Are you ready for a new twist on a classic crank? The Kingfisher Custom Lures (KCL) FREAK is a unique squarebill crankbait designed to get you more bites! This lure has a unique shape, giving it a different action than you see in your typical squarebill. Just listen to Paul from Burly Fishing break it down!

Video transcript:

Paul Glass:
What is going on, everyone? Welcome back to the Monsterbass channel. This is Paul from Burly Fishing, and I'm here to do one of my favorite things ever, which is get super nerdy on some baits. I'm going to do a breakdown on this bait, that one right there. Before I do that, I wanted to say quickly, thank you so much for stopping by the channel for clicking the link to this video. Please, if you haven't already, smash the like button. Ring the notification bell. Subscribe so you can see when we post more content. It really helps us a lot, and we would appreciate it. Also, if you're not busy, go check out Burly Fishing. We've got some awesome content for you, as well. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get down to these baits.

Paul Glass:
The bait we're getting nerdy on today is the King Fisher custom lures square bill. That bad boy is sweet. It's a little bit unique. I have got a whole box of square bills. I'm going to do a little bit of compare contrast, show you some of the favorites that maybe are in your tackle box, and compare them to this one, which you probably haven't seen before. Now, this square bill is going to be in your July bags, so get pumped about it. I know that I am. I have been fishing this for two, three weeks now, so I can definitely speak to it. I'm really excited to show you some of the details.

Paul Glass:
The first thing I want to do before we get into any of the comparisons and get into the nitty gritty, I want to show you some of the color patterns that you're going to see, and there are one, two, three, four, five different color options that you may be seeing in your bag. The first one is probably one of my favorites. This one is indiglo bone, really cool color, like a pearlescent bone. You can see it's a little bit silver on top, really a traditional bone. Now, bone can be a lot of things for a lot of different companies. Crack this open. I think I've got one right here. A lot of companies you'll see, they'll call this bone. This is a yellow, nothing wrong with this. This is a great color, but I consider this to be a traditional bone. I just think this one is really cool. It's one of my favorites.

Paul Glass:
Bone has crept up the list of my favorite colors to fish, reason being it does well in almost every situation except for very, very dark water, does a really good job almost everywhere. It's not too shiny, so it works well in darker waters, but it's not so dark that it doesn't really do well in clear water. It's just a great all around option. I've caught a lot of fish on it, so that's always a good start to make in a favorite color.

Paul Glass:
We also have a pearl white, so if you're not into the bone, we do have a pearl white, traditional white. It's white through and through, a little bit of pearl to it, but pretty flat, and it's got the red eyes, which they all have, which I really like. It may seem basic, but this is a really pretty white. Then we've got one of everyone's favorites, the sexy shad. You can see this in almost everyone's lineup, reason being it just catches dang fish. Got the blue on top, chartreuse in the back, red around the gill plate, red eyes, and then a little bit of a pattern there, which is different than what we've seen with some of these solid color patterns, a bit of a scale pattern there on the side looks super good, traditional classic, hard to go wrong.

Paul Glass:
Then if you want to go crazy when the water is super clear, one of my favorite times to throw out this color pattern, which is the chartreuse blue, I think. What did they call this one? I'm good at my job. Yeah. Chartreuse blue got super creative with that name right there, but very similar to the sexy shad. Just a lot more, a little bit louder. Still has the cool scale pattern on the side, blue on top, chartreuse on bottom, hard to go wrong. Last, but certainly not least is the do it all. This is their Ozark shad color scale pattern, black on top, really cool, a little bit of a clear coat, flat silver, and then you've got the red on the throat.

Paul Glass:
They're hard to go wrong with that color scheme. You get the white. You get the bone for when it's lighter color. You got the chartreuse, which does really good and light and dark water. Then you got the sexy shad and the Ozark shad for when you need to go a little more natural. I would say this would be your light, clear water, natural and this would be your dark water natural.

Paul Glass:
Now, what do you expect when you get a square bill? What should you be looking for when you get one of these out of the package? What should it do? Square bills are first and foremost, they have a square bill. Shocker, but that's a little bit different than some of the other bill shapes that you're going to see. For example, I've got here. This is the Seeker Series from Monsterbass. It dives a little bit deeper. This one I think goes six to eight. Obviously, not a square bill there. Right? Then very aggressive, right? It's almost flat. That's what really gets it diving deep down. These are going to be angled quite a bit more. You can see the angle's a little bit steeper there. That's how you get. The shorter bill and then the steeper angle are what keep it high up in the water column, that two to four foot range that you're looking for.

Paul Glass:
You can also expect an erratic action, so a really tight wobble. Now, there's varying degrees of this and every single square bill has a different action, but that's generally what you're looking for with a square bill. When you're fishing a square bill, your goal is to hit everything. You want to hit something when you cast it out. You want to hit everything between you and your lure as you're retrieving it. I want to hit the bottom. I want to hit every rock on the bottom. I want to hit every single twig and branch, and like I said, everything between me and the end of my cast. As I'm retrieving, I'll hit everything. That's why that square bill, it's really good to have a durable square bill. You want one that can take a beating because if you're not hitting stuff, you're not fishing it right.

Paul Glass:
The KCL King Fisher custom lure square bill, what makes it a little bit unique? Right off the bat, you can notice it almost immediately, is this tapered down section, how aggressively it tapers down. This big wide body, and then just immediately cuts back right here, you can see these aggressive lines as it tapers back. That's the first thing that I noticed, and what that's going to do is, that's going to give you a totally different action on the bill. If it's a more full body square bill, like this KVD 1.5, it's full body, right? It still tapers. Most baits do because that's the pick. That's what a bait fish shape is, but you can definitely see there's a pretty significant difference in body shape here. You got a smooth, totally smooth bait here. You've got tons of lines and contours that are just going to make a totally different action and sound in the water.

Paul Glass:
We talked about durability a little bit as well, and how important it is. With some of these square bills, what I want to see is a really thick, stout bill with, if they're going to do it, I want to see some support here at the back. You see this. I love this. By the way, this is the Strike King KVD. I believe this is the 1.5, this fantastic square bill. I've got one, two of these. I've got two of these right here, just in this box. I think I've got another one floating around in this box, a great square bill, but durability is a thing for me. I'm going to hit everything that I can, and I want that square bill to last as long as possible and stand up to that abuse. Durability, that's one thing you should be looking for.

Paul Glass:
Now, the next thing I look for in a square bill, other than obviously durability, shape, and then the movement, I'm looking for hook size and I'm looking for the type of hook it has. One of my favorite parts about this square bill is actually the hooks that it comes with. This comes with BKK number six. This is important. I told you, we're going to nerd out. EWG style treble hooks. EWG style treble hooks. Extra wide gap treble hooks. Now, what does that mean? Well, let's zoom in here. Let's get on the details. You're going to see that treble hook shape. The bend actually goes way out right here. It goes way out and then it comes back inside and cuts back inside. You could see that treble hook shape.

Paul Glass:
Now, if you take the, this is the Rapala BX Brat, one of my favorite square bills. I have a bunch of these, and they all are a little bit beat up from fish and from me just knocking them on stuff. These have more of a just traditional style treble hook, so you can see it doesn't bend out and then cut back. EWG style treble hooks, I think they're just really great. One thing that it does is, it keeps the hook point in a little bit. Wow, those things move around a bit. I've got no idea what I'm talking about. You see the hook point is actually angled in a little bit. That means that, like I said, if you're always trying to run this into stuff, it means you're probably going to get hooked up occasionally, not on a fish, hooked up on a tree.

Paul Glass:
You're going to get hooked up with a square bill a lot less than you think, because the way that the angle at which they move, if you're retrieving the bait, it's going to wobble back and forth this way, but this bill is going to take it so that it's actually wobbling like this. The tail is going to be up and then these hooks are trailing behind it, and the bill is going to, as it's deflecting off things, is actually going to be blocking you from hitting a lot of stuff underwater and getting hooked up on these treble hooks. You're not going to get hooked up a ton, but it does happen. You're running treble hooks through the water. You're going to get hooked up. I think this minimizes your chance of getting hooked up on things that are not fish.

Paul Glass:
Then when do pin a fish, I really like those EWG style trebles for keeping that fish pinned. Now one thing I mentioned, this is the KVD Strike King square bill. KVD got All Time Great Angler, right? He always preaches on hard body baits for the most part, is up-sizing your hooks. You can see that in his version of this square bill. It's got maybe a number four hook. It might even be two hook sizes maybe even bigger than the treble hook here. I think it's pretty obvious. I'll try and get him to stop shaking for you, but you can see the KVD square bill has much bigger hooks than the King Fisher Lures.

Paul Glass:
They could do two things for you. One, it can improve your hook-up ratio. If you've got a bigger hook, you have a better chance of grabbing that fish. It's going to hold onto fish pretty well because it's a treble. That is what it does best is hold onto fish. You have three options versus one for catching that fish. Now, here's the drawback. You're going to maybe get hooked up on more stuff. What I like about these BKK hooks, they're a size six, so a little bit smaller, but I would say a standard size for what you'd get on a square bill. You could up-size them. What I would recommend is, take the balance. You're getting the EWG hook, which is going to provide a pretty good hookup ratio on the fish and provide a low hook-up ratio on sticks. That's going to allow you to fish this in the nasty cover and then come out without getting hooked up. Best of both worlds.

Paul Glass:
I want to talk about sound with these square bills. There's two different kinds. Well, for the most part, there's two different kinds of square bill. There's your louder square bills, so this is that Lunker Hunt square bill. Loud, and then there's these silence square bills. This is a KVD Strike King 1.5 silent. Well, I think that's just the ... Yeah, that was just the timing. Nothing. Nothing going on there, very quiet. Now, you would think without the ball bearing inside there, that thing is not going to cast, right? It's just a hollow piece of plastic. How's it going to cast? There are two ball bearings in there. I can see them. I can see right through this bait. There's two ball bearings in there, so this does have enough weight to really cast well, but without the ball bearing transferring back and forth inside that little chamber, which is where that rattle is coming from, it's not going to cast quite as well.

Paul Glass:
It's still going to cast well, but not quite as well, but there is something to be said for a silent square bill. There are times when this is all they're going to take, is the silent square bill. Recommend always having one of these, but I personally, most of my square bills, I want to have some kind of sound. The majority of mine, they're going to have a rattle to them. It's going to help cast far and it's going to help draw fish in.

Paul Glass:
Let's look and see where the KCL the King Fisher custom lures falls on the spectrum of sound. This lunker has got to be the loudest one, and holy moly is that tinny. That's like a $2 Wally World maraca. That thing is loud. This is the BX Brat, the Rapala, no sound. Not much going on there. Here's the hammerhead. Come over here. Here's the hammerhead from Monsterbass, probably somewhere in between. Little thump, little rattle. Then here's the KCL Lures, more on the thumpy side, got some depth to it. Love that thumpy sound. I think again, less on the tinny side, more than thumpy side means you're going to get a nice hefty sound from that lure. This is a little bit on the big side. This is just about the same length as that Strike King 1.5, but it's got a fatter body, for sure. Then when you compare it to the BX Brat, that's a bigger profile. Then compared to this really tinny but holy loud lunker hunt, definitely on the bigger side.

Paul Glass:
Overall, what are you getting with the King Fisher lures versus some of the other square bills? You get a big upside profile and giant size. You're getting this really cool tapered down effect, which I think is pretty unique with a round body. It's maybe like the DT, right? What a really cool body profile. Something unique, which is always good. You always want to have something a little different to show those fish. You're getting high end hooks, those EWG, BKK extra sharp hooks, which I really like. Then on the square bill, you're getting the support and the stability. I haven't had these for months and months. I don't have a couple of seasons under them, so I can't speak to durability from a paint job perspective or any of that, but what I can tell you is, just from the way this is constructed, the most stout of the bills that I have and the one that I think is going to hold up the best.

Paul Glass:
All in all, I love the paint jobs. I don't think you've got anything totally outlandish, but it hits every single one of those important points. Yeah. All in all, quality components, really cool, unique design. I think this is going to absolutely destroy in the springtime. I'm so excited to fish at the spring. Yes, I'm excited to put these to work in the fall, but the spring is when they really do damage. Now, when those fish are going up shallow in the summertime, it's another great time to throw a square bill. There's not really a bad time. Anytime you've got any shallow water, any shallow cover that you can really beat up, it's square bill time.

Paul Glass:
That is my breakdown of the KCL, the King Fisher custom lures freak square bill. Thank you so much for checking out this video. Thanks for bearing with the nerdiness, but we appreciate you so much. Again, smash the like button. Ring that notification bell so you can see when we post more content, and please do subscribe to the channel. While you're at it, check us out at Burly Fishing. Jeff and I do some really cool content too: bait breakdowns, gear reviews, unboxings. We've got it all for you, as well. Please go check out Burly fishing. Have an awesome weekend, and we'll see in the next video.