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Bass Tackle Intelligence Report — September 2026

Issue 08Issued September 2026Fall transition · Sep 2026

The Pro Circuit and Elite schedules are grinding through their fall stretch, ICAST product is finally hitting shelves instead of just show floors, and the fall transition is pulling both fish and product releases toward shallow water. This issue covers a genuinely new bait category, a reel worth cross-shopping against Shimano's DC line, the first top-level Japanese tournament run without live sonar, and a JDM Watch that's unusually deep this month — including one bait that's been on our list since spring finally landing stateside.

The Lead: Berkley's Doom Stroller Puts a Hard Bait Where the Jighead Minnow Used To Be

Berkley has spent two years building toward this. The Doom Stroller is a "rolling hard bait" — built specifically to replace the jighead-and-minnow combo that dominates smallmouth fishing on forward-facing sonar, without the torn plastic and per-bait cost of soft minnows.

What it actually does differently: a fixed internal weighting system keeps the bait rolling side to side at any retrieve speed, and it's built to swim on the fall as well as the retrieve — hold it on a tight line and it rolls all the way down; drop it on slack line and it noses down and swims like a fleeing baitfish. Three sizes — 70mm, 90mm, and 110mm — with sink rates in the 1.8 to 2.8 feet-per-second range depending on size. It's rigged with Berkley's new Fusion19 treble hooks rather than a single hook, which matters for hookup ratio on fish that just swipe at it.

The bait's designers say it's meant to be worked with the rod tip down rather than up — the opposite of how most anglers work a jighead minnow — and that it covers depths a fast sink rate would normally rule out, because strolling it (a slow, continuous swim) holds it in the water column instead of letting it drop.

Verdict: BUY if you're already running a jighead-minnow program on sonar. It's priced close to a multi-pack of soft minnows, doesn't tear, and the two biggest complaints about soft minnows — losing action at speed and disappearing after a couple of bites — are exactly what a hard bait fixes. Available now in three sizes and 15 colors.

Reels: Abu Garcia's VoltiQ Is a Real Answer to Shimano DC

Digital braking has been a two-way conversation between Shimano and Daiwa for years. Abu Garcia just joined it with the Revo X VoltiQ ($199.95) and Revo SX VoltiQ ($249.95).

The pitch that matters: most digital brakes apply constant resistance through the whole cast. VoltiQ reads spool rotation in real time and adjusts continuously, with 10 settings — 1 through 3 are a "Pro Mode" that pauses braking early to let the spool wind up for extra distance, 4 through 6 are the all-around settings, and 7 through 9 add braking for bigger baits and wind. It's fully sealed, doesn't need a battery, and carries an IPX8 waterproof rating.

Japan is getting the same brake in a different body. Abu's Japanese arm has announced Ambassadeur round reels carrying VoltiQ — the 1700 and 3700 sizes — for an October–November release, which puts a digital brake in a round-reel format for the first time. No word yet on a U.S. release for those.

Verdict: BUY if you're shopping this price bracket. At $199.95–$249.95 it undercuts most Shimano DC options while offering a genuinely different brake curve rather than a copy — worth a cast before you default to the reel you already know.

The FFS Rule Split Just Went Global

Two things happened this month on opposite sides of the Pacific that tell the same story.

In the U.S., Major League Fishing restructured the 2027 Toyota Series into four geographic divisions of four tournaments each — two with unrestricted forward-facing and 360 sonar, two without — plus a Wild Card qualifying route that lets an angler build a schedule out of only sonar events, only non-sonar events, or any mix. The Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers are running the same way on a per-event basis this fall: Norfork with no FFS, Toledo Bend with it, Guntersville without.

In Japan, the JB Top50 — the country's top pro bass tour — ran its Round 4 event at Lake Hibara under a live-sonar ban, the first time a Top50 event has been contested that way. It was a smallmouth tournament, historically one of the most sonar-dependent formats there is, and Takuya Imaizumi won it. Japanese pro Katsutaka Imae's post-event column framed it as the first real test of "sonar vs. no-sonar" rules at that level, with a mixed read on the results.

What this means: the two largest bass-tournament markets in the world have now both concluded the answer to the sonar question isn't a ban or a free-for-all — it's a split format where anglers choose their lane. Expect that to shape which techniques get pushed hardest by the tackle industry over the next two seasons, since a divided schedule means the market for shallow, non-sonar power baits has real tournament money behind it again.

Fall Transition: What the Pros Are Actually Tying On

A few specific, current picks worth noting as fish start pushing shallow:

  • Bigger jerkbait. Hank Cherry's fall move is to size up rather than down — he's currently throwing the BassMooch HC130, a full size larger than what most anglers reach for in early fall.
  • A worm color for stained fall water. Cliff Pirch is leaning on the Big Bite Baits Cliffhanger Worm in "cranberry juice" (translucent red with red flake) once visibility drops to 1–2 feet — a color built for stained water, not clear.
  • A subtler worm for pressured fish. John Crews' fall pick is the 4" Missile Magic Worm in pink. His reasoning: by fall, bass in pressured water have seen every bulky bait on the market, and the smaller, subtler profile gets bit when the loud stuff doesn't.
  • Fast, tight bladed jigs in Japan. Hirotoshi Mizuno's early-fall program on the Japanese side is a Jackall Super Break Blade Fine — the tighter, faster-retrieve version of the Super Break Blade — paired with a 4" Vital Minnow trailer, run quick over scattered fish.

None of these are new releases — they're current, on-the-record picks from active pros, which is exactly the kind of thing worth knowing before you re-tie for the weekend. The jerkbait upsizing pairs with our FFS jerkbait guide, both U.S. worm picks are drop-shot or wacky-rig candidates on the drop shot page, and the bladed-jig pick lines up with the Baby Jack notes below.

New Glide: Savage Gear's Scandal Resident Targets the Follower Problem

Savage Gear just released a floating sibling to its Scandal glide bait, built around one specific complaint: big bass that follow a glide bait all the way to the boat and turn away without eating.

The Scandal Resident adds a chin-mounted underspin blade that spins and flashes with the smallest movement, so it can be worked almost motionless on the surface — glided side to side in place, waked, or stopped dead — while still giving a following fish something to react to. It's built on a 3D scan of a real trout with photo-printed color patterns, in 8" and 10" sizes, three colors (Rainbow Trout, Hitch, Golden Shiner), at $79.99 and $99.99.

Verdict: WAIT for the first hands-on reports — the concept directly solves a real problem, but "worked nearly in place" glide baits live or die on how well the action actually holds up at a near-standstill, and that's not something a spec sheet can confirm.

Urchins Keep Shrinking

The trend we flagged last issue hasn't slowed down — it's just moving toward crappie- and panfish-scale sizes that bass are eating anyway:

  • BaitFuel NanoSpike — a 9mm urchin-style body with 21 spikes, built and marketed for crappie and bluegill. Per early testing being reported by tackle media, bass are eating it too, and the logic tracks: smaller profiles have been the direction all year, and a 9mm bait is smaller than nearly everything currently on shelves built for bass.
  • Smaller Coike sizing continues on the Japanese side too, with a 9.5mm HideUp Kyu Coike now reported in the pipeline, and two-tone Coike 17mm and Fullcast colorways debuting at the Catch Up Otsu show in Japan at the end of the month.

Verdict: BUY the NanoSpike if you fish clear or pressured water and already carry the larger urchin styles — it's a $5-ish pack, not a real commitment, and the smaller-is-working pattern has held all year.

JDM Watch

This is the deepest JDM month we've had since ICAST, and a good chunk of it is actually buyable stateside right now.

Off the Watch List: Imakatsu MJ Prop lands

The MJ Prop has been on our list since spring, and it's now in stock at jpnfishingtackle.com. A 4.1", 0.8 oz single-wing prop bait, but the concept is different from a standard prop: a highly buoyant body drives a vertical head-banging action — the body itself pounds the surface and pushes water rather than just the prop spinning. There's a removable belly blade the prop strikes against for a metallic knocking sound; run it with the blade for max commotion, pull it for clear water or pressured fish. Ten colors.

Verdict: BUY if you fish prop baits seriously — it's a genuinely different action, not a re-skin of something you already own. Import shipping applies.

Megabass Makippa FFS — a blade bait built for the screen

Developed with Brandon Palaniuk and the Megabass USA pro staff, this is a compact 3/8 oz finesse blade jig purpose-built for forward-facing sonar. The argument behind it: jighead minnows and other soft plastics have become so standard on sonar that pressured fish follow them without committing, and a compact metal body with a spinning blade gives them flash and vibration soft plastics can't produce. Shake it on slack line, twitch it, or swim it at depth while watching the fish react. At jpnfishingtackle.com now.

Note the framing here versus the Doom Stroller above: two companies, same month, both arguing the jighead minnow has hit a pressure ceiling on sonar — one answered with a hard bait, one with a blade.

Evergreen's fall drop is hitting U.S. retail

Discount Tackle is now carrying a wave of new Evergreen product that only recently hit Japan:

  • Flutter Gizmo — a 1.5" sinking bug bait (aquatic insect/shrimp profile) with wing-like appendages that flutter and push water on the fall, then hold a horizontal posture on the pause. Evergreen's recommended rig is a short drop shot, nose-hooked. $18.99 retail.
  • Wake Magic — a 4" waking spybait: spybait body, prop tail, near-90° bill, internal rattles, and a magnetic weight-transfer system for casting. Built to walk, wake, and splash rather than sink. $24.99.
  • Bullpoint Shad 4.5" — Morizo Shimizu's ribbed bladed-jig trailer, sized and weighted specifically to pair with the JackHammer. $12.99. This is the trailer to run behind the new Baby Jack colors below.

Also new from Evergreen at U.S. retail: the Lucy 3.2" curly-tail finesse worm, Claw Motion 3" craw, and C-4 Leech 3.1".

Issei's 0.5mm-wire finesse spinnerbait (October, Japan)

Issei is releasing the G.C. Kurukoma Jr. 7g ZERO5SP in October — an ultra-finesse spinnerbait built on a 0.5mm wire arm, aimed specifically at spinning and bait-finesse setups. That's a thinner arm than anything we've seen in the U.S. finesse-spinnerbait category, and the point is a more natural, lower-resistance swim on light line. Not stateside yet; worth watching for a domestic importer to pick it up.

Revonic Dispa 118SF (Japan, fall 2026)

Seiji Kato's newest jerkbait — a 118mm slow-floater built to hold a 3–5 meter range (roughly 10–16 feet) on a jerk-and-pause, positioned as an ultra-"feeding" style bait rather than a reaction bait. Deeper than the typical 110-class jerkbait runs, which is the interesting part for anglers working brush and suspended fish deeper than a Vision 110 reaches.

The Hook Up Tackle new arrivals (Peoria, AZ — no import shipping)

  • RAID Japan Thriller — a 5.7", 1 oz floating two-body bait where the front section is vertically flattened and the rear is horizontally flattened, each hung with a differently sized blade so the two halves swing at different pitches. The front rolls and throws a V-wake; the rear taps the surface up and down. Straight-retrieve bait with a front prop that grips water for dead-slow speeds, plus a swivel joint that handles fast erratic retrieves. $49.99.
  • BottomUp Volup Minnow 5" — a mid-strolling minnow that transitions from a soft roll to a side-to-side fleeing swim as you speed up on a jighead, with extended back/belly slits that soften the body for hooksets. Also wacky-rigs into a diagonal twist-swim. $14.99. Directly relevant to our mid-strolling guide.
  • BottomUp Kunnery (new colors) — a 3.6", 8.3g fat-bodied stickbait built to solve the "short and fat doesn't wobble" problem, with a tapered waist that keeps the twist-wobble alive at that length. $12.99.
  • BottomUp Gimmy 4.5 — a ribbed creature/craw with a flat body and dual slits for a soft ripple action on the fall. $14.99.
  • OSP DuckBill (new colors) — the integrated-lip wide-wobble crank that runs about 3–4 feet with a wide left-right woven track. $27.99.
  • Q3 Custom Bento — a $149.99 box of one-time custom colors including Megabass "Frozen Tequila Dojyo" on the Ito Vision 110, 110 Jr., PopMax, and Karashi 80, plus custom RAID Japan Super Fish Roller, Lucky Craft Pointer 95, BottomUp Scooper Frog Mega, OSP DoLive Beaver, and Deps Sakamata Shad HW.

Also on the Japanese side

  • Megabass Respect Series — the made-to-order Respect color program's newest release is "Frosted Wakasagi"; orders are open through October 4, 2026.
  • Abu Garcia Zenon CX — a spinning reel at 118g in a 2500 size, released this month in Japan and being pitched as the lightest spinning reel ever made. Early Japanese hands-on coverage is positive; no U.S. date yet.
  • Deps opened a direct web shop on September 14 — a first for the brand, and worth knowing since it opens a legitimate path to Deps saltwater items and tuning parts that domestic importers don't typically carry.
  • Imakatsu Stealth Swimmer is back after nearly three years out of production, both sizes, at jpnfishingtackle.com.
  • Megabass Destroyer Evoluzion rod took the IDEA award, giving Yuki Ito a sweep of all three major international design awards for a single piece of fishing tackle — reportedly a first.
  • Backlash's B-Fes show is October 10, with DRT again selling a show-exclusive Tiny Klash color. Their 30th-anniversary DRT Tiny Klash "XXX Gold" (real gold leaf) released in late July.
  • Catch Up Otsu, the Biwa-area tackle show, runs at the end of September with 76 exhibitors confirmed.

Also Worth Knowing

  • Z-Man's JackHammer Baby Jack — the compact bladed jig — picked up four new colors built around water clarity: Cold Shad (medium-clear water), Secret White (heavily stained), Pumpkin Gold (tannic water), and Morizo Pink (a louder option for aggressive smallmouth in clear water or as a stand-out in stained water). Pair with the Evergreen Bullpoint Shad above.
  • Great Lakes Finesse Skirted Ned Head — a skirted take on the standard Ned head, now in 1/8, 3/16, and 1/4 oz.
  • Ryugi Darting Vespa — still only available stateside through jpnfishingtackle.com, same as last issue. No domestic importer has picked it up yet.

The Short Version

If you take three things from this issue: the Doom Stroller is a legitimate hard-bait alternative to the jighead minnow, not just another rolling bait, and Megabass's Makippa FFS is making the same argument from the other direction — the jighead minnow has hit a pressure ceiling on sonar, and the industry is moving. The MJ Prop is finally buyable and worth it. And both the U.S. and Japan have landed on the same answer to the sonar question — split formats, not bans — which means shallow power fishing has tournament money behind it again heading into next season.

See you next month.

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