It’s rare when a company introduces a truly innovative bass lure. Berkley accomplished this with their new Krej FFS Jerkbait. They designed it to be used with forward-facing sonar.
When you spell Krej backward you get the word jerk. The Krej’s body looks like a regular jerkbait, but the bill on its nose points up instead of down. Besides creating a new lure category, it has spawned a unique technique Berkley calls Krejing.
I’m really excited about it because I’m one of the older pros, and we’ve been slower to catch on to forward-facing sonar than the younger anglers. I need every bit of help I can get to bring me up to speed with Lowrance Active Target.
When you twitch the Krej, it darts up instead of down like a regular jerkbait. I think of it as reverse jerkbaiting. That upward movement makes it special. Think about it. A lot of bites on a crankbait come when the bait starts to rise near the end of the retrieve. With the Krej, I impart that triggering upward movement every time I twitch the rod tip.
I learned how important an upward movement is when I started ice fishing several years ago. With a flasher depthfinder, I can see a fish approach my bait under the ice. If I leave the bait at the level of the fish, I’ll get a bite every once in awhile. If I drop the bait below the fish, I never get a bite. But if I slowly make the bait rise in front of the fish, I’ll get a bite 90% of the time.
The Krej sinks at a rate of about 1 foot per second, so you can get it down to bass that are too deep to reach with any suspending jerkbait. Few long-billed jerkbaits dive much deeper than 8 feet, even when they’re fished on light line. I can easily get the Krej 12 to 15 feet deep and could fish it 30 feet deep if I needed to.
I’ve had an opportunity to experiment with the Krej over the past month or so. It shows up really well on forward-facing sonar. That’s super helpful. Even with today’s amazing sonar technology, it’s hard to see a 2-inch minnow on a jig head.
The Krej is tail-weighted so it casts like a rocket. And, get this, it glides backward and shimmies like a soft stickbait as it sinks. Say, you cast to a bass you see 15 feet deep on forward-facing sonar. As the Krej sinks backward and shimmies, you see the bass rise to the bait. If you stop retrieving and drop the rod tip, the Krej sinks backward right at the bass. No other hard bait can do that.
The Krej rises pretty quickly when reeled ahead, so you can get it up to bass you see suspended above the bait. If this bait gets too high in the water column, stop reeling or twitching it and let it sink as deep as you wish. You have complete control of the lure.
When you twitch the Krej with a cadence, every once in awhile it kicks out a little harder to the left or right. That erratic movement triggers bites.
Although the Krej sinks, you can fish it on the surface like a walking topwater bait. When a bass blows up and misses it, you can kill the bait and let it sink in the fish’s face. You can also work the Krej just under the surface like awake bait.
Another side benefit is that the Krej will glide backward under docks and other cover like the old Flying Lure.
I fish the Krej with the same Abu Garcia rods and reels I use for traditional jerkbait fishing. I go with Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon for subsurface presentations and monofilament when I fish the Krej on the surface.
You can learn more about how I fish the Krej and other baits at www.mikeiaconelli.com or www.youtube.com/c/goingike.
