Justin provided some insights into the rod, reel, line, he was using to fish the 5″ Berkley Hollow Belly, single swimbait style.  I found his input very interesting.   The above video gives insights into the Powell 765 Swimbait Rod that Justin was using to fish the 5″ Berkley Hollow Belly Swimmer (Hitch color) , combined with an Abu Garcia Revo SX reel, and 17# Berkley 100% Florocarbon line.  Notice what Justin says about the importance of the action of the rod, and the speed of the reel. “Not too fast, not too slow”.  I couldn’t agree more.  I am not a 100% florocarbon guy with swimbaits most times, but if I was going to be, fishing open water, mid water column/suspended fish is where I’d fish it!  Justin is on point, his fishing, positive vibration and momentum speak volumes.

I love hearing what stuff other guys are really using and why. Justin knows what he is doing, and since I can only mostly talk about Shimano/G-Loom stuff  with any crededbility because that is what I’ve invested in, I find it really helpful to get input from what stuff other guys are REALLY using….and why. Realism isn’t just a swimbait thing. It’s an integral part of my life and business. Keepin’ it real, thank you Justin.

I have decided, among other things I’m planning on doing this summer, that I’m going to be gathering a library of underwater footage of certain baits, as they swim.   To me, a ‘swim signature’ is the footprint or fingerprint or unique identifier that all baits have.  This just needs to be done.    The culmination of all things a bait gives off as it is swam (thinking mostly swimbait/bigbait) but all baits have some sort of fingerprint in or ontop of the water.  I have access to a river, various springs, and clear water lakes that shall provide excellent natural environments to show the swimming of various baits and just showcase baits in the water.   I’ve seen a lot of footage of baits swimming in swimming pools and even in lakes/ponds, but I’m finding there is something unique about swimming a bait in place in the current of a river, that allows the camera to really capture the subtle details of the swim and give you a better feel for all that is going on with the bait.

First thing of course is the dead-on accuracy and realism of the bait’s profile. Notice the Weedless Shad’s fully booted, miniaturized version of the 8″ trout’s vortex tail. The Weedless Shad’s tail has more thump and vortex than the Grass Minnow, and because it is a slightly bulkier and heavier bait, I find it fishes better in some situations. But both the Grass Minnow and Weedless Shad should have real estate in your tackle box. Fish catching sum’o'guns.

The idea of this ‘swim signature’ series is to provide an objective look at how baits swim in the water, with very little or zero narration or voice over.  So, to kick things off, I went out and spent some time swimming the Huddleston Deluxe Weedless Shad in very clear little crick.  I am using normal and slowed camera speeds.   The Weedless Shad is an incredibly real and lifelike shad swimbait.  I have caught fish from Lake Champlain to Okeechobee on this bait.  I love to fish it in grass, but I know it will work around wood, or even open water.   I filmed the bait on 50# Power Pro Braid, why?  Because that is how I  fish the bait, is on braid.   I am teaching myself some new knots and methods for attaching floro and mono leaders to braid, but for the most part, I find 50# braided line that is coated black with permanent pen, very low profile and very fishable.   I had some really bad experiences with floro and mono leaders, but am trying to come back around with the help of some trusted friends.  Bigbait and swimbait fishing takes the physics involved to levels the square bill and shakey head guys don’t typically get.  These are baits and fish of consequence, and even just repeated casting does things that are hard to quantify, but ultimately weakens knots and line. Basically, I plan on filming the baits on the same line as I fish them natively.   Of course 8# florocarbon would make the bait look and swim better, and perhaps I’ll get myself there, but when I pull out the Weedless Shad on 50# braid, I’m using going in and getting after it.  Guys who throw 100% floro tend to be fishing more open water, whereas I find myself in the jungles of the South East, on places like Santee Cooper, Okeechobee, Eufaula, and Seminole where grass, wood, and big bug-eyed bruisers are the game.

Swimming baits in place is surfing like on a ‘standing wave’… I’m finding out how telling the quality of a bait is by it’s ability to be swam in place. The baits that tend to catch fish swim nicely in current, in place. Hardbaits are much more difficult to swim in place, but even among the softbaits, their are stars and their are duds. The Weedless Shad is a shining star, excellent swim and example of realism in motion.

Here is additional recap and insights into the mighty pool of the Tennessee River called Lake Guntersville.   This is footage compiled from the 2012 FLW Everstart Tournament from May 3-5th 2012.    There are some subtle details in the footage above.  Suspended fish, getting caught on swimbaits.  Sometimes in the form of the castable umbrella/Alabama Rig, sometimes just a single paddle tailed tube swimbait.   Realize, that guys were able to catch 17-19 pounds per day sight fishing/bed fishing during this tournament. I had 15 pounds per day catching fish on the 8″ Triple Trout over milfoil and hydrilla in 2-6 feet of water.  So, the fish were in 1 foot of water, and all the way down in 30+ feet.  The lesson here to me was that the big fish, don’t just gradually make their way to the ledges.  They go out deep FIRST.  Really deep.  Like full summer deep, and perhaps they aren’t on the bottom, but they relate to really deep water, and will suspend 10-15 feet down, over 30 feet of water.   Justin Lucas provided some really interesting insights into what he was doing to catch 30+ pounds for 2 of the 3 days.   Based on the brim one of his fish coughed up in the livewell on Day 3, which you can see in the above footage, it really makes me wonder what a guy could do with bigbaits, out on the ledges of Guntersville.   Mark Rose’s insights, JT Kenney’s insights, and winner Alex Davis’s insights all made me realize little subtle things I found interesting, about how to find, locate and catch fish on Guntersville and the Tennessee River at large.   Look at the results here. It wasn’t a wack fest out there for the vast majority of the field.    Some schools of big fish out there, and only a handful of guys with the knowledge and ability to find and catch fish out of those schools.

Justin Lucas, his Berkley Hollow Belly Swimbait (hitch) and a 3/4 ounce head swam around schools of suspended magnums.

My friend Casey Martin was not himself all week leading up to the tournament.  He was giddy and acting ‘guilty’ and that told me he either had just robbed a bank (which isn’t likely, knowing Casey) or he was around some really big fish and knew he had a shot at winning, which was the case.   You will notice the Top 10 on Day 3 pretty much all had addresses that give them excellent access to ledges on the TN River.   You have to understand you just don’t pull out deep and get on fish Guntersville.  There are all kinds of things I am still learning, but most importantly, you need side imaging to find these deep fish, something I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t been able to afford yet.    Casey was telling me he was on schools of 4-5 pounders.  Catching all kinds of fish about the same size.  I’d seen this before the few times I’d gotten around them on Kentucky Lake.  I really believe a bigbait, not just a swimbait, would get more of those 5-7 pounders to get fired up and eat.   Casey was bummed with 23 pounds, like that was a small limit the final day.  “I caught like 20 four pounders”…. Kills me!

Lake Guntersville brim that one of Justin Lucas’ fish coughed up. Bigbaits. Big fish eating big bait.

Justin Lucas capitalized on a single, well placed, swimbait to catch 2 of the heaviest stringers weighed in, in the entire event.  Suspended fish with a swimbait, TN River style.  Very interesting.   Mark Rose and Alex Davis were using castable U-Rigs with Shadalicious swimbaits to catch suspended fish.  Casey was using the Picasso School E Rig with Shadalicious swimmers too.   Suspended fish are a common theme of the TN River, and the Alabama Rig exposed how many big ones lives in no mans land, and now there is a tool to catch them.  But as Justin Lucas showed, a well placed single swimmer can trump even the U-rig, and I wonder what an 8″ Huddleston or a larger swimmer like the Sledge Hammer swam in those same schools might do?  40 pounds?  Anyway, I found Guntersville extremely ‘interesting’ to say the least.  I learn something new every time I fish that river, and I’m finally getting my feet under me a little bit.

Show and Tell, Lake Guntersville style: “Hey that spot you left at 9:30am? Yeah, we pulled in there at 10am and wacked 25 pounds quick”. Lots of Huntsville and greater Guntersville area anglers in the Top 10. JT Kenney is just that good.

My tournament involved the 8″ Triple Trout fished over milfoil mostly.  I had some opportunities at some 5-7 pound bites.  Some really nice fish came close to biting, but ultimately I weighed in 15 pounds per day, and for the first time weighed in all 10 fish in a tournament on a bigbait, which was a ‘moral’ victory.   I think if you got to the grass BEFORE the big ones had moved out deep, you could really do some damage and showcase what bigbaits could do up shallow on Guntersville.  That bite is there, no doubt.   However, it’s May and getting toward June which means even more fish will migrate to the ledges and get offshore.   The Tour heads to Kentucky Lake in June, and I’m waiting to see who embraces the bigbait mentality on the ledges, or perhaps it won’t be necessary at all?  These guys catch really big sacks on 3/4 football heads and Strike King 6XD cranks, but shoot, my limited experiences has showed me the bigbait, stroked or swam around the schools, which I rarely find, gets mega bites.   Sometimes its about finding ‘em, sometimes its about catching ‘em, but most times it’s a balance of the two, and the Tennessee River is proving to be another ground zero where swimbaits and bigbaits are on a collision course, in a tournament environment.

The 8″ Triple Trout, Sexy Shad was my workhorse for 2 days on Guntersville. Fishing shallow grass in 2-6 feet of water, focusing on the edges and wherever I could see it go from shallow to deep, right on the edge, wind blown or rainy, the better. I have never weighed all my fish in any FLW Outdoors event on a bigbait, so this is a step in the right direction.

The winning and Top 10 fish were deep.  Like 30 feet deep.  Most of the Top 10 guys agreed that the fish were suspended and not glued to the bottom, which made the umbrella rigs + swimbaits and the single stand alone swimmers good choices.  Justin Lucas nailed two 30 pound sacks swimming a single Hollow Belly mid water column off one spot.  The same spot Richard Peek fished.  They shared a single spot.  Casey Martin fished a couple spots and found himself sharing water with JT Kenney and Mark Rose.   Basically, the ledges of the TN River aren’t stacked with fish yet.  The big ones are clearly moved out, but there is miles and miles of ledge without fish.

Justin Lucas’ right hand and right bait. The Hollow Belly or Paddle Tail Tube or the Shadalicious…a common theme onstage on the final day. I realized I’d made a mistake to not commit more time to the mid water column, I either fished out deep and on the bottom or up shallow and over the grass. But suspended fish in a few key areas is what won, and the swimbait was the right bait.

Grass Fishing:

I committed to shallow grass fishing for the event because that was the only thing I had going. I couldn’t find the ledge bite.   I was super stoked to find fish eating the 8″ Triple Trout though.  The Sexy Shad color is just a good choice, and they really ate it well.  I caught 12 keepers on the first day, and missed one big bite right at the boat.  The rain the first day seemed to help the bite and prevent me from seeing the big follower too well, but still, I felt like any cast I could easily stick a 5-7 pounder.  I fished around North Sauty in fairly community hole type water.  In fact, I fished around guys like Tharp and McMillan, so I figured I couldn’t be too out of my head.   My co-angler partners got a kick out of me throwing that Triple Trout and getting fish on it.  I think they are now Triple Trout converts.  15 pounds per day isn’t great on Guntersville right now, but it was good enough for 38th place and a check, and helped me secure 8th place overall in the South East Division for 2012, which just for pride sakes, is cool.

Lake Guntersville Milfoil. You typically have 6″ to 1 or 2 feet of clearance above the grass to fish your Triple Trout. Sometimes I get fouled up, but most times, I could just grind the Triple Trout over the milfoil, put a lot of stalls and pauses in the bait, and the fish would be smash it. Fun fishing, but not winning fish.

More to come on Guntersville and recapping the Everstart. I got a few inbound requests on what I did, and I’m hoping to provide some film and footage that better shows what I was doing up shallow in the grass, and what the other guys are doing out deep on the ledges to catch these bigger sacks.

Size 6 Owner Hyper Wire mangled in a melee that involved a big eyed bruiser that lived around a large laydown tree. Split rings on big hardbaits are particularly vulnerable to bending out. A fish can use the the hook points on the other side of the treble than he/she is stuck onto and create "lever action" and put incredible strain on your split ring and hook. You hook gets bound up on the side of the hardbait and if the fish has the direction and leverage, bad things could happen. Not often, but for the investment, it's a no brainer, especially if you are really putting time into hunting a big one.

With everything getting  a little bit bigger, and more swimbait like, even more the reason to pay attention to your terminal tackle.  All these long cranking rods like the Wright McGill, Okuma, Duckett Rods, that are approaching 8 feet long, microguides, 7:1 reels and guys are generally now throwing much longer rods on average than even a few years ago.  Swimbaits aside, longer rods mean more leverage and power and torque that can be applied to fish and hence the need for superior terminal tackle.  Faster reels mean more physics involved, speed kills and magnifies weakest links.   The Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring was a God send to the swimbait fishing community years ago.  It never ceases to amaze me how good simple terminal tackle can be so hard to find.   Split rings are often an afterthought and not much of a conversation, but Owner changed that with the introduction of the Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring.  Split rings can be a weak point, so be warned.

Practice what you preach. I have spent a lot of money over the years on Owner Hyper Wires. You can re-use them, they hold their shape well and they don't rust. I use the Size 4 thru Size 7 anytime I have a hanging treble, period.

1) Number 4 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

• Mini/Stubby Triple Trout: anytime I’m using small hard bodied swimmers, I tend to go for #4 Hyper Wires and Owner ST-56 trebles.
• replacement split rings for RC 2.5s and other full bodied square bill and conventional crank and hard baits where big fish happen in shallow water, close range or on braided line.  Even certain topwater baits, like the Pencil Popper.

Little hard baits need to be balanced too. Size 4 Owner Hyper Wires balance very nicely with the ST-56 Treble Hooks and are a good compromise for small baits where you need small sharp, thinner diameter hanging trebles. The Size 4 ring is just small and fits the size of the bait and hook nicely, and gives you a guarantee you aren't going to have split ring failure, even if you fish these style of baits on 50# braid, 17-20 mono or floro, and med-light 8 footers, which most of us tend to do. Little swimmers are best served on long rods, just like big swimmers, and you've got to balance the hooks and rings with to the rod and reel and just be sure you don't have a 'weakest link', because it will be found by the fish, sometime, and you better hope it's not the 'one'. Even 5-7 pounders can wreck cheap split rings. Tournament and trophy implications with split rings and hooks.

2) Number 5 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

• 6″ Triple Trout
• 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Southern Trout Eaters Trap Rig
• 6″ Bull Shad
• 6″ Top Hook Huddleston (for attaching single treble hook to belly ring)

The #5 Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring on the 8" Huddleston Deluxe Trout. You want the smallest and strongest possible ring. It holds onto that #2 Owner ST-66 treble up front in our Southern Trout Eater Huddleston Rig, and it has never failed me.

3) Number 6 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

• 7/8/10″ Triple Trout
• Nezumaa Rat
• 8″ Bull Shad

The 7" Triple Trout, with #6 Owner Hyper Wires. Add to that, 65# Braided line, Calcutta 300 or 400 TE reels, moderate fast/slow action 8 footers and you'll understand that hooks and rings can easily be bent out, shore up vulnerability where you can and get the right rings especially for snatching bigbaits around grass on braid. The size 6 Owner Hyper Wire is probably the most universal for most hanging treble type baits.

4) Number 7 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

• 7/9/12″ MS Slammer (the Slammer has HUGE eye screws that screw into the wood, so you need a big ring to get around the thick eye bolt/screws that make up the hook hangers on the MS Slammers)   (SEE BELOW)

Number 7 Hyper Wires for the MS Slammer and any of the bigbaits with the big eye screws where you attach the ring to. You simply cannot get a #5 or #6 over the eye screw (without major effort). It's just not worth it. Get the #7s and be done with it and know you're ready for battle with the biggest.

Bits and Bites/Speeds and Feeds

Bottom line is, if you are serious about your swimbait and bigbait fishing, you need to be thinking about Owner Hyper Wire Split rings.  If you are a guy who is fishing 1 ounce rattle traps and big topwater baits and pushing the envelope on hanging trebles on your standard hardbaits out there, you should be looking at Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings as added insurance, size 4 in particular.  Especially if braid and/or big fish are in your life.   Once you start paying >$15 for your swimbaits and bigbaits, adding a $.50 split ring and premium hooks to your baits is just common practice.  You can and will bend out hooks and rings.  It’s either going to happen on a straight pull or it’s going to happen where the fish uses the hard body to pry open the split ring in an instant of tug-o-war.  Anytime you get locked up on a fish, or the fish hangs the bait into a tree or in some grass, now split ring are tested.   I’ve never had one fail me, even though I’ve had a couple bend out like the one above—but not fail, imagine what would have happened without using an Owner Hyper Wire?   The fish and the hook would have been gone.

I don’t pretend to know it all, and certainly haven’t fished it all. I’ve only messed with the Triple Trout Cut Tails a little bit and never even have fished a hard tailed Triple Trout, but I like where Scott is going with a clacker and a bubbler.  I thought just understanding the why and where those styles of baits apply and why Scott even developed them was important because perhaps their is an application for them in your world.  Besides, I thought the insights into the tail from how it changes the swim and providing swim on the sink was excellent, and also the coloring of the soft tails. I absolutely agree with Scott that bubble gums, chartreuse, and orange are often great colors to get spotted bass and smallmouth bass excited and fired up into biting.    Thought you might enjoy this footage with Scott.  The Triple Trout is a fish catcher, and I’m still stuck on the old standard, and even still learning the floating, stubbie and cut-tailed versions myself.

Need replacement soft tails for you Triple Trout?   Click HERE to be re-directed to Performance Tackle, the only place I know to get replacement tails for your Triple Trouts, consistently.

There is more to the tail than you think, even on a Triple Trout. Color, material (hard vs. soft) and shape (cut vs. standard) influence the swim, noise and signature the bait puts out.

I love to be able to recommend something I’ve used for years and years and years and have no reservations at all about recommending.   The G-Loomis 966 BBR is an excellent rod for the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe, which in itself, you need an 8″ Huddleston Deluxe rod, therefore, do not pass go until you have an 8″ Huddleston Deluxe rod!    No kidding, that is what makes this rod something to consider in the BIGbait picture.  So, dig this, you can throw all 4 ROFs from Ken Huddleston with the rod, but its also what else the rod can do which is serve as your ‘bigbait’ rod, the one rod you have multiples of so you can also fish 10″ Triple Trouts, 9-12″ MS Slammers, XL Nezumaa Rats, and various hard and softbaits in the 3-7 ounce range.    This rod is not the beefiest of rods in the bigbait world.    I totally understand and get where the G-Loomis 966 BBR is NOT a good rod for the ‘megabaits’ lets call them, these giant hardbaits and giant softbaits pushing 10-16 ounces and upwards of 18″ long or longer.   You need super specialized rods for those baits for sure.  What about the Alabama Rig and other castable umbrella rigs?  You plan on throwing any 4-5-6″ swimbaits on it?

The G-Loomis 966 BBR on deck or in my hand. You need an excellent Huddleston Deluxe rod, and the G-Loomis 966 is that indeed, and since it also handles A-Rigs, 10" Triple Trouts, 9-12" Slammers, XL Nezumaa rats, etc its an interchangeable tool in my bigbait approach

I need a rod to get after it with the 8″ Huddleston, the XL Nezumaa Rat, or the 10″ Triple Trout, or whatever combinations thereof, so having one rod that can handle multiple bigbaits is key.    I have at least four G-Loomis 966 BBR rod and four Shimano Calcutta 400 TE reel setups in my boat when I’m seriously getting after the trout eaters.  And at least one of the above said combos onboard at all times, because it can fish whatever bigbait I might want to explore in a more tournament centric lake that has big fish in it, like an Okeechobee or Seminole or Santee Cooper.  I know that with that rod, if things are good, and feeling right or just feel like chunking some big stuff, I have a rod that will handle any of my best big search tools.   Rod management.  If you’ve seen Southern Trout Eaters, about 90% of the fish I catch in the film are on that rod.  The other 10% are fish I catch on ‘medium’ rods.   But the film itself should serve as validation that the rod is a workhorse and staple tool in my bigbait fishing approach.

The G-Loomis 966 BBBR + Shimano Calcutta 400TE + 80# Power Pro = torque and power like few have experienced in bass fishing. To properly fish exposed or weedless bigbaits around grass , or to just 'snatch' your baits clean, this setup has grass fishing and bigbaits covered as well as the standard clear water and 30# copolymer applications.

Braided line?  You bet.  Try 80# braided line on your G-Loomis 966 BBR, and add whatever bait of your choice.  8″ Huddlestons in the grass on 80# braid?  No, don’t do that.  You will realize that a Shimano Calcutta 400 TE and G-Loomis 966 BBR not only match well in the mountains, but they match well in the grass. You might migrate south down the peninsula called Florida or wherever grass grows thick and heavy.  It is scary the amount of force and stopping power that rod and reel combo deliver with 80# Power Pro.    I’m seriously contemplating moving to Fort Lauderdale, selling software, regrouping,  and fishing in S. Florida and Central Florida for a few years until I get more bites on 8″ Huddleston Deluxes with 80# braid involved and G-Loomis 966s and Calcutta 400 TEs!!!  Talk about addicting.   Big fish, big bites and vicious battles in shallow grass where your gear better be balanced and able to get the job done.    Braid and a slow action parabolic rod is the reason God made hydrilla.

The A-Rig Affect

I found the G-Loomis 966 BBR to be an excellent rod choice for lobbing the ‘bigger’ castable umbrella rigs with the larger 1/2 to 3/4 ounce heads and 4-5″ swimbait tails.  Another usage for an already proven combo.   The rod can load up and handle the lob casting and swimming of a lure that weighs in the 4-5 ounce zone really well.  And it doesn’t suck that the rod can whip 4-7 pounders like other rods handle 2-3 pounders.    So with the effects of the Alabama Rig coming down on our heads, guys who’ve never considered a big rod for anything but flipping might like to know this rod will handle the rigors of the castable umbrella rig as well as swimming big swimbaits.

The Rod:

• Moderate Fast:  Parabolic action.  The 966 BBR is slow compared to most, and that slower action means it has that parabolic bend, which means it doesn’t wear you out when you decide you’re going to lob bigbaits for 8-10 hours.  The rod does the work of the casting and retrieving, and hooking.  Since the rod loads up nicely, it has an inherent slight load it maintains while you’re retrieving your bigbait, so when a bite does come, you are in an excellent spot to hook and setup on a bite.  The slow action gives the rod incredible power on the pull, which is key to whipping big fish early in the fight.  This rod builds and maintains a lot of force and momentum and it really comes in to play once you get a big fish hooked up because you control and fight the fish while applying maximum pressure.
• 8 foot long:  I like this rod is a full 8 feet long.  I like a rod that maximizes length for added casting distance, feel and touch, and ability to direct my cast as the bait flies thru the air. I can also lay my line where I want it at the end of a long cast, giving me the ability to influence the swim of my bait by the bow of the line at the beginning of my retrieve.
• Balanced:  The 966 BBR is not the lightest most advanced rod on the market today.  That is okay.  You don’t hunt elephants with a BB gun.  You need to match power with power and this rod has the mass and make up that matches bigbaits, big fish and has proven itself as a workhorse.    We mentioned the physics of bigbait fishing in Southern Trout Eaters.  The G-Loomis 966 BBR is a standard to measure the strength of your line, terminal tackle selections, whereby you have a standardized rod that you can shape your rigs and rigging around.  The handle is ‘right length’ and the full cork uniform feel makes it comfortable. It just works.
• Shimano Calcutta 400 TE:  The 400 TE is the reel.  So, think about this. I have a big round gold reel with incredible gears and gearing.  It fits and compliments the G-Loomis 966 perfectly.  It’s like they were made to fit each other, which they weren’t, but the rod and reel together balance.  There are a lot of rods out there where the Calcutta 400 TE would be silly because it so far outweighs and out guns the rod, even though some guy put ‘swimbait’ on the rod.     The reel matches the rod, and the rod matches the reel.
• Interchangeability&Consistency:  With a few 966 BBR + Calcutta 400 TE reels, I know I approach any bigbait situation, and be able to throw the various tools of my trade and not worry about having specialized rods onboard everytime.  I can use the same combo for any of the bigbaits (or A-Rig) I throw and that is huge because rod management and being able to be efficient with your equipment makes a difference in your fishing.

I've had 3-4 G-Loomis 966 BBRs on deck for 6+ years. Interchangeable because they handle the tools of my trade equally well. Sometimes with fishing rods, you just find one that covers multiple baits and applications, and that helps you simplify your approaches and be prepared out on the water. It's not uncommon to have 2-3 Hudds tied on the same day or need a 10" Triple Trout and 8" Huddleston for the same 100 yard stretch. Picking up the same rod with a different bait is easier to get used to than different baits on different rods.

Conclusions:

There are plenty of rods out there marketed toward swimbaits and bigbaits.   Shimano/G-Loomis  doesn’t even highlight or feature the G-Loomis 966 BBR as a swimbait rod.    They have other lines of newer rods and actions positioned to serve these purposes.  I understand progress and business and ‘how things’ go, but fishing rods are like classic shaped surfboards, or a fine shotgun, or perhaps a Tommy Armor 7 iron…somethings just work and are classic pieces of sporting goods.  Gary Loomis is a legend in the rod building world, and this rod is one of his best known in some circles, and is a model you can talk about and appreciate because it was made in the Pacific NorthWest as a mooching and salmon rod, where they’d lob big hooks and lead for big ole salmon, and can connect the dots that the rod is just ‘simple’ but takes advantage of the physics and balances and compromises.  Catching big fish by lobbing bigbaits, and we are talking about the same approximate size spectrum, so that is why I think the 966 crosses over from that original saltwater world to the freshwater bigbait space so well.   You a V8 engine to tow a boat, so don’t try and do it with a 4 cylinder.  You don’t catch trains on a bicycle, you need to match power with power, and the reel has to match the rod, and the big ole round goldie locks 400 TE to the G-Loomis 966 BBR makes me feel like I’ve got the perfect high powered rifle to shoot whatever big game I encounter.    The G-Loomis 966 BBR is a ‘classic’ and a rod that set a benchmark out there in the bigbait fishing community and is one you can talk around other rods.

Many of my friends use Okuma Rods, Dobyns,  and the G-Loomis Swimbait series of rod.    Rods are a personal choice, and sometimes they are a business decision and sometimes they just are because that is what you have and you already invested in them, and they aren’t broken so you use what you use.  I have zero reservations about recommending the  G-Loomis 966 BBR because it has worked so well for me, for so many years, and continues to impress me with the things I can do with it (ie, 80 # Braid).  You need a Huddleston Rod, you need a BigBait Rod, you need an A-Rig Rod, and this rod does it all.

Click the above imaged for the enlarged version, that you can read. This is a digital image of an article I was fortunate enough to get done in collaboration with Curt Niedermier. The intent was to take a simple look at various tails on swimbaits and understand some subtleties and just keep it simple.

Wacky Rigging.  One of my favorite things to do in a small bait, finesse, tough bite, you just need to catch 5 fish and haven’t had a bite in a while style of fishing is wacky rigging.  Wacky rigging is the canary in the coal mine to me at times.  If you can’t get a bite, wacky rigging, you are very likely not around ‘em.    My 2012 FLW Everstart tournament on Santee Cooper, started by picking up my boat in Augusta, GA on the way to lake, with a fresh fiberglass patch from the damage it sustained from Seminole.  So, I only had 5 days to prepare for Santee Cooper, and in case you don’t know, Santee Cooper is 2 lakes, connected by a canal, and it HUGE.  I mean, a man could spend a lifetime learning Santee Cooper, and because it has grass in it, which even the types of grasses are constantly changing (and growing and being sprayed or eaten by introduced grass carp), Santee Cooper is a lake that changes often.  Add to that, South Carolina’s real estate on the Eastern seaboard.   South Carolina, goes from extreme mountain trout eaters  in the West, to the lowland black water swamp, palmetto tree + Spanish moss frog, swim jig, skippin’ jigs, buzzbait, 30 pound sack capable water, to Atlantic Coast beaches that people surf regularly ( I scored fun 1-2 foot peelers at Hilton Head one 4th of July circa 2006, 10 foot single fin, 80+ degree water,  and a lot of hootin’ an’a hollerin’!) in the East. Santee Cooper is big fish fishery and it didn’t disappoint.  Look at the weights from the event, lots of 11-15 pound, 3 fish sacks getting weighed in.  Guys on 4-6 pounders pretty good, just numbers hard to come by.   Santee Cooper is on a healthy cycle and it could be a sleeper for an incredible event if scheduling and weather permit.   I wished I’d had more time to practice and explore things, because a bigbait bait there is inevitable.  I threw Slammers, 3:16 Sunfish, 22nd Century Bluegills, and skipped the 6″ weedless Huddie too.   I didn’t have tons of practice, but my gameplan was mostly around catching 4-6 pounders off cypress trees, but of course trying to just go fish and find big ones coming or going or on beds.   I thought I could win with the wacky rig—if I got the bites and got them in the boat, there are just some awesome moments in tree fishing where you can get on ‘em good.  I had good bites going, just not lots of them, and it was the same stuff I had done here 3 years ago when I finished 7th place.  I had the bites to win last time.  This time, I didn’t have the bites to win, but I had a shot at it, and I knew I could compete and perhaps win, just like last time, but this time, things didn’t work out quite so well, but I did jump off a big one that cost me a Top 20 or so.  5-6 pounder eats my Senko on the base of tree with sparse grass around it in about 3 feet of water, and rips line off immediately for 10 feet right under the surface just hot and full dig style and when I went to turn and stop her, she reared up and jumped mouth open wide reverse flip backside roll tail grab fakey and spits the hook.  Fudge. Whatever, I’m sitting in 7th place overall in the the SouthEast Division, and had a great tournament and finished 35th place, just solid, nothing great, but I’ll take it because Santee Cooper is tough as she is awesome at times.   I had 3 fish on Day 1 for almost 12 pounds, so fun day getting 2 bigguns onboard, and one 14.5″ keeper.  Big fish on the spinning gear around trees is just exciting and fun.  I kept working and working, and also had a grass pattern going that never panned out, so I felt like I fished pretty damn hard and smart, just didn’t have the next levels of fish I needed.   Look at how few guys caught limits both days.  See Results Here.  Ken Ellis won the tournament wacky rigging a Trick Worm on deep trees.  So, I was on the right track and had the right gameplan, I just didn’t have the trees and the knowledge of what trees.  Finding deeper trees is a key, sparse grass is key, and areas adjacent or near spawning grounds, where the fish are pulling out of their spawning areas and resting up, feeding up and hanging loose on the natural cover/structures in the lake.

The Old South. Santee Cooper is near Charleston, a city rich in old America history, and is two lakes, connected by a canal: Lakes Marion&Moultrie, named after American Revolutionary War 1770s era Generals famous for using the swamps and natural terrain to drive the Brits out. And of course, the first shots fired in the Civil War, happened in Charleston at Fort Sumter. My journey from Atlanta to Santee Cooper literally mirrored General Sherman’s notorious “March to the Sea” campaign, that ended with the Confederate surrender of Fort Sumter and terms being served, where the first shots were fired 4 years prior.   I enjoy that kind of stuff, because I really try to understand the various regions and people of this country that are so different than my own home, and their history.   I like South Carolina for the fishing for sure. I used to do great business in nearby Columbus and I know Charleston is really cool and happening and fun, and yet you can get yourself extremely rural and off the grid in a hurry too.   Perhaps I have a soft spot for South Carolina because my personal best 14.60 largemouth came from South Carolina in 2006. But I think it’s just a killer state of mind and of fishing. The extreme Appalachian to Atlantic old timey Southern feel is highlighted with the weather. You want to talk about hot and muggy? We had low 90s and 100% humidity a couple days. Sweltering heat at times for what feels like ‘early in the year’. I believe in the summer time, Santee Cooper might be the hottest place on earth.  You just feel lowland and can sense the warm ocean offsore influencing things. But then again, as the tournament came around, cool, windy, foggy, really windy, really really windy, rain and volatile weather came, making finesse fishing around trees, a bit more challenging!  I wore my bibs all day on Day 1, that cold you get when you’ve been baked by the sun and then things cool down and you’re just cold because you aren’t baking hot.   Finesse fishing, wacky in particular, is best served up under the above weather conditions, because the smooth water allows you to make precise and long distance skips of your bait to the tree.  Wind creates surface waves which put your bait up in the tree and ruins the distance and accuracy thing horribly, but it isn’t game over, you just have to work that much harder to fish the trees properly.   The calmer, the more finesse you can get, for example, throw a Trick Worm vs. a Senko, because it falls and stalls mas bueno, which is the thing about wacky, it is about fall and stall, which becomes neutral or floating mid water column at some point, which means you can keep your bait suspended or ‘floating’ one foot down, one foot off the tree, in the shade spot on base of cypress tree better than just about anything else.       Stall + Fall = 0

I stayed in Eutawville (“Utah-Ville”) at Bells Marina and fished with my good friend Ron and his son, that I’d met here a few years ago when I was here last.   Ron helped me quickly get a feel for the lake and more specifically, the tree bite.    The best trees tend to be deeper 2.5 to 4 feet of water, and have sparse grass around them, or just be on the ‘point’ or generally favorable position to feed from in a stack of trees.  However, it’s sort of like flipping at some level, where you just have to put your head down and make hundreds of perfect presentations time and time again, and eventually you get a bite.  And where you get one bite, you usually get more bites.   Little flurries, I love you so!   I tried to find good areas of trees in practice.  Which I did. I also tried to find a grass bite, which I did with some help from my man Bobby Wood and Ron Buck.  I practiced with them a day and really did some damage on Skinny Dippers and Swim Senkos around lilly pads, gator grass, and mixed stuff.    With the cool weather we had for the tournament, my grass bite died on the vine.  You just knew they were in the grass and biting for someone, but I had trees and grass to balance, and after starting each morning in the grass and coming up empty both days, I decided my grass bite was dead and didn’t try it afternoon of Day 2, just stuck out the trees, which helped because I got my 5th fish with 10 minutes left and helped me get a paycheck.  I caught all 8 of my keepers on the wacky rig and only missed one bite, but it was a big one.  Wacky rigging is a work in progress for me, and I love doing it.  I love super finesse and super big stuff, opposing poles, positives and negatives, north vs south/ east vs west, natural attractions and relationships between the two ends of any spectrum.  I love how it points out things to my bigbait fishing, because I think my success with bigbaits in a national tournament will be somehow directly or indirectly related to a super small bait bite or understanding of fish and fishing.   For example, keeping it simple, just throw a Senko or a Trick Worm, or just throw a Triple Trout or a Huddleston or Slammer, having the right tools narrowed down for your window and using the small baits to either quickly fill a limit or be there as backup to back fill a couple big ones.

Here’s the deal with Wacky Rigging:

Rod: Shimano Cumara 7’2″ Medium Heavy (CUS72MH)

Reel:   Shimano Stradic 1000 or CI4 Stradic 1000 (small spooled reels handle 10-15 pound braid really well, that line has super small diameter and although I like big spooled spinning reels, smaller spooled small spinning reels are good too. You can throw small and light baits really well, and manage you line nicely.  It all matches up, where you don’t have super thin line on a big spool.

Line:  15# Power Pro connected to a 2.5 foot leader of  10# Yamamoto Sugoi Florocarbon

Hook:  Owner Mosquito Hook, #1 or 1/0, get the 50 packs, because you use these things a lot and you do break off at times because of the exposed nose hook, trust me, this is a good investment.  Use bigger hook size in the wind

Bait:  Yamamoto Senko 5″  Or Zoom Trick Worm (watermelon seed, green pumpkin red, black neon, black blue, or junebug)

Rigging:  Wacky O Tool and O-Rings:  I put an O-Ring around my senko and slide the hook under the ring and just fish away.  Sometimes I criss cross two rings and put the hook under the X, but I a really like the way this one fishes and rigs, it’s not perfect, but I haven’t found one that is!

Braided line + floro leader, Owner Mosquito Hook, O-Ring. I will use 2 O-Rings and criss cross them and put the hook under the X at times, but then again, I will just slip the hook under a single ring and just go fishing. I catch a lot of fish on this rig, and slight variations of it anytime I’m around shallow grass, wood, and rock. Trick worms and Senkos are blue chip baits, make sure you own plenty in various colors black to green. Get a feel for skipping, floating, dragging and stalling side rigged baits. Bait control.

Here is the deal with the Grass Bite:

Swimming Baits:  Skinny Dippers or Swim Senkos or Gambler Big EZ  (black blue, watermelon/green pumpkins)

Frogs/Terrestrials:  Spro  BronzeEye Frogs or Poppin Frog or Paycheck Transporter Frog or Picasso Shad Walker  (natural colors/black)

Line: 65 or 50# Power Pro

Hooks:  Owner  Twistlock Open Gap (Swim Senko, 5/0 or 6/0 for Skinny Dipper), Owner Weighted Beast Hook (Big EZ, 6/0 w/ 1/4 oz weight)

Some really good fish were caught in the grass. You just had to have grass with bait or just fish in it.  The grass was like the trees, lots to choose from, but most does/do not hold fish and even if they do, you have to be good to catch them, especially for 2 days in a row.  Things change quickly on Santee Cooper.

I was getting 1 or 2 fish in the 4-6 pound class a day fishing the trees slowly and thoroughly with wacky rigs. Scattered grass, access to deep water, shade all helped the cause. I figured I might be able to squeak out 15 or 20 pounds a day on the right days. I almost pulled it off, but not quite. No regrets, looking forward to getting back there sometime and getting back to work.  “Fine thanks……………………you?”

The guy has a Stiffy!!! Great day on Okeechobee, sight fishing, poling around some good areas, taking it slow and stealth, and it paid off.

I have a 14 foot fiberglass Stiffy Push Pole.  It works great.  You need a push pole for many reasons, especially for hunting big bed fish up shallow in places like Okeechobee and Seminole.  The Stiffy Push Pole I have is two pieces, it screws together and can be stored in two 7 Foot sections.   The size of 14″ is a good size for me, the size of the boat and how deep of water I’m sitting.    I seriously like having either 7 foot sections or one long 14 foot section of strong fiberglass pole in my boat when I run around Okeechobee.  Between snakes, gators, birds and who knows what else, you never know when you need something to keep the critters away.   Also, getting stuck, high centered, overheated, lost or otherwise in a bad situation, a push pole is quite a useful tool that I find myself using often.   I imagine guys on the California Delta or Potomac, with the tidal nature of those waters, and for sure the river rats that duck into backwaters and ponds and need to push up and over shallow bars and structures, could use a good push pole.   Click HERE to see us fishing on Lake Okeechobee, where we show the 14 foot fiberglass Stiffy Push Pole in action.

Something about a push pole is just cool. You get back to slowing things down, and taking the stealth approach. Don't kid yourself, it's way physically exhausting to push yourself and a 20 foot fiberglass boat around. It takes time to get skills and even get your boat pointed the direction you want to go.

Stiffy makes other push poles and accessories too.  You can get the high end (and much lighter weight) graphite Stiffy Push Pole.  There are multiple piece/modular push poles and also single piece.  Just talk to the them if you have any special requests, they are good and can work with you to get the right length, material, and modular setup for your boat, and have the accessories for storage and mounting the push pole to your boat.

Stiffy storage on my Ranger Z520. I wrap the cord around it and secure it to my step, works great. Run that thing right down the center of your boat seems to be a good way to store it,when you plan on using it a lot and want to keep it as one big long piece.