Professional bass fishing has always been a game of adaptation. New electronics, new rods, new techniques and new baits have a way of finding their place in the sport whether traditional anglers like them or not.
For Vicious Fishing Pro Angler Brandon Lester, one of the most respected old-school fishermen on tour, the latest learning curve comes in the form of something that looks more at home in a science-fiction movie than a bass boat storage compartment.
They're called urchin-style baits.
At first glance, these soft-plastic creations don't exactly inspire confidence. Covered in long tentacles, odd appendages and unusual profiles, they look nothing like the worms, craws and creature baits many anglers have trusted for decades. Yet from Japan to Tennessee and seemingly everywhere in between, anglers are catching piles of bass on them. That success has forced even traditionalists like Lester to pay attention.
"I've had them for a while but I never really knew if they'd catch 'em," Lester said. "Now, obviously the whole world knows. I'm a traditional Tennessee fisherman but you can't ignore new stuff like this. It's my job to learn it and adapt."
That willingness to evolve has helped Lester remain one of the most consistent anglers in professional bass fishing. While some fishermen dismiss trends until they're impossible to ignore, Lester prefers to understand why something works. Even if it means spending hours experimenting with a bait that doesn't make much sense at first glance. To his surprise, the results came quickly.
"I was fishing with it the other day, just practicing and tinkering with it and caught a pile of nice bass," Lester said. "I was using an ugly chartreuse color, too, because I couldn't find any of the good colors available. So I colored the tentacles of the bait brown with a Sharpie marker to make it look just a little bit more appealing. After the first day of fishing it, all the brown had worn off the tentacles because it had caught so many fish."
Ask ten anglers why bass bite urchin-style baits and you'll probably get ten different answers. Some believe the countless tentacles create a unique water displacement. Others think the buoyant appendages produce a natural, defensive posture that bass find irresistible. Lester has developed his own theory.
"I think a lot of the appeal of this bait comes from bass not having any reference of how big they (the bass) really are," Lester explained. "They grew up from an itty bitty thing eating plankton and what not. Bass can't look in a mirror. They don't know how big they are. So I think this profile looks familiar to them. That's why you see 8-inch bass try to attack a big glide bait. They have no size reference in their brains."
It's an interesting perspective and one that makes sense when you think about how opportunistic bass can be. Small bass routinely attack oversized forage, giant swimbaits and prey items that seem completely unrealistic for them to consume. Their feeding behavior isn't always based on logic as humans understand it. The unique silhouette of an urchin-style bait may simply trigger something instinctive. Whether bass see it as a crawfish, a bluegill, an aquatic insect or something entirely different may not even matter. What matters is that they bite it.
As with any emerging technique, catching a few fish is only the beginning. The real challenge comes from understanding the nuances that separate occasional success from tournament-winning consistency. That's where Lester has been focusing much of his attention.
The Tennessee pro has spent considerable time experimenting with rigging options, sink rates, line choices and presentation angles. Because these baits are so different from traditional soft plastics, subtle adjustments can dramatically change their effectiveness.
Some anglers fish them on jigheads. Others prefer weighted hooks or specialized rigs designed to maximize the bait's natural movement. Water depth, current, forage and bass mood all seem to influence which setup performs best. For Lester, one lesson has already become crystal clear: line choice matters.
"The 20-pound Vicious Fluorocarbon has been best for this technique, from what I've found," Lester said. "Big fish bite this bait very aggressively, so it's important to have a tough line that can withstand that shock absorption. The fluorocarbon is also important because these are buoyant baits and it's important to allow them to sink through the water column."
That observation highlights one of the key characteristics of many urchin-style baits. Their buoyancy helps create a lifelike appearance, with the tentacles flaring and moving naturally as the bait falls. Fluorocarbon's sinking properties complement that action, allowing anglers to maintain a more controlled presentation. At the same time, the aggressive strikes these baits often generate require a line capable of handling sudden impact from quality fish.
For Lester, 20-pound Vicious Fluorocarbon has provided the ideal balance of strength, abrasion resistance and sink rate.
Bass fishing has always experienced cycles of innovation. Some trends burn brightly before disappearing almost overnight. Others permanently change how anglers approach the sport. The umbrella rig. Forward-facing sonar. Big glide baits. Ned rigs.
Each was met with skepticism from portions of the fishing community before proving its effectiveness. Urchin-style baits appear to be following a similar path.
What started as a niche presentation has rapidly expanded across lakes, rivers and reservoirs around the world. Tournament anglers are using them. Weekend anglers are using them. Social media is filled with videos of bass crushing these strange-looking soft plastics. For someone like Lester, that widespread adoption is impossible to ignore.
The best professional anglers aren't necessarily the ones who invent every new technique. More often, they're the ones who remain open-minded enough to recognize when something deserves serious attention. He's studying the bait's action, testing different rigging methods, experimenting with color combinations. Learning when it shines and when it doesn't. In other words, he's doing what elite anglers have always done. He’s putting in the work.
The old-school Tennessee fisherman may never completely abandon the techniques that built his career. He doesn’t really need to. But he's proving that experience and tradition don't have to prevent growth.
Sometimes, even old dogs can learn new tricks. If the growing popularity of urchin-style baits is any indication, Brandon Lester is learning one that could help him catch a lot more bass in the years ahead.