As a guy who lives in a triplex style apartment building, I have to be really efficient with my gear. I have too many 8-9 foot rods and 9-10 foot surfboards to not have a garage. So, I’m super into little niche systems for storage and best use of space. One night I was looking at Amazon’s site and came across Du Bro, and noticed they had 2 systems that could work for me:
My first serious bass rod, was a Phenix 55M2 with an Abu Garcia 4600 round reel, ala Don Iovino, doodle worm fishing. I have fished Shimano most of my adult/post-college could afford boats and serious tackle life. The last couple years, as I’ve been eyeing the Pacific Ocean, I’ve ventured out and explored rods and reels from various companies and brands. I sorta wanted to check in and see if anyone had caught up to Shimano, or get a feel what these other brands, like Daiwa, Quantum, Okuma, Lews, etc could do. My intention was always to blog about those experiences. I have lagged at blogging, but let this kick off that conversation.
Fast forward, a couple months back, as I was getting into my first groove with the good sized, solid calico bass at San Clemente Island (aka SCI). I posted a video of my Daiwa Tatula HD reel being a pain in the arse, reel handle sorta seized up, gears making grinding noises as I’m fighting a fish (find me on instagram @southernswimbait ). Anyway, I got a note from my friend Brad Rutherford. You know, that ‘kid’ who was in college and was part of Southern Trout Eaters? He now works for Pure Fishing. Pure Fishing is the conglomerate that owns Berkley, Abu Garcia, Fenwick, Stren, Sebile, Spider Wire, etc etc Brad works for Pure Fishing out of Columbia, South Carolina. See this cool story from Brad’s father, Bob Rutherford who posted this on Facebook recently. I hadn’t heard this story before. STE = Southern Trout Eaters:
Brad sent me a couple of saltwater grade, big spool, low profile, heavy duty, casting reels to try out. I really appreciated the gesture and wanted to provide some feedback. I recently invested in some Shimano Tranx, which is the Shimano low profile saltwater grade reel, so I feel like I have good feel of the current state of the market. What really drew my attention to the Abu Garcia Revo Toro Rocket was the super quick gear ratio, paired up with this beast of a reel, with a massive 4×4 twin paddle handle. You can tell this thing has amazing torque and power, when you reel it right out of the box. Shimano has NOT yet figured out how to make a double paddle power handle, that I feel like is up to grade. Abu Garcia has knocked it out of the park with the handle on the Revo Toro Rocket. I find the single power knob handles, the kind that saltwater guys adore….is hard for me as a swimbait guy. I have lost my grip a couple times at key moments. Something about the size and the singular knob hasn’t jived with my style of reeling and swimbait fishing. When I slow down and fish lead heads or something, no problem. But something about how I grip that knob aint working for me. The Tranx power knob is oddly too big for me to hold by my middle part of my fingers, and it’s caused me problems.
My buddy Chris Lilis (Christos is his Greek name, and since I too have Greek roots, I like to call him Christos) has a bunch of Abu Garcia Toros and Beast reels. Find Christos on Instagram at: @LBCEEZ He has been telling me how rock solid they are and how saltwater worthy they were. I sorta went thru some reels year, and he was giving me his feedback. After fishing this thing a few trips now, I have no doubt this reel is totally solid and fishes really well. It casts a mile. It holds a ton of line, especially for bass guys. It moves an incredible amount of line per crank. You need to able to fish fast with a lot of your baits. You fish with fast reels cover water, to make more casts, to get slack out of your long casts, to reel quickly back to the boat thru dead water, etc. It’s less physically demanding to fish certain baits with fast reels. I rarely like to fish anything 5:1 or slower, even 6:1 are slow to me, except Huddlestons, and a handful of really big baits these days. A lot of my game has changed. Braid changes things too.
I am totally impressed with this reel. I haven’t fished an Abu Garcia reel in a long time, and I am certainly impressed. I would like to get more of these, and continue trying them out in new applications. They work great with 65/80 pound braid, and calico bass, which means they will rock at big largemouth hunting too. A-Rigs. Big Jerk Baits. Big Spinnerbaits/BuzzBaits. Big topwater, etc.
Rod: Phenix Ultra Classic Swimbait Rod 790H
A number of my friends swear by the 790H Ultra Classic Swimbait rod from Phenix. I took a trip to Phenix a few weeks back and loaded up on some new sticks for the saltwater. I knew I wanted to pair the Revo Toro Rocket with the 790H because I knew I was going to be fishing the ShellBack Customs 6″ Swimbait. I knew I would be getting bit, and would be having chances to test the tackle, get some fish on film and really see how it would work.
The 790H feels amazingly like these Teramars from Shimano I have had for 17 years, that I just adore. Really beefy and strong, but just a little tip. My friends were not lying when they told me this was the best all around swimbait rod they might pick if they could only have one. I could throw a 1 oz warbait spinnerbait or a 8″ Huddleston or a Slide Swimmer 250.
You notice in the above video, I literally jack a fish like 4 feet out of the water on my hookset. Paired with braid, and a good solid 300/400 series low profile fast reel like the Revo Toro Rocket, you are becoming a dangerous weapon. You can cover water, and not fatigue yourself. You can burn your baits and then stall–which creates bites. You can hook and land most fish you will ever encounter. Kevin Mattson caught like a 250 lb arapaima on this rod. It can handle the biggest baddest fish of the Amazon. I can see myself getting more of the 790H. Two of them, is not enough!
I’m back at it. I have my life organized and want to get out from a bunch of 8″ Rainbow Trout Hudds that have been rigged with our Southern Trout Eaters Rig. These are brand new, and they are rigged w premium Owner Hardware. I’m offering these for $30 each now, but may have to raise them to $35 once I blow thru what I currently have in each ROF. These are ‘legacy’ Hudds, new in package, well stored, and they need a new home. I have plenty for my personal arsenal and simply don’t need these. Besides, people request this stuff from me regularly enough, I think it might help me get my butt in gear. I have this 2nd DVD project that is on my mind all the time, and I have a sweet Champion boat again, and I’m looking at saltwater boats…I need space for more stuff, and I’m hoping some folks find value in a $30 rigged Hudds, when that’s what an un-rigged one costs. Might help a guy who has never thrown one get into a Huddleston, especially the ROF 0 (aka the Zero). Did I say that out loud? You need to be throwing the Zero with the STE Rig boys and girls!!! It’s a great slow roller, for the slowest of slow uphill creepy slow grinds, and its the best torpedo waker of the family. Just saying. $4.95 Shipping to the Lower 48, regardless of quantity.
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Southern Trout Eaters Pre-Rigged Huddleston Deluxe 8″ Rainbow Trout
Featuring:
-Owner ST-66 Stinger Treble Hooks, Masked White
-Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings
-Southern Trout Eaters harness/rigging
-Red Gill Modification
**The ROF 5s do NOT Have a Top Hook, nor do the ROF 0s**
$29.95
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UnRigged/ Stock Huddleston Deluxe 8″ Rainbow Trout ROF 16 Top Hook
Brand New/Never Fished: $27.95
[nicepaypal type=”cart” name=”Southern Trout Eaters Sale 8 Inch Unrigged Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout” amount=”27.95″ option1=”drop;ROF;Select Which ROF;ROF 16″ quantity=”field;Number of Baits;1;2″]
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My buddy Chris Lillis, showed me the Lucky Craft CIF Flash Minnow 190 a while back. It didn’t click until recently how deadly these things are. I am thinking the freshwater guys need to explore these. Think herring eaters. Think smelt eaters. Think how well long slender baits get bit.
This is a beautiful bait from Lucky Craft. These companies in the fishing world are so interesting. The people, the connections to the angling community, the baits, the progression, etc. I love to see ‘saltwater grade stuff’ made for bass fishing. Crankbaits and jerkbaits ARE good calico baits, and there is a lot I want to try. Chatter crickets, robust square bills, etc.
This is NOT A JERKBAIT. It is more of a crankbait / glide / stall bait. You burn it, pause it. You bump bump bump at 6 and 12 and it dances a couple feet side to side up and down. They love it when you pause it. It sinks. It does NOT wear you out, physically to fish. It’s intimidating. Your wrists start hurting just looking at it!Jerkbaits are the shiz. Let’s be real. Jerkbaits are one of the catchiest ways to fish. Although this is not a jerkbait, it has the same profile. Except it’s 7.5″ long and weighs 2.25 oz.
Pros:
Application:
Purchasing:
I’m 100% sure I bought my Lucky Craft CIF Flash Minnow 190 from Tackle Warehouse. They aren’t stocking that size, for some unknown reason, although it’s still listed on the product description. Check out the 110s in stock, though. The colors are killer. You can use Google, I’m sure.
Gambler in Florida is like RoboWorm or Keitech in California. Gambler is based in South Florida, near Okeechobee and is known for in particular for its goodness around grass. The owner, Val is a tournament fisherman and has won major events on Okeechobee. I have seen him, competed against him back in the day, and know he is a solid fisherman. They maintain a pro-staff of really good local and national anglers that tend to be good anywhere, but grass in particular. Think JT Kenny or Brandon McMillan. The BB Cricket is legend amongst the punchers. Super small profile simple bait that fishes well behind massive 1.5ounce punch weight and beefy punch hook.
When I first arrived in Okeechobee in January of 2009, the very first event I fished, within weeks of resigning from software world, was the 2009 FLW Series Event. That was they event the late great Jimmy McMillan won. I actually fished well the first 2 days and totally choked the 3rd. The irony, is I was fishing the Gambler Flappy Shad and sight fishing. Day 3, things got wicked rough and windy, but behind the grass lines, the water was uber fishy. I basically rookied out, and to this day cannot answer why I didn’t just fish the wind the throw a spinnerbait. I watched Dion Hibdon whack like 19 pounds all around around me. Anyway, I was out. Jimmy McMillan would go on to win. The winning bait? The Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper. Over in this place called J&S which of course was the only corner of Okeechboee I hadn’t seen! It would put me on journey of a braid on weedless swimbait fishing.
Swimming Worms
I had a golden opportunity to just put on a boot tailed swimbait like Basstrix paddle tail and would have made a $10K in my first event. I just didn’t. I fought the wind, kept looking for bed fish, and kooked out. I didn’t have that in my game, saddly, out of arrogance. I fished ‘bigbaits’. I fished other baits, but didn’t spend the time on the simple boot tailed swimmers, the paddle tailed swimmers, the simple swimbaits—–that I should have. I should have had that in my game and kept with it. It was a mistake I made all during my full time fishing journey. Anyway, after that Okeeechobee event, I had nearly a month to prepare for the next one on Okeechobee.
That next 30 days, in my mind, will remain as some my finest and biggest progression in fishing, probably ever. I will forever remember staying at the Roland Martin Marine. I got over the Clewiston part of the lake in a hurry, and was far more enamored with Harney Pond, Monkey Box, the North Shore all the up to Okeechobee. That being said, I learned that I could drive from Clewiston to Okeechobee and put in in the Kissimmee River and save the boat run, and wake up to some coffee and music of choice. I was driving my truck 1 hour each way from Clewiston, to go learn the ‘north side’. I found the north side of Okeechobee fished more more liking and had these great pools and runs that got me dialed-in. Braid was a huge part of the approach, boat handling, strong grass ready trolling motor and batteries…but most importantly was the mindset of shallow water weedless grass swimbait fishing.
Weedless Grass Swimbait Fishing
There is a steady progression of weedless swimbaits. You could start with paddle tails, Speed Worms, and even curly tailed worms, that come to find out, fish really well when you just reel them along. I quickly connected the dots between the Skinny Dipper and baits like the Yamamoto Swim Senko. Gambler is to Florida like Yamamoto is to the West too. I knew Gary Yamamoto had a great tournament on the Swim Senko, so I had to explore that bait too. I LOVE putting in the Kissimee River, shooting the gap at Kings Bar and making my way West. I really got to learn Okeechobee my first winter of 2009, by committing my time to the Midtown (aka Monkey Box/Harney Pond) and UpTown – Eagle Bay>JS<Kings Bar>Indian Prairie>. The bait was the Skinny Dipper. And the Swim Senko. Ken Huddleston’s Grass Minnow become a goto for me a little later. His 6″ weedless too, but the more simple, weedless 5-6″ swimbaits you use a screw lock hook to attach to, is what I’m saying. The Skinny Dipper was king for a bit. Other baits sorta came along, but nothing earth shattering. Then, one day the Gambler Big EZ broke.
All my South Florida buddies being all fired up about the Gambler Big EZ. It pushed more water, had a different swim signature than the others. It was catching better fish. It was the trailer on the back of a chatterbait. Of course, most lethal is the weighted screw lock (or unweighted too) just reeling it over, up and over, thru, and around as many good swim lanes and hot pockets as you can. Braided line. I remember guys at Santee Cooper getting good bites. Seminole. Okeechobee of course. The core grass lakes we hit.
I lived in West Palm Beach for like 5 months, hoping to be a S. Florida surfer and Okeechobee local. Not to be. As I was about to move from the thug life side of West Palm Beach to Jupiter, a bombshell went off in my life. I was at a software team event and somebody mentioned the new office in Aliso Viejo, CA. Boom, I literally undid my world, and jumped on the train back home. So, it’s been a minute since I been around guys named Wood, Luke, Carter, McMillan, Tharp, Fitzgerald…but yeah, the Seminole winds blow thru San Clemente often.
Gambler makes a whole series of the EZ Swimmer. It wasn’t really hard for me to buy a couple of packs of the Gambler Really Big GZ 8″ baits to ‘test’ them out on the calico bass. I had already gotten the 6.5″ versions, but I was intrigued to see the bigger version.
The Gamber Really Big GZ 8″ Swimbait
You have to see this bait next to other known baits to appreciate it’s size. Long, round, fat and a big paddle. Big round style paddle. Looks like a SUP paddle. When the bait swims, it has a lot of ROLL. The articulated section help the bait pulse and kick. You can feel this 8″ swimmer on the end of your big beefy calico bass rod, far better than most of the weedless swimbaits I’ve fished. It pushes a ton of water, and just happens to match up really well with the 12/0 Owner Beast Swimbait Hook and 3/4 oz weight.
I am a huge fan of Owner Hooks. I have had a journey with treble hooks, as most of us have had. You go thru the balance of: Uber sharp points, short shank/non fouling, hook strength and ability to handle 80# braid or a giant fish, or both. I came around to the ST-66 Owner Treble Hooks as I refined my 8″ Huddleston rigging. I like to call it the Southern Trout Eaters rig. Reality, its a derivative and fusion of others rigs from friends my own flavors. Super small, sharp, XXX strong and well balanced hook was what drew me to the ST-66 for a small profile that would complement the Hudd vs. stick out and go against the flow.
Now, as I’m getting salty, and fishing for saltwater bass, tuna, yellowtail, halibut and bay bass, to name a few target species…I’m going thru my tackle and saltwater-ize-ing it all. I am putting the 1/0 , 2/0 and 3/0 sized ST-66 on my Triple Trouts. I am replacing the Owner Hyper Split Rings, with larger Hyper Wire Split Rings. #8s and #10s in cases. Big ole split rings that require fatty split ring pliers these to work right:
I really believe in the Hyper Wire Split Rings and ST-66 combinations for any baits with hanging trebles. They are heavy, and tend to make your bait sink a little quicker than lighter wire ST-36 hooks, but they are geared for whatever fishes you encounter (hopefully). The Slide Swimmer 250 comes stock with big ST-66s, to give you an idea of how well they match w bigbaits.
Fishing the kelp in the saltwater, is a lot like fishing massive grass beds like you’d find in Franks Tract at low tide, or Lake Seminole or Okeechobee. Your bait often comes out of the water, and you need to be prepared to drop it into holes and gaps. Expect it. Expect a fish ‘tracking’ your bait while its out of the water. You need to choose your casts wisely. Choose good swim lanes where you get to run your bait thru juicy spots and long pools of water. The guy who can cast the furthest, is off the front of the boat, and covers the most water with the best presentation will catch the fish. Be ready, followers abound, and they tend to be big or bigger or way bigger, depending. Your fishing partner needs to be on their toes when you hook one. There’s usually more calicos around than the hooked one who are fired up and will bite.
Weedless Saltwater Swimbaits are great for the saltwater kelp or any vegetation I suppose in salt or brackish water. Also, if you’re hunting a big one a grass lake in the freshwater. I have to say, the boot tailed/paddle tailed/cut tailed swimmers, that are long and slender get bit really well. You might give the 3-5-7 pounders a different look with the following couple?
Split Belly
The following two baits both have a split belly. Split belly baits are synonymous with weedless swimbaits. It helps hide/hold the hook and make the bait more low profile and less likely to snag. The beauty of things like the Weighted Owner Beast Hooks, 10/0 is a good choice w 1/2 oz, because it fits a lot of swimbaits with split bellys really well.
MC Swimbaits Inshore Weedless swimbait
Kevin and everyone I know that fishes the MC Swimbaits refers to Corey. Corey Sanden is the guy behind MC Swimbaits. He is credited with many innovations, baits, and developments in the world of saltwater bass fishing. The heavy floro leader attached to braid, for example, I believe Corey is credited with. The only downside of braid is that sharp teeth will cut it. Calico Bass have sharp teeth, so do the 10+ pound largemouth bass and trophy spotted/smallmouth bass. You can cut braid on a bass’s teeth, if they inhale/choke your bait deep enough. Many calico bass have been lost by the braid cutting against the fish’s teeth, hence the 12″ floro leader of 50 or 60# 100% floro. Corey is in a position to design weedless baits and make modifications from a place of authority.
Kevin fishes Corey’s MC Inshore Swimbaits exclusively. I have now fished it quite a bit too. Great running and fishing bait. Pairs up nicely with the Owner and Trokar weighted swimbait hooks out there. Kevin does a lot of damage, and is all about the tons of MC Swimbaits plastic Kevin carries around. Slender profile, yet beefy, nice little boot tail. Great colors and offerings. Very resilient and will last multiple fishes. Catches big ones. The split belly helps make it hold and rig on a screw lock style hook really well.
Chad Yates came onto the weedless swimbait scene with his Shellback Customs series of swimmers. His bait is fatter/wider than the other weedless baits. It has the largest profile, and a large paddle tail. The Shellback Customs baits have a really neat slender profile in the water. They have a really tight body movement yet, loud, obnoxious and vibrant tail doing some good thumping and displacing mad water.
Check out Chad and his baits on Instagram: http://instagram.com/shellback_custom_swimbaits
