Northland® Fishing Tackle Pitchin’ Puppet takes an aggressive stance against binging walleyes.
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BEMIDJI, Minn. (September 11, 2024) – It’s an eatery out there. Any angler worth a salt knows that walleyes kick it in a higher gear come autumn. For one, water temperatures sink into their preferred range, from 70-ish degrees down to the mid 50’s, which translates into increased activity. To that, there’s the age-old belief that walleyes “fatten-up” for the looming winter months. Fact or fiction, what’s proven autumn after autumn is that fall walleyes aren’t bashful about striking bigger and sometimes faster moving fare.
The good news is that Northland Fishing Tackle makes that lure and dubs it the Pitchin’ Puppet.
The Pitchin’ Puppet features a lead frame with an over-molded resin exterior and fin, giving it a lifelike translucent baitfish appearance with exceptional durability. When jigged, snapped, or ripped, the Pitchin’ Puppet darts and rolls to trigger strikes. A wide-gap rear hook – and absence of a front nose hook – make this lure perfect for darting across the bottom, and the split-ring connected treble hook keeps fish pinned all the way back to the boat.
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A Master of Puppets
Lauded guide and fish whisperer, Brian “Bro” Brosdahl, marks Labor Day Weekend by laying a pre-rigged Pitchin’ Puppet combo on the deck, which he’ll feature through the end of October. He often opens with a Pitchin’ Puppet, too, before ever getting near his baitwell of shiners.
“The Pitchin’ Puppet is a fantastic search bait, covering a lot of water super-fast,” said Bro. “They cast a long way with their aerodynamic dart shape, even cutting the wind. And when it hits the water, the bait dives fast to the bottom.” He also says you can glide the Pitchin’ Puppet on its way to the bottom by just sweeping the rod tip.
Once on the bottom – hard surfaces like gravel and rock – Bro gives it a couple rips to garner attention. Sometimes, that’s all it takes, a willing walleye taking the initial offering. Otherwise, he simply hops it back to the boat, employing pops instead of powerful rips.
Bro also hails the lure’s construction and superb finishes throughout the series. “There are so many color choices,” said Bro. “You have match-the-hatch patterns like Green Perch and Silver Racecar way out to attention-grabbers like Sneeze and Purple Wonder.” He went on to note the bait’s strong and clear poly shell that protects those precious colors, as well as scarily sharp tail hook and belly treble hook.
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Old School Puppetry
Bro has been fishing glide baits for walleyes since word spread after Kim “Chief” Papineau took 2nd place fishing heavy glide baits in open-water at a 2001 In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail (PMT) tournament on the Detroit River. Unable to keep his winning ice-bait tactic a secret given the bumper boats, Chief’s walleye lure hack spread like wildfire, Ron and Al Lindner eventually taking the technique into a whole new realm.
“I had glide baits in my ice fishing box and started playing with them in open-water pretty early on,” says Brosdahl. “They’ve put tons of fish in the boat for me and my clients over the years. However, the problem has always been that front nose hook, which tends to foul-hook as many fish as it catches, and frequently snags everything from rocks to wood to weeds. The original glide baits on the market were not designed for casting; they were designed for vertical jigging. Northland’s Pitchin’ Puppet solved all those issues.”
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Fellow Puppeteer
Mille Lacs Lake guide, Brad Hawthorne, helped prototype the Northland Pitchin’ Puppet and has put countless hours on the odometer chasing marble eyes around the Big Pond (Mille Lacs).
“The technology is awesome,” says Hawthorne. “The encasing—whatever they’re calling it—is the most durable finish I’ve ever seen on a glide bait. You might get a few scratches working it through the rocks, but get it wet, and it goes right back to normal,” noted Hawthorne.
He says the bait is designed to be “ripped and ripped and ripped some more. It’s a fast-thinking deal to get in front of fish.”
The other thing he likes about the Pitchin’ Puppet design is it eliminates having to cut off nose hooks from three-hook glide bait designs.
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“You can catch fish on just about any glide bait on the market, but they lack a well-designed hooking system. That’s what took us the longest with this design. We knew it needed a perfect rear hook, something with a wide gap to pierce meat and bone and keep fish pinned. Fact is, your glide bait standards were designed for ice, not casting or pitching. If everyone was being honest, they’d admit that one out of three walleyes are snagged on a traditional minnow-style glide bait. Not the case with the Pitchin’ Puppet; fish inhale this lure.”
For Hawthorne, he says working the Pitchin’ Puppet is a “rinse and repeat kind of thing.”
“I like to set the bow-mount trolling motor to .8 to 1 mph and pitch the bait out 60 to 70 feet behind the boat and just sit, pop, and snap jig it,” shared Hawthorne.
Hawthorne also likes the bait for running rocks. “Without the nose hook you don’t get snagged nearly as often as with most glide bait designs. So, I’ve replaced all the glide baits in my boat with Pitchin’ Puppets. It’s not unheard of to fish four or five different bottom substrates on a given day, everything from rock, sand, to mud. Now I don’t have to clip the front hook off to do my job and make things easier for clients. It comes rout of the package ready-to-fish.”
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Brilliant Forward-Facing Sonar Returns
As more and more anglers invest in forward-facing sonar to chase $9.99/lb. fillets, it’s worth mentioning that the Pitchin’ Puppet has an incredible forward-facing sonar signature.
“The bait shows up like a beam of light on forward-facing sonar,” said Hawthorne. “There’s no mistaking that you’re throwing a brand-new bait with a much-improved sonar return. It really lights up.”
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Pitchin’ Puppet FEATURES:
- Over-molded resin body and tail that’s extremely durable
- Baitfish profile
- Wide-gap rear hook for better hooking percentages
- Cast and retrieve or vertically jig to create a darting action like a dying minnow
- 15 Colors
- SIZES: 2-inch (5/16 oz.), 2-3/8-inch (5/8 oz.) and 2-3/4-inch (1 oz.)
MSRP $9.99
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ABOUT Northland® Fishing Tackle
In 1975, a young Northwoods fishing guide named John Peterson started pouring jigs and tying tackle for his clients in a small remote cabin in northern Minnesota. The lures were innovative, made with high quality components, and most importantly, were catching fish when no other baits were working! Word spread like wildfire, the phone started ringing… and the Northland Fishing Tackle® brand was in hot demand! For 40 years now, John and the Northland® team have been designing, testing and perfecting an exclusive line of products that catch fish like no other brand on the market today. Manufactured in the heart of Minnesota’s finest fishing waters, Northland® is one of the country’s leading producers of premium quality jigs, live bait rigs, spinnerbaits and spoons for crappies, bluegills, perch, walleyes, bass, trout, northern pike and muskies.
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ABOUT Bagley Bait Company
The personality of any company comes from its founder. Jim Bagley was an inventive, fun-loving, passionate fisherman who became one the most respected legends in the fishing tackle industry. In late 2010, Jarmo Rapala and a group of investors bought Bagley Bait Company. As an admirer of Jim Bagley for his attention to quality and of his product ingenuity and innovation, Jarmo initiated significant changes in operations, enhanced production processes and quality control. Now in 2020, Northland® Fishing Tackle, along with Jarmo as its Chief Lure Designer, maintain the legacy of creating premium balsa crankbaits and topwater lures, as well as jigs and spoons for both freshwater and saltwater anglers.
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