The show floor at the 2026 ICAST sportfishing trade show in Orlando was dominated by “urchin” or “Coike” (pronounced coy-key) style soft plastic baits.
At least 11 major brands officially debuted their own, unique take on the new lure trend, including Strike King, Rapala – Crush City, Hideup, Big Bite Baits, Missile Baits, NetBait, Lunkerhunt, Yamamoto Baits, Fish or Die, Skinny Bear Bass Jigs and Bait Cave. The craze even trickled over into the terminal tackle sector, as BUZBE debuted a specialized Urchin Bait Box at the show.
According to the Product Development Manager for GSM Outdoors, Jack Dice, urchin baits come to life in the water with each twitch of a rod tip. Under GSM’s umbrella of brands, Dice said both Big Bite Baits and Yamamoto Baits now offer anglers “Coike” style lure options. They include Big Bite’s Orbix, and Yamamoto’s Uni, Uni Mas, and Uni Max.
“When it comes to catching pressured fish, showing them something new can make a difference,” Dice said. “Urchin style baits really just gained momentum over the last year, and several notable, national bass tournaments have been won on them over that short span of time. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a presentation that the fish have not been exposed to for very long.”
Dice said urchin baits are extremely versatile, as they can be rigged and fished in a variety of ways to be effective in a large range of water depths and a plethora of scenarios.
“A lot of anglers are adding tungsten nail weights to them to increase how fast they sink when they are targeting bass in deeper water,” Dice said. “Urchin-style baits can also be fished weightless and can be rigged with both single and treble hooks. The most productive retrieve while using them tends to incorporate an aggressive and erratic cadence that employs distinct twitches with plenty of pauses mixed in, similar to the type of retrieve most folks use when chunking a jerk bait. Oftentimes, the fish strike the bait on the pause, as it is suspending in the water column and seemingly, pulsing with life.”
San Antonio area fishing guide Clendon Taylor of C&C Guide Service said what he likes most about the new urchin baits that have hit the lure market, is how easy they are to use.
“Anybody can fish with one of these baits, regardless of their experience or skill level,” Taylor said. “They put out a ton of vibration and have excellent action in the water that can be produced by the slightest movement of the rod tip. It’s almost a do-nothing style of bait. If you put it in front of a bass, they can’t help but strike it.”
Some anglers have expressed their thoughts on the shape of urchin baits and theorized these lures provoke some sort of instinctive reaction from the fish, since they resemble an enlarged, plankton-like organism. Others have reported they have even experienced some crossover success with these lures in inshore applications where trout and redfish are feeding on crustaceans and crabs.
With their buoyant, slow-sinking properties, it’s possible trophy speckled trout fanatics may be testing these baits out in the near future during the upcoming fall and winter months. It seems there is no end in sight, in terms of where this new, urchin bait craze is headed.
