Where MAGDRAFT Excels
The rigged MAGDRAFT is built around three features. The patented Mag-Hold system, category-defining action, a hookup percentage that held up across seasons, forage types, and bass species.
It was built for shallow water, and inside that zone it has no equal.
Bassmaster pro Kenta Kimura has fished the MAGDRAFT on two continents, and he knows exactly where that zone ends. Past that, he was reaching for something else. Heavy current pulled it off track. A slower retrieve took the action with it.
The question was never whether the the MAGDRAFT worked. It was how much more water it could cover. That’s where MAGDRAFT HEAD comes into play.
Trial and Error
The obvious solution is weight, and Kimura started where most anglers would. Nail weights, an eighth of an ounce at a time. Then several jigheads in the marketplace. Then weighted swimbait hooks.
None of them worked.
“They messed up the head shake,” he said. “When the weight and eyelet are positioned differently from the original MAGDRAFT, it messes up the head shake.”
That sentence is the whole design brief. Weight is easy. Weight that leaves the action intact is the hard part, and every off-the-shelf solution moved the hook eye forward of the original.
Designed to Dive
When the team started building a head from scratch, the reference point wasn’t other jigheads. It was crankbaits.
Kimura wanted a head that tracked straight through current and ran deeper as he reeled faster, not shallower. Most weighted heads do the opposite under speed. That behavior comes from crankbait design, not jig design, and building toward it meant treating the head as a diving component rather than a sinker with a hook attached.
Head Shake Starts at the Line Tie
Preserving the action largely came down to placement of the line tie.
“If you put it too far forward, it can’t head shake as much,”
Most jigheads place the eye in front of the bait. This one sits further back over the bait’s nose. That position is what preserves the side-to-side movement the MAGDRAFT is known for, and it’s one of the key features that separates the MAGDRAFT HEAD from the jigheads that failed in his testing.
Where's the Weedguard?
The MAGDRAFT HEAD doesn’t have a weedguard, and that was a decision rather than an oversight.
The lure is already close to snagproof. In testing, adding a guard negatively impacted action. Faced with a choice between marginal snag resistance and maintaining the action the MAGDRAFT HEAD was created to protect, the team dropped the guard.
Kimura now calls the result better than a squarebill for bumping cover, rock especially. When it does hang, a few quick snaps usually free it. Because fish tend to eat the whole thing, he fishes it on a 7′6″ heavy or extra-heavy baitcaster.
Sizing, Rigging, and Misconceptions
MAGDRAFT HEAD runs from ¼ ounce to 1 ounce, with 5/0 and 6/0 hooks. Kimura keeps hook selection simple: 5/0 for the MAGDRAFT FREESTYLE 5IN, 6/0 for the MAGDRAFT FREESTYLE 6IN. He fishes 20-pound line in most situations, on the theory that lighter line won’t let the bait work properly.
Rigging is straightforward: ensure the lure goes on as straight as possible. A hand-tied keeper stops the bait from sliding down the shank.
The mistake he sees most is anglers going too light.
“People don’t realize how much water the MAGDRAFT catches. In current, you need the weight, but with no current I can easily get the 1-ounce model down to 25 or 30 feet. That’s the biggest point I need to make: be sure you go a little heavier.”
If your gut says ⅜oz , throw a ½oz.
Rod Pairings
Three DESTROYER P5 models cover the range the head opens up.
F5-75X JAVELIN — The pairing for the MAGDRAFT FREESTYLE 5IN and the lighter heads. Built for covering water, it has the length to deliver a hookset at the end of a long cast and the give to load up during the bite.
F7-75X BMG — The pairing for the MAGDRAFT FREESTYLE 6IN is the deep water bottom contact specialist. The slightly softer tip that excels at dragging does the same work here, absorbing the bite with the power to drive a 6/0 home at distance.
F7.1/2-76X MARK-56 — When the situation calls for more power than the BMG. Built to send six to eight-inch swimbaits into open water, its beefed-up blank diameter delivers the torque to move a 1 oz head through heavy current, and the moderate-fast taper absorbs head shakes a faster tip would tear through.
