it felt like one angler finding one bait on one lake. Then Pake South won Sam Rayburn on it. Then it showed up in Grand Lake coverage across five separate anglers in the same tournament field.
This is not a trend anymore. This is a bait that is finding its way into the rotation of the best anglers in the world on completely different fisheries for completely different reasons and producing fish every time.
The 17mm mid size is the one showing up most consistently. Green pumpkin copper flake and okaebi green pumpkin brown in stained water. Clear shrimp and dark smoke purple in clearer water or for FFS applications on individual fish.
The rigging that keeps producing is simple. Neko with a 3/16 oz nail weight for depth. Weightless nose hook for shallow flats and FFS targets. Ball rig with a short hanging weight for suspended fish in a school. Drop shot on an 8 inch leader for tight brush contact.
What all of these have in common is that the bait barely moves. You are not working it. You are putting it in front of a fish and letting the te****les do everything.
THE UNRELEASED ANGLE
Dustin Connell finished second at Grand Lake throwing an unreleased CrushCity CEO urchin bait offshore. That bait does not exist at retail. It drops at ICAST. Connell caught fish on it over a 25 foot point near the dam and it was his offshore rotation bait all week alongside his DT6 and DT10.
The CrushCity Knuckle Bug creature bait that he used to flip his way into the Championship Round is also unreleased. Both drop at ICAST.
The urchin bait category is already winning tournaments at the highest level on baits the public cannot even buy yet. When those baits hit shelves they will sell out immediately because the results are already on the books.
The Coike is available right now. It has the same pulsing te****le profile. It has the tournament results behind it. And most tackle shops still have it in stock because most anglers are still sleeping on it.
WHAT THIS ALL MEANS
Grand Lake was a crankbait and football jig tournament on the surface. Shaw won on offshore schools with traditional presentations and one FFS minnow setup. That is the headline.
But underneath that headline five anglers in the field were rotating through a Hideup Coike on pressured fish and catching them when nothing else would. Connell nearly won on an urchin bait that has not been released yet. Jones Jr. ran a JackHammer every morning and a Coike when the bite died. Wheeler caught two keepers on one when the ledge fish stopped responding to crankbaits.
The bait that fits every one of those situations and is available right now is the Coike.
Winner Watch started tracking this bait in February. Grand Lake just confirmed it belongs in your rod box before everyone else figures that out.

Stop guessing. Stop grinding. Start fishing with the same pattern recognition framework I use to track what Elite pros and Opens winners do every single week — applied directly to your tournament.

06/23/2026

WINNER WATCH
winnerwatchbaits.com
THE MOST OVERLOOKED BAIT OF 2026 ISN'T THE URCHIN. IT'S THE ONE THAT'S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME.
Every fishing page you follow has been posting about the urchin bait since January. The Hideup Coike. The 6th Sense Abstract. The Berkley Moeba. The dice bait. The spiny ball. Whatever you want to call it.
And look, that conversation is legitimate. Chris Johnston won Santee Cooper on one. Pake South won Sam Rayburn on one. The category is real and Winner Watch has been tracking it all year.
But while everyone had their eyes locked on the bait that looks like a Koosh ball, the ChatterBait went out and quietly put up over half a million dollars in combined tournament winnings before March even ended.
Nobody wrote a viral post about it. Nobody made a reel about it. It just kept winning.

06/23/2026

WINNER WATCH
May 2026
winnerwatchbaits.com
May had two events worth breaking down. Not because of the drama, though there was plenty of it, but because both of them had real intel buried in the results that most people glossed over.
BEAVER LAKE · BPT STAGE 5 · MAY 3
Cole Floyd had finished in the top 10 at tour level events fourteen times without winning one. Fourteen. Beaver Lake was number fifteen and he almost lost that one too.
Wesley Strader caught a 5 pounder with 25 minutes left and took the lead. Floyd answered with a 1-11 on a swim jig and held on by the skin of his teeth. First Bass Pro Tour win. $125,000.
Beaver fished clear and pressured all week. Spotted bass, finesse presentations, right depth windows. The guys who tried to power fish it got eaten alive by the ones who slowed down and picked it apart. Floyd won the Knockout Round with 44 pounds 7 ounces on 17 bass and spent Championship Sunday fending off Strader, Birge, and Shuffield until the final period.
If you fish clear water ledges in summer on Guntersville, Chickamauga, or Pickwick, Floyd's week is worth studying. Pressured spotted bass in clear water behave the same way regardless of what state you're in. Slow down, finesse it, and let the bait do the work.
ORANGE LAKE · HEAVY HITTERS · MAY 16 TO 21
Dave Lefebre didn't requalify for the Bass Pro Tour this year. He was at Heavy Hitters on a big bass qualification from last season. Got to Orange Lake, weighed two fish on Day 1, and was basically done.
Last cast of Day 2 he swings in a 3 pounder and squeaks back above the cut line.
Then he won the whole thing and walked out with $200,000.
Championship day he put up 31 pounds 3 ounces on seven bass. Then caught a 9 pound 3 ounce largemouth for the $100,000 Berkley Big Bass bonus on top of his winner's check. Second angler in Heavy Hitters history to pull that off, joining Jordan Lee from the inaugural event back in 2020.
Here's what actually won it. He started the week on a white swim jig, same thing he threw in practice, same thing Day 1. Didn't work. Day 2 he switched to a black and blue bladed jig, killed the trolling motor, and started drifting with the wind and making short pitches into hydrilla clumps in 2 to 3 feet of water. Caught an 8 pounder almost immediately. Never went back to white.
The fish were inside the grass, not on the edge. Short pitch, slow flutter, let it fall into the clump. Orange Lake was concentrating giant bass in heavy hydrilla all week because the water was low. Jake Lawrence caught a 9 pound 8 ounce fish for a $30,000 bonus on Knockout Round day. Omori had a 10 pounder on Day 1. The lake was absolutely loaded.
Lefebre knew Orange Lake from years of fishing it with a friend who passed away in 2019. He said before the event he felt like it would be a fitting place to end his career. Whether or not that's the last one he fishes, he went out throwing a black and blue ChatterBait into the grass and caught $200,000 doing it. Hard to argue with that.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED
Bassmaster Opens hit Kentucky Lake in late May. FFS allowed, ledge fishing dominated, nothing groundbreaking but worth knowing if Kentucky Lake is on your schedule this summer. The offshore pattern was the whole tournament.
Lake Norman wrapped the same week. Cole Huskins won with 47 pounds 14 ounces over three days. Local knowledge and dock fishing in clear water. Kyoya Fujita ran him down to within two ounces on the final day and still came up short.
THE THREAD RUNNING THROUGH MAY
The bladed jig won a major event and showed up in nearly every top 10 breakdown across both circuits all month. Lefebre won Heavy Hitters on one. Floyd closed Beaver Lake on a swim jig. The ChatterBait category has been the most consistent bait in professional bass fishing for two straight months and most people are still sleeping on it.
The urchin bait also started showing up in Heavy Hitters footage and interviews. That story is bigger than people realize right now and it's getting its own breakdown in the next issue.
WHAT'S NEXT
BPT Stage 6 is at Grand Lake in Oklahoma June 18 to 21. Full intel drop coming on that one.
If you're not on the list yet hit the link below. Free, no fluff, tournament intel when it matters.
winnerwatchbaits.com

06/23/2026

HE WAS DOWN 28 POUNDS WITH ONE PERIOD LEFT.
Nobody was watching Banks Shaw.
Birge and Connell had been going back and forth at the top all day. Two guys who've been here before. Everyone watching assumed one of them was walking away with the trophy.
Shaw was sitting in fourth. 28 pounds 10 ounces back. Sixteen minutes left in Period 2.
Then he did something nobody on that lake did all week.
55 pounds. One period. $125,000. First BPT win.
BANKS SHAW IS 22 YEARS OLD.
Harrison, Tennessee. Fourth MLF win of 2026. First on the Bass Pro Tour.
He grew up on Chickamauga. Fished Pickwick for four years at North Alabama. Offshore summer schools on Tennessee River reservoirs aren't a pattern he studied — it's just how he fishes. It's what he knows.
This wasn't a hot hand. This was a kid who had the right read from Day 1 and had the discipline to never abandon it.
HERE'S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
Grand Lake came in over 3 feet above full pool. Water dropped every single day. Every foot that came off the bank pushed more post-spawn bass off the flooded brush and onto the offshore structure Shaw was already sitting on.
He found a school the first day of practice. One school. Spent the rest of practice looking for more. Went into the tournament with zero backup plan — all in on offshore from Day 1 through Championship Sunday.
By the final day his schools were bigger than they were on Day 1 because the falling water kept funneling fish to him.
He never left them.
WHAT HE WAS THROWING
No FFS — Periods 1 and 2:
Rapala DT20 grinding the bottom
3/4 oz football jig with a Rapala CrushCity Cleanup Craw trailer
This is how he kept contact with the school without burning his electronics window. Crankbait to activate. Football jig dragging behind it to pick up the ones that wouldn't chase.
FFS period:
3/16 oz VMC RedLine tungsten ballhead
5.25" Rapala CrushCity Freeloader minnow
Now here's what didn't come out in his post-game interview. Camera caught it.
He wasn't slow twitching that minnow. He was snapping it — hard, fast, vertical — like a shad trying to get away from something. The fish were buried in boulders in 25 feet of water. Give them time to look at it and they won't bite. Snap it and they don't have a choice.
THE THING THAT ACTUALLY WON HIM THE TOURNAMENT
Shaw said on camera that when bass are pressured and tight to chunk rock in deep water you cannot find them by scanning horizontally from a distance.
The boulders create dead zones in your sonar return. The fish disappear behind the rock. You'll sit 60 feet away thinking there's nothing there.
He was pulling his boat directly over the top of the structure and angling the transducer straight down to pull the fish signatures out from behind the rock. Most of the field never knew those fish existed.
That's the move. Not the bait. Not the retrieve. Where he put his boat.
PUT THIS ON YOUR WATER
Guntersville. Chickamauga. Pickwick. Any TVA lake this summer.
Water comes up and pulls back — stop fishing yesterday's spot. Move to the first hard drop or secondary point off the flooded bank. The fish beat you there.
Find a school — get one bite to confirm it and leave. The first fish you catch is the most aggressive one in the group. Its fight shuts the rest of them down. One bite. Come back on the clock.
FFS window on chunk rock — get over the top of them. Horizontal scanning won't show you what's there. And snap that minnow. Don't finesse it on deep pressured fish. Make it move like something running.
Jake Lawrence put up 112-7 on Day 1 — biggest single day total of the 2026 BPT season. The whole field was on fire all week.
Shaw won Championship Sunday coming from fourth place in the final period.
Different gear entirely.
Winner Watch tracks what's winning tournament money before the rest of the field figures it out.
Full field bait breakdown coming when the official Top 10 article drops. Urchin bait deep dive after that.

06/18/2026

🚨 ONE DOCK. ONE BAIT. $100,000.
That's the story of the Bassmaster Elite at Pasquotank River — and if you fish tournaments, you need to understand what just happened.
Jason Christie just became only the 6th angler in Bassmaster history to win 10 B.A.S.S. events. KVD. Rick Clunn. Denny Brauer. Larry Nixon. Roland Martin. Now Christie — all in 139 events.
But here's what Winner Watch is locked in on — how he actually did it.
THE PATTERN
The Chowan River stole the show. One of five primary rivers feeding the 55-mile Albemarle Sound, the Chowan drew top anglers for its lower salinity and subtle current that largemouth preferred.
Christie spent all four days grinding inconsistent structure — cypress trees, laydowns, stumps — never finding a repeatable pattern. Then a fellow competitor tipped him off about a single dock. He ran there on Championship Sunday, cracked three bass over 20 pounds including an 8-pounder in a 10-minute span.
His exact words: "It is the best dock I have ever fished. It took care of me yesterday and today. Without that, I wouldn't be standing here."
THE BAIT NOBODY KNOWS
Christie's winning bait was an unnamed urchin-style bait in watermelon he picked up at a random event weeks earlier. Won a $100,000 tournament on a bait he can't even name.
"I'm 100 percent serious when I say I don't know the name of them. I bought one, tried it at home and caught two bass on it. I won using that one."
He rigged it on a 2/0 Trokar Frog Hook with a light drop shot weight to help it sink. Falcon Swim Jig rod, Spro Jason Christie Elite MG reel, 22-pound Sunline Shooter.
Winner Watch is watching this one closely. When we can confirm what that bait actually is — you'll know first.
THE URCHIN PATTERN IS REAL
This isn't a one-tournament story. Urchin-style baits dominated the entire top 10:
— Cook — Hideup Coike Fullcast, 1/0 Gamakatsu Round Bend Treble, 1/16-oz nail weight, isolated cypress trees and knees
— Gore — 17mm Hideup Coike, 1/0 Neko-style hook, 3/32-oz nail weight
— Blaylock, Huff, Shryock — all flipping urchin-style baits to wood cover
The Hideup Coike Fullcast is on the Winner Watch Scarcity Radar for good reason. When the same bait shows up across multiple top 10 boxes at back-to-back Elites — that's not coincidence. That's a bait worth hunting down.
THE TAKEAWAY
Christie didn't out-fish the field. He out-thought them. He managed risk crossing the Albemarle Sound, trusted one dock when nothing else made sense, and won on a bait he bought on a whim.
That's tournament fishing at the highest level. Pattern recognition, patience, and the confidence to commit.
Full bait breakdown + where to find the Coike Fullcast 👉 winnerwatchbaits.com

Stop guessing. Stop grinding. Start fishing with the same pattern recognition framework I use to track what Elite pros and Opens winners do every single week — applied directly to your tournament.

05/26/2026

🏆 WINNER WATCH | MLF HEAVY HITTERS 2026 — ORANGE LAKE BREAKDOWN
30th to first. Last man in the field. $200,000 walking out the door.
Dave Lefebre just put on one of the most memorable performances in Heavy Hitters history — and he did it with a mid-tournament bait adjustment that most anglers wouldn't have had the guts to make.
THE FULL STORY:
Lefebre hadn't finished better than 7th in 50 Bass Pro Tour events. He failed to requalify for the 2026 tour and hadn't fished any other tournaments this year. (Discount Tackle) Heavy Hitters was essentially his farewell — and he treated it like a swan song.
He not only topped the field at Orange Lake to win the championship belt and $100,000 — he also caught the Berkley Big Bass during the Championship Round, a 9 lb 3 oz lunker, earning a second $100,000 check. $200,000 total. Only the second angler in Heavy Hitters history to do it. (LandBigFish)
THE BAIT ADJUSTMENT THAT WON IT:
This is the Winner Watch lesson right here.
Lefebre switched from a white swim jig — which had produced all his bites during practice and Day 1 — to a black-and-blue bladed jig. He also swapped his braided line for 20-pound fluorocarbon so he could feather the bait more slowly around the cover. (Sports Illustrated)
That's not a panic move. That's pattern recognition under pressure. White swim jig gets the early bites. Tournament pressure changes the fish. He identified what needed to change, made the switch, and executed — fishing inside the mat on hard bottom with a slow-roll and stall retrieve that nobody else was committed to.
Patience was the separator.
THE NUMBERS:
Seven bass, 31 lbs 3 oz in the Championship Round. Ron Nelson finished second with 27-7. Jake Lawrence third at 24-2. (Discount Tackle)
19 pounds of daylight between Lefebre and second place on a lake full of the best big-bass anglers in the country. That's a domination.
Winner Watch is tracking every pattern that wins.
📊 Lake intel, tournament breakdowns, and strategy calls at winnerwatchbaits.com

05/23/2026

WINNER WATCH ALERT | YOU CAN ACTUALLY FISH THIS PATTERN NOW
Let's be real.
The urchin bait category has taken over professional bass fishing in 2025-2026 — and the receipts are right here.
THE DOCUMENTED WIN LIST:
🏆 Kyoya Fujita | Bassmaster Elite | Lake Fork | May 2025
The Japanese pro who brought this bait from Japan ran a Neko-rigged dice-style bait with a 3/0 Daiwa Steez Worm Hook and 1/4-oz nail weight through the timber at Fork. He caught limits of 31-0, 34-0 and 35-10 to earn a Century Belt in just three days. The field finally couldn't ignore it anymore.
🏆 Fisher Anaya | Bassmaster Elite | Lake Martin | February 2026
The 20-year-old rookie won his first Elite in just his second event — 54 lbs, 6 oz total. An unnamed 13mm dice-style bait on a VMC Redline treble hook and 1/32-oz nail weight produced all of his best bites, thrown on a 7'4" 13 Fishing Myth spinning rod with 16-lb braid and 12-lb Suffix fluoro leader. That win sent the entire tackle industry scrambling to produce similar designs.
🏆 Pake South | Bassmaster Open | Sam Rayburn | February 2026
96 lbs, 15 oz — a new Opens record. Neko-rigged urchin bait. 7'3" Fenwick World Class MH, 8.3:1 Abu Garcia Zenon X, 20-lb Berkley GinClear fluoro. His home lake. His record. Still untouched.
🏆 Pake South | Bassmaster Open | Lake Eufaula | April 2026
84 lbs, 1 oz — the third-heaviest winning weight in Opens history, behind only his own Sam Rayburn record. A 23mm urchin-style bait was his primary weapon targeting postspawn largemouth staged above shallow brushpiles, on the same 7'3" Fenwick MH and 8.3:1 Zenon X with 20-lb GinClear fluoro. That made him only the fourth angler ever to win multiple Opens in a single season.
🏆 Chris Johnston | Bassmaster Elite | Santee Cooper | May 2026
113 lbs, 12 oz. 19-lb, 12-oz margin. Coike Fullcast skipped under ignored main lake docks all four days. No FFS. Five of the top 10 finishers threw some version of the urchin-style bait. B.A.S.S. titled their official press release "Johnston Coikes his way to Bassmaster Elite Series victory" — the bait had officially become a verb.
5 tournament wins. Back-to-back seasons. Elite AND Opens level.
The problem? You can't find one.
The Coike has been hard to find all spring after winning tournament after tournament. Out of stock everywhere. Back-ordered. Gone.
But here's what Winner Watch is watching — the market just answered.
The tackle industry saw what happened and responded. The urchin bait category is no longer a one-bait show. You have legitimate options on the shelf RIGHT NOW that can put you on this pattern today.
🔵 Berkley PowerBait MaxScent 'Moeba
Just dropped days ago and it might be the most dangerous copy yet. It combines Berkley's proven MaxScent fish attractant with the urchin profile — built for drop shot, Neko, free rig, Tokyo rig, or jighead. The scent dispersion angle is the differentiator — while the Coike relies purely on action and profile, the 'Moeba keeps pressured fish engaged longer. Available in 3.5" and 4.5". Findable right now.
🟡 Gary Yamamoto Uni
The Yamamoto name speaks for itself. Custom TPE formula, bulbed appendages that shimmy with each twitch, falling with a very lifelike quiver. Different buoyancy than the Coike which changes the fall rate and presentation window. Drop shot and Neko are money.
🟢 Hag's Prickly Pear
The accessible option. Built from TPE floating plastic with thin whipping te****les that taunt fish into striking. Available in 9.9mm finesse size and 19mm big profile. Affordable, durable, and designed to float for maximum visibility and action. Best entry point into the category without the $20-per-bait price tag.
🔴 Gary Loomis Dusa
Winner Watch has eyes on this one. Updates coming as intel develops.
RIGGING BREAKDOWN:
The pros have already shown you the playbook. Weightless, Neko, drop shot, and Tokyo Rig are the core setups. Dense TPE core means you need to push your hook deep past the bend. Keep the bait above the fish and pop it erratically like a jerkbait — let it flutter and briefly fall before popping again. That jerk-pause-flutter is exactly what Johnston used to win Santee by 19 pounds with no FFS.
The pattern is proven. The bait is now available. The window is open — and Johnston himself said it won't last forever.
Get on it.
📊 Full breakdowns, lake intel, and tournament pattern analysis at winnerwatchbaits.com
Stay tuned. More content dropping.