Lucky Craft Pointer 78ddsp

Jerk-jerk-pause. It sounds more like a game played by children – something along the lines of red-light, green-light or duck-duck-goose. But this time of year, it’s the cadence of success in bass fishing. The fish aren’t swimming 50-feet to strike a lure. A bait needs to happen slowly by or sit in their face like a gnat, annoying them into striking.

Jerkbaits sometimes get a bad rap for being too slow to fish, too hard to fish, too hard to cast, too much of a hassle to modify to get them to do what you want. That might have been the case 10 years ago, but the weight-transfer systems, availability of new hooks and sizes, colors, offerings and actions all make today’s jerkbait fishing a breeze.

There are several good jerkbaits on the market, but we wanted to test an offering from Lucky Craft. The Pointer 78DD SP is available to anglers at top retailers like Tackle Warehouse. From the first look, it was obvious this bait was going to be a winner so we were excited to finally test it.

Brent Ehrler used the Lucky Craft Pointer 100DD to catch his biggest fish in route to his victory at Table Rock Lake at the FLW Tour’s first event of the year. Proof that Lucky Craft knows what it’s doing when it comes to making deep jerkbaits.

The Pointer 78DD SP will suspend around 6 to 8 feet deep on a good hard jerk or crank. The small profile matched the size of the majority of the shad this time of year. The color tested was a new pattern called MS Gunmetal Shad. White sides and a grey back provided the back drop for a beat up scale pattern and chartreuse underbelly.

A little lighter than expected, the bait casts easily on baitcasting gear. It loses some distance in high wind but it is fairly compensated with its small profile and additional weight. It features a slight rattle and a wild side to side darting action. In fact, when a school was found, we could work the bait pretty quick with short sharp darts and trigger bites almost on queue.

The hooks were tacky sharp, with several bass being caught hooked completely on the outside of the mouth and head. The bait gets down quickly on a couple sharp jerks or a long pull of the rod. The test bait suspended perfectly without any additional weight necessary in 45-degree water. The lip scuffed a little when running it shallow before getting off the end of a point. And a couple of chip marks were evident after 20-25 bass hit the bait and fought their way back to the boat.

Our conclusion: The bait is a definite keeper. Like with crankbaits and topwaters, one jerkbait won’t work in every situation. You need some shallow baits and some deeper baits. You need some baits with a little more body and some with a more diminutive profile. The Lucky Craft Pointer 78DD SP caught a bunch of bass the first time out and was a lot of fun to fish. We can’t remember the last time we had this much fun since the days of duck-duck-goose and red-light, green-light.

To order the baits, click here.

To read more about Lucky Craft jerkbaits, click here.

lcp78ddsp2.jpg

lcp78ddsp1.jpg

lcp78ddsp4.jpg

As an Amazon Associate, we may earn income when you click on an Amazon link. We also earn affiliate commissions off of other partner links. For a list of our affiliate partners, visit our retail partners page. Your link clicks help us fund the work we do for the fishing community.