The Spro KGB Chad Shad 180: Revolutionizing Glide Bait Fishing

Nov 07, 2025 0

Glide baits have experienced a surge in popularity recently. This may largely be due to the new Spro KGB Chad Shad 180 that made high-end glide baits more accessible to fishermen. The Spro KGB Chad Shad 180 is a great option for both glide bait professionals and those who are just getting started.

New for 2022, SPRO® and KGB Swimbaits teamed up to develop the KGB Chad Shad 180. This is a collaboration bait made between Spro and the legendary glide bait maker Kevin Brightwell and his team at KGB Swimbaits. Kevin Brightwell, the designer of KGB Swimbaits, has greatly enjoyed the partnership with SPRO.

Brightwell thinks the KGB Chad Shad 180 will find a home in tackle boxes of anglers at every experience level. “The Chad Shad is one of the most popular baits in my lineup. It’s versatile enough that a beginner can garner results, or a seasoned pro can use it for that big kicker fish to finish out their limit.

One of the great advances in fishing over the past several years is the development of glide baits. These oversized, single-jointed, hard-bodied fish imitators were created to mimic trout in California lakes but have morphed into replicating large bass prey across the country. The Glide Bait designed by SPRO and KGB Swimbaits has been perfected with experience.

Design and Features

This lure was designed using many of the features present in the original Chad Shad Glide Bait. The original version of this bait is now known as the 7-inch TSG Glide. The Spro KGB Chad Shad 180 is a 7-inch bait that weighs 2.4 ounces. The lighter weight of this bait makes it a great option for making accurate casts around thick cover.

The Chad Shad also has an oversized eye and a brush style tail. This allows for a natural shad presentation that will be sure to fool some of the biggest bass in the area.

The new SPRO Glide Bait will be offered in five colors to imitate the food supply in natural color schemes like silver, gray, white, and multi-colors. At 180mm in length and 2.4oz in weight, this glide bait isn’t too much for the beginner angler yet still provides the seasoned fisherman with everything needed in a lure. Gamakatsu treble hooks ensure the catch when the time comes.

The Chad Shad 180 is also equipped with all the goodies like rotating hook hangers, genuine Gamakatsu branded hooks, and a mass production variant of the popular brush fiber tail. It's a semi-soft plastic tail shredded to resemble brush fibers, but all one unit and slid into the back of the bait. This tail unit is glued in and no spare is provided in the packaging, but if SPRO were to offer spares - especially in different colors - that component may prove more popular than the bait itself!

Otherwise, the one big advantage this bait has over its original resin counterpart (besides availability) is the fact it can be produced with translucent or "ghost" patterns. Resin is a solid colored material where as ABS plastic is clear, making such patterns possible.

$59.49 is the retail price of this bait - less than some JDM baits of similar material, but more than some of the even more accessible mass produced glide bait options out there today.

SPRO and KGB Swimbaits have come together to quell some of that madness by building a bait that blurs some of those lines. Purists will still avoid it. Budget minded anglers will still find it too expensive. However, those of us in the middle, who understand both perspectives but really just want to catch fish, now have the opportunity to fish a bait design and profile that's been, at best, elusive.

Spro KGB Chad Shad 180 Glide Bait

Fishing Techniques

There are numerous ways to fish the Spro KGB Chad Shad 180, however, my favorite is around shallow cover. This can be a great way to catch trophy bass that are keyed on larger baitfish. My favorite place to throw this bait is around shallow cover with deep water access.

Shallow water ditches are another great location to catch giant fish on the Spro KGB Chad Shad 180. As the fall progresses, bass chase baitfish into the backs of creeks. They will often use these ditches as ambush points to feed on this bait. Shallow ditches that protrude off of main river or creek channels are great locations to look for this scenario.

This bait sinks with an ROF of 3 to 4 feet per 10 seconds and is great for fishing a variety of shallow and offshore cover. A fast chopping retrieve gives the bait a harsh darting action, while a slow steady retrieve gives it a smooth gliding action. Both are great for tricking shallow and deep bass into committing.

Individual hand tuning of resin baits can result in very slow and enticing rates of fall. Just the same, the ABS Chad Shad 180 is weighted to fall perfectly parallel at a rate of about one to one and a half seconds per foot. A slow sink resin bait is usually somewhere around one foot per two seconds.

Read also: The Life of Chad Everett Harris

Click our reel over to begin your retrieve and you'll be happy to know you can make this bait dance any number of ways. If you prefer to chop your retrieve, the Chad Shad 180 can do the erratic. If you like to wind and stop, the Chad Shad 180 can do the glide off to the side. If you prefer to just wind at varying speeds, the Chad Shad 180 will swim slow or fast.

Recommended Gear

Throwing this larger profile bait can lead to some giant bites, so having the right setup is crucial for landing these fish. I like to throw this bait on a longer, more parabolic rod with a medium gear-ratio reel. One of my favorite rods to throw this bait on is the SPRO KGB Signature Series Casting Rod. This is a 7-foot 9-inch Heavy action rod that was designed specifically to throw the Spro KGB Chad Shad.

This rod is strong enough to cast the bait accurately, and parabolic enough to properly load up on fish during a hook set. This rod also features an extra long handle that makes casting these larger sized baits much more manageable.

For a reel, you don't really need anything too large. Any 150 sized reel that can hold enough length of your preferred fishing line is fine. In my case, I kept it all in the SPRO family making use of their new Vortex-E casting reel in a 7.3:1 retrieve ratio. Note, this is a 100 sized reel, so if you want to do the same, you need to be comfortable with using braid or a braid plus leader line strategy.

A 7:1 gear ratio reel allows you to work the bait aggressively as well as quickly catch up with fish after a hookset. I like the larger spool because you are typically throwing this bait on thick diameter line. A larger sized reel also has bigger components such as the handles, making these bigger baits much easier to control. Otherwise, you want a relatively fast reel when tossing glide baits - or at least I do.

The bait comes with a bare line tie (no split ring). I am comfortable with a braid to leader connection and in the case of these tests, spooled the Vortex-E with a healthy supply of Sunline's FX2 braid in 50lb topping the braid off with a leader of 18lb Sunline Shooter.

Castability and Rate of Fall

Rigged up and ready to go, the Chad Shad 180 is a very easy bait to cast especially with the rod and reel combo I was using. Those unfamiliar with baits of this size will require an adjustment period, but this bait is far easier to sling and cast all day than a more traditional sized big baits.

Note that although the Chad Shad 180 is made of ABS plastic, the internal weights are fixed, so there is no sliding weight mechanism to aid in casting. A nice, easy, smooth casting motion is recommended to avoid instances of your bait tumbling through the air and potentially fouling your line during the cast.

This swimbait’s lifelike action and unmatched drawing power make it a deadly weapon around trophy sized bass.