edItOr’s NOte
tHe duCk
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he first time I ever took Andrea, my girlfriend then and my wife now, on a bass
fishing trip, it was an eye-opening experience for her.
“I had no idea fishing was so intense,” she said to me about an hour into the trip.
I nodded and told her she wouldn’t find any bobbers in my boat. Bass fishing
isn’t a sit-and-wait deal, as a lot of non-anglers believe.
“Fish eat other fish?” she asked later when I tied on a sexy shad crankbait.
Apparently my wife, who definitely did not grow up fishing, thought fish just
ate worms – the live bait of choice for many novices.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not picking on Andrea. She’s a sweetheart, and she
reads my columns. And I’m not stupid enough to tick off the woman who encour-
ages me to spend more time fishing.
However, I’ll always remember that question about fish being fish-eaters
because it reminds me what bass really are: unselective apex predators that’ll eat
pretty much anything they can get in their mouths.
Anything, including baby ducks.
Since you’re reading this, I know you’ve seen the cover of this edition of FLW’s
Buyer’s Guide, with its “cover boy,” the Savage Gear 3D Suicide Duck.
No doubt, the notoriety of that duck, which was voted Best Hard Lure at the
2016 ICAST New Product Showcase, has raised some questions.
“Do bass eat ducklings?” “Is there a ‘baby duck’ pattern?” “Is it a gimmick?”
“Does anyone who votes at the New Product Showcase know anything about bass
fishing?”
I can tell you that enough anglers have witnessed predatory fish, including
bass, eating birds to validate the notion that a mallard duckling is not safe from a
marauding largemouth if the fish feels inclined to take a swipe. As for acknowl-
edging a true “baby duck pattern,” I’m on the fence. My gut tells me that a bass
eating a duckling is more a matter of chance than the result of a forage pattern.
Then again, Aaron Martens won the 2015 Bassmaster Elite Series event at Lake
Havasu by fishing a blackbird pattern, proving that bass do occasionally get dialed
in on a fowl diet.
As for the Suicide Duck itself, I’ll admit that when I first saw it, I wrote it off. I
assumed Savage Gear would have a tough sell with real bass heads. It’s a duck,
after all.
Then I got my hands on one