Glide bait that makes a big bass slobber

MINNETONKA, Minn. — Nothing will make a big bass slobber and strike more than Storm’s new Arashi® Glide, a 7-½-inch, single-joint, hard swimbait with a replaceable soft tail. The big-bass bait won’t cost big bucks, however. It will retail for half as much, or less, than similar-looking baits.

“You have the potential to catch the fish of a lifetime on this bait – we want to help you do that,” says Storm Pro Brandon Palaniuk, who worked with Storm for three years to design and perfect the new swimbait. “Big baits catch big fish. Fishing an Arashi Glide is the best way to catch the biggest bass in any body of water.”

Swimming with an exaggerated motion that draws in fish from long distances, the Arashi Glide delivers a consistent and stable glide action at both fast and slow retrieve speeds. Similar-looking baits often glide effectively only at one retrieve speed.

“I can burn this bait and it’s not going to blow out, it’s going to track,” Palaniuk explains. “Especially in clear water, that will be a big game-changer.”

“It’s got really good action,” says Hite, winner of nine Bassmaster tournaments, including the 1999 Bassmaster Classic. “It starts kicking the boot tail immediately.”

With slow, three-quarter turns of the reel handle, Palaniuk gives a Glide Bait the loping, side-to-side action for which its named. He speeds his retrieve to make it “dart side-to-side super-quick.”

Designed to sink slowly in a slightly head-down position, an Arashi Glide responds to the slightest line movement. A quick snap of the rod tip will spin it 180 degrees, triggering strikes.

“If I see a fish following, I can spin this bait all the way around,” Palaniuk says.

The Arashi Glide is extremely stable, allowing anglers to easily create different actions with multiple retrieve methods.

“This bait is, by far, the easiest glide bait to fish for guys that have never thrown one,” Palaniuk says.

That being said, the Arashi Glide is not just for beginners. “Guys who throw swimbaits day in, day out,” will be impressed with its productivity, Palaniuk says. “It’s going to give them a slightly different look than what those fish have seen before.”

A controlled sink rate – 0.4 feet per second – gives anglers increased control of swimming depth, allowing them to swim the Arashi Glide in the strike zone longer.

The Arashi Glide’s durable single-joint, triple-pin hinge construction is among its most important features and “probably one of the hardest things to get perfect,” Palaniuk says. He worked with Storm through several prototypes to get “just the right amount of flex in that joint.”

Arashi Glides are available in nine highly detailed color patterns, each designed to precisely match a regional forage species. “We need to have those really high-detail colors,” Palaniuk explains. “It’s really the action and then those shades and those tones of those colors that make those fish react.”

These are color patterns in which the Glide is available: Bluegill, Green Gill, Rainbow Trout, Blue Back Herring, Ghost Rainbow Trout, Threadfin Shad, Pro Blue, Black Silver Shad and Palaniuk’s favorite, Oikawa Mesu.

Oikawa Mesu is the name of a Japanese baitfish. “It really doesn’t look like anything [in U.S. lakes], but looks a little bit like everything,” Palaniuk says.

Additional Arashi Glide features that will help you land more fish include swiveling hooks; a rotated, flat line-tie; big eyes and a replaceable soft-plastic boot tail.

Swiveling hooks increase catch ratio by eliminating most of a fish’s leverage during the fight. A rotated, flat line-tie helps the bait “be extremely versatile,” Palaniuk says. Big eyes help fish “key in on the front of the bait.” The unique, soft-plastic boot-tail “does a really good job of being elastic and coming back to its true form,” he says.

Pro tip: Don’t fish an Arashi Glide without the pre-rigged snap on the line tie – it won’t glide correctly without it.

Arashi Glides measure 7-½ inches and weigh 3-? ounces. They’re armed with two 2/0 VMC® treble hooks. Each comes with one replacement tail.

Storm is a Rapala Respected Brand.