Tailspin lures have been part of bass fishing since the mid-1960s, when pioneers like Tom Mann and Bob Ponds introduced designs such as the Lil' George and the Wing Ding. The concept has stuck around for a reason: a dense, compact body paired with a small spinning blade gives anglers a lure that stays down in the water column, whether it's cast and retrieved or jigged vertically. But the design has always had one nagging flaw — that same dense weight makes it easy for a jumping bass to throw the hook.
That's the problem our TailKicker was built to solve, and it's what caught outdoor writer Henry Veggian's attention at the 2019 Kayak Bass Fishing (KBF) National Championship in Louisiana, where RedLine ran a sponsor booth alongside founder Rickey McKenzie.
In his write-up for the Kayak Bass Fishing blog, "Reinventing the Tailspin," Veggian called the TailKicker "a real gem" among tailspin-style lures. He didn't just take our word for the design, either — he tied one on and put it to the test during pre-fishing. The TailKicker's line-through hole lets the lure body slide freely up the line the moment a fish jumps, so there's no rigid weight for a bass to lever against. Veggian landed a keeper bass that jumped twice trying to throw the hook — and couldn't.
What makes the piece worth sharing is that Veggian wasn't on our pro staff and wasn't paid to write it. He said as much himself: he wrote it purely because the reinvented design caught his interest. That kind of independent, unprompted take is worth more to us than almost anything we could say about the lure ourselves.