Designed to be a shallow cranking, rolling-style bait, the Lates (pronounced “lattes”) is an excellent choice when going after large bass, stripers or trout. It’s fat profile, high buoyancy and balancers combine to create large, rolling flash and enticing action at any retrieve speed. In addition, much like the popular Anthrax Series, the Lates is an excellent wake-bait. “Waking” is a term used to describe a technique first pioneered by striper anglers, which involves a slow retrieve with a high (11-12 o’clock) rod angle. After many anglers noticed that this technique produced vicious top-water strikes from black bass, this method was brought into the bass circuit. The key is to reel the Lates slow enough that the bait will not dive under the water completely, but rather "fight" between surface and sub-surface, producing a "wake" across the water’s surface that looks similar to the path of a water snake. Calm, or near calm water is a must with this technique. Too much surface chop will make the lure dive, defeating the purpose of the method.
The best places to fish a waking lure is off of flat points early in the morning when water temps are over 70 degrees, or in the back end of coves when the water temps are 50-65 degrees.
Anglers can also twitch the Lates with short snaps of the rod-tip, causing it to dart underwater and then pop quickly back to the surface (due to its high buoyancy), triggering mean strikes. This technique is especially deadly when there is a slight chop on the water.
