There’s still a chance that the upcoming Bassmaster Classic will be won with traditional power fishing techniques. They’re far from dead. But it seems more likely that one or more top finishers will be moping or scoping, and if it’s the latter, I’d say there’s a good chance a “dice” bait will be in the mix.

Few things surprise me in fishing anymore. I may never be KVD, but I’ve seen a lot of bass-related oddities over the years, and rarely will I be surprised. One notable exception was the Alabama Rig. When Paul Elias used it to win at Guntersville, I was in utter disbelief. A second exception was the dice lures. When pros like Kyoya Fujita and Taku Ito started placing high in Elite Series events with them, I figured they were one-off occurrences. They couldn’t possibly become mainstream players, could they?

Of course they did, as evidenced by Pake South’s recent record-setting Opens win at Rayburn. On a pond that clear has giants in it, and where several notable power fishing techniques were introduced or refined, South used an “unnamed but well-known” dice lure to do his damage. Several other members of the top ten did as well.

Of course, Yamamoto offers both the Uni – and urchin style lure – and the Fuzzy Nut – closer to the original dice bait. There’s also the Fuzzy Nuki and the Fuzzy Nut if those two don’t satisfy your fuzz cravings. There will also be a number of Yamamoto-affiliated pros in the field in Knoxville. If one of them were to win on that technique, what would it do to the dice market? It’s already steadily increasing, but I’d venture to say that most of us still don’t know how, where, where or why to use them.

I have a passel of variations myself, and so far they’ve remained in the package. A Classic win, even more than South’s Open win, would convince me that they’re here to stay – and by the time I started to catch up and feel comfortable with them, there’d likely be a new weird lure from Japan or otherwise. As with the Senko 30 years ago, and the vibrating jig 20 years ago, even though I follow this stuff religiously I’m still typically slow to adopt it. That needs to change. I don’t need no jewels in my crown, but I need to find the occasional advantage.