Product Review- Blue Water Candy Tallywhacker Dredge Heads
Blue Water Candy’s Tallywhacker Dredge Heads
As our blue water season is coming into full swing, it’s time to sort out our teasers, dredge bars, and assortments of pin rigs and skirts. While incorporating dredges is certain to increase the amount of fish in the spread, fishing them can be aggravating and troublesome.
Skirts are often married to individual pin rigs, making it necessary to have several rigged in reserve when mullets/ballyhoo are eaten or wash out. Traditional skirts and heads are often weighted, making dredges pull hard and reducing the overall life of the dredge bar itself.
With these frustrations in mind, Blue Water Candy has launched a new series of lures specifically for dredges. Called the Tallywhacker, these new dredge lures are sure to make dredge fishing easier and increase both your tally in the box and flags on the rigger.
Now that we’ve all made our schoolyard jokes about the name, the Tallywhackers are available in two sizes–a small and an extra large. Both are weightless and molded out of plastic, significantly reducing the stress and strain on the dredge bar while in tow.
The holes are bored out to 1/4”, allowing for the heads to be interchangeable over top of all pre-made dredge pins, drops, etc., and they will even go over most snap swivels. This allows the angler to quickly sub another mullet or ballyhoo pin rig without having $200 in extra lures tied up in reserve.
The smaller of the two is tied on a larger, duster-style head similar to their featherweights, and is available in 4” and 6” lengths. While they come as all mylar, Blue Water Candy can also offer these in nylon/mylar combos as custom directed by the consumer.
The XL version features a larger bullet head that mirrors their 3 oz. Jag head; however, once again, it is virtually weightless. Coming tied with nylon/mylar combinations in 8” lengths, these are the perfect lure for larger mullet/ballyhoo dredges that create a big profile without stressing the dredge bar. The BWC crew will custom tie these in all mylar, too–and with six head color combinations in both sizes, the possible combinations are virtually endless.
One afterthought on the small Tallywhackers, there is now an interchangeable king duster on the market. This theoretically would allow anglers to tie all their king rigs naked (no skirt), simply adding whichever color skirt is desired when tying the rig on. While this presents a unique solution to color options and having 100 king rigs tied up, one possible downside worth noting would be the ability for the skirt to jump the swivel while fighting a fish.
While these heads are sure to decrease the amount of Instigators (BWC’s existing dredge head) sold across the retailers’ counters, the Tallywhacker series provides two new sizes and shapes of dredge lures on both sides of the 6” existing series.
Blue Water Candy now has a full line of dredge head offerings–from small, to well…magnum. With the increase in life and durability your new dredge will see, coupled with a significant increase in ease of use, there’s no more excuses to avoid pulling out that dredge bag.
