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I never thought the RONZ would be used as a trolling bait when I first designed it. My main objective was to develop a jig head style bait with a tail that could be replaced quickly and stay on with out sliding back on the hook. It also needed to have more wiggle in the tail compared to what was available at the time. I came to this conclusion after watching numerous very large stripped bass follow my bait to the boat without a take. I keep trying deferent soft baits and styles with the same results. After a few season's of this I couldn't handle it anymore and had to do something about it. Thus the RONZ was born. It took me a few prototypes and a few years but it finally happened. I now have a head and tail system that can fool the real big guys.
Getting back to trolling the RONZ. It accidentally happened one day while commercial bass fishing off Chatham. The dogs were so thick nothing could last in the water more than a few seconds. Those dogs just love them soft baits. My technique is to move around until I mark bass on the scope and drop the baits on them. This technique works great when the bass are down. This day the bass were cruising above the dogs so they were hard to mark. When they are cruising near the top they tend to swim off to one side of your boat rather than under it. This makes it impossible to mark the fish unless you have side scanning capabilities. I left a bait in the water while looking for bass on the scope and hooked up. Naturally I tried it again and hooked another bass. I quickly started trolling 4 rods and enjoyed multiple hook ups. The baits were seldom bothered by the dogs as long as they were kept moving. I was able to take my limit that day and many other days under the same circumstances. I passed on my findings to my counterparts and the technique quickly work for them. We also discovered that if you did mark a bass straight down you could take the boat out of gear or stop and the baits would drop right down on top of them. With a little practice you can hook about 90% of what you mark. A new trolling lure was born. This technique would prove very deadly on tuna later on in the season.
RON Z
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