Shimano

2012 FLW Everstart Lake Seminole Recap

Published: 27 March 2012
Written by Bait Bro
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Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Shimano, Small Bait Fishing, Triple Trout

Look closely. You see the light spots? Those are the beds. Beds in snot grass. This is ideal wacky rig stuff, because you can't fish too many baits around this stuff without mucking up. The Trick worm falls and stalls so slowly, it makes it the ideal bait to catch these kind of bedders

First off, huge congrats to Brandon McMillan.  That guy can fish and has the mental game to be a superstar.  Extremely impressed with Brandon’s fishing and ability to put it all together in win.   My 2012 Lake Seminole FLW Everstart was pretty decent, but nothing fantastic. I basically weighed in 12 pounds per day, had decent limits and finished 26th place.  We had strong wind and clouds during the tournament days, which had me off my game. I had hoped to get 13-15 pound limits by finesse fishing, and then hunting a big fish with a bigbait or sight fishing.  The wind just made me have to work twice as hard to get a fraction of the bites.  No excuses, my gameplan just wasn’t very well suited for the weather.   It took me way too long to catch a decent limit and I didn’t have the time to hunt the big ones as planned.  I kept at it, figuring I might be able to pull off 15 pounds or so both days with one bite. I broke off a fish on a wacky rig on Day 1 in the wind, and that hurt.   You have understand in super shallow stump fields, when the wind is blowing, you get pinned up against stumps, high centered and it’s pretty much complete chaos at times. I hooked a nice fish and the fish ran me around on spinning gear, and just basically whipped me where I got stuck on some stumps in the wind with the boat, and broke off where in any calmer conditions I could have avoided the catastrophe.  No big deal, but every pound counts and would have improved my overall standings significantly.

Wacky Rigged Trick worms are pretty darn finesse. Trick worms fall and stall much more than even a senko. Add a #1 Owner Mosquito hook and loosen up your drag and get to work. Braid mainline with floro leader recommended.

So, if you want to catch fish on Lake Seminole right now, here are some insights.  The fish are on beds, up shallow, and can be found along the shallow sand bars, points, humps and hard bottom places in Spring Creek big time.   You are either catching fish on beds, getting ready to bed, or just coming off the bed/guarding fry.   The water in Spring Creek is getting back to its normal clear self and things are getting right in Spring Creek again.  We had weeks of muddy water caused by some heavy rains that sorta screwed up the creek for a while.   There is also a shad spawn happening early in the morning.  So, first thing in the morning, guys had areas with hyacynth edges and/or rock where they were able to power fish their way to good 17+ pound limits in the first hour.  I missed this bite pretty much completely, but beware shad spawn fish are winning fish, as per Mr. McMillan, Shaye Baker, etc.  Find shad spawn and throw spinnerbaits, topwaters, and swim jigs.

Lake Seminole Conditions as of 3/25/2012

Lake Level: -.05 feet

Water Temp: 72 in the am, 78 in the afternoon

Grass:  Mediocre grass at best, hasn’t grown up much in most places.

Finesse Fishing on Sandbars/Points/Humps:

1) Wacky Rigging:

Zoom Trick Worm Or 5″ Senko (in the wind) in Watermelon Seed, Watermelon Candy, or June Bug

#1 Owner Mosquito Hook

15# PowerPro Braid main line connect to a 10# Suguoi Floroleader (2 foot leader)

7′ 2″ M (CUS72M) Shimano Cumara Spinning Rod

Shimano Stradic CI4 (STCI42500F) Spinning Reel

Wacky Rigging is a perfect blend of Rate of Stall and Rate of Fall.  So much so, that when done properly, you can literally ‘float’ your bait in place, suspending it in the water column exactly where you want it.  Cast your bait a little bit past your targets.  Your targets should be any light spots (beds) you see from a distance, stumps, trees, grass line, isolated patched of lily pads, or just randomly on good high percentage flats.  Dead stick the bait to the bottom on the initial fall.  Just let it fall to the bottom, pick it up and shake it a couple times.   Then let it settle to the bottom.  I only fished the wacky rig 5-10 feet in most cases back toward the boat, and then would reel in and make another cast.  The wacky rig is death on Seminole and the fish there really react well to a slow fall and slow stall.

2) Light Texas Rigging

Swim Senko

Speed Worm

Zoom Trick Worm

1/8 oz. Picasso Tungsten Worm Weight

4/0 or 5/0 Owner Wide Gap Offset Worm Hook

17-20 # P-Line Halo florocarbon or 30 Pound Power Pro Braid

The light texas rig was a better bait for casting and dragging around in the wind.  It was just easier to fish in the wind and many guys who did well were finesse fishing. Seminole is not like Okeechobee. You have to approach the bedding fish with much more care and they don’t kill anything you throw over a bed.  You have to slow down, finesse and work them into biting more than on the Big O.   You could just drag the bait, or do a slight pull and swim.  If you came thru the sparse grass, you could rip it or give it some swim, but when on barren bottom, the drag retrieve seemed to be the better deal.  Fishing for the same fish as the wacky deal, just less finesse than wacky, but much better for fishing in any kind of wind.

3) Carolina Rigging

8″ Zoom Lizard (watermelon red/cotton candy/june bug)

Zoom Brush Hog  (watermelon seed/green pumpkin blue)

3/4-1 ounce Precision Brass Weights

The Carolina Rig is a good bait on Seminole for a few reasons.  It can be fished nicely in the wind first and foremost.  The fish on and around beds seem to eat Carolina rigs, don’t ask my why, but they do.  Just ask Lloyd Picket Jr about that.  He catches solid sacks of bedding fish, by blind casting Carolina rigs in the Spring time, I’ve seen it a couple times.   Anywho, the Carolina rig also helps you probe the deeper and transitions sides of the sandbars, points and humps.  So you can probe the deeper 6+ foot range of the sandbars.  Sometimes the fish move out or are sitting deeper due to whatever reasons, and a Carolina rig is a great compromise of finesse and power because it can be fished down to 15+ feet and across a 2 foot deep hump in the same cast.  Many good bags were caught on the C-Rig, lizards and creature baits on stump flats, sandbars, and humps in and around the Spring Creek and Fish Pond Drain area.

#4) Bigbaits

3:16 Sunfish with 1/0 ST-41 Owner Treble Hook on 65# Power Pro and Calcutta 300 TE and G-Loomis 965

8″ Triple Trout, two ST-36 Owner Treble Hooks in 1/0, #5 Owner Hyper Split Rings,  65# Power Pro, Calcutta 300 TE, and G-Loomis 965

The bigbait bite on Seminole was nothing spectacular, but there.  You have to fish around the bedding fish, or around the standing timber, grass or docks directly adjacent to the spawning areas.  That was the key, but Seminole just wasn’t a great time for moving baits.  Finesse baits dominated, but I got the occassional bigbait bite.

I've been learning some basics of bigbaits in non trout fed lakes this year. Bluegill and sunfish baits are an excellent choice around spawning time. Bigger fish don't like the bluegills/sunnys swimming near their beds. They tend to bite with purpose and you can feel it.

Re-Spooling your line for BigBait Fishing

Published: 17 October 2011
Written by Bait Bro
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Categories: P-Line, Rigging, Shimano

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnmMfXt86Pw]

Here is tutorial that might be elementary to some, but might be useful to others.  We use a ton of 20-25-30 pound P-Line CXX Moss Green Copolymer line for our bigbait fishing.  We change line often, and usually only use a ‘top shot’ of line, meaning we are only changing the top 75 or so yards of line (vs. the entire spool).  You just don’t know when you are going to get ‘the bite’ and believe changing line relatively often necessary because of the physics involved in lobbing baits that weigh 5 ounces.  The line take a beating just by casting it, stopping it with your thumb on the spool, etc.

The 10″ Triple Trout

Published: 17 October 2011
Written by Bait Bro
1 Comment
Categories: Shimano, Triple Trout
ten inch triple trout
The 10" Triple Trout, in purple trout, from our film, Southern Trout Eaters..."If the Vortex don't get ya, the Lightning Bolt will"

There is one swimbait that started the “S” swimmer revolution and whose simplicity is its genius.    The Triple Trout is an absolute staple in our swimbait fishing, our practice approach to tournament swimbait fishing, and a bait that compliments our efforts to explore big and small bait fishing.  The 10″ Triple Trout is a BIGBAIT and probably one of the more tiring lures you’ll ever commit to and learn to fish.  This bait can be a workout to fish, which is all the better because most don’t have the nerve, the physical conditioning or the guts to commit to a bait like the 10″ Triple Trout.

The Triple Trout is hand crafted, painted, and tuned in Long Beach, California.  Scott Whitmer is the man behind the 22nd Century Bait Company (named in relation to a song from “the Briefs”) .  Scott is old school in the Southern California trophy scene, and Scott continues to have fun with his fishing (well, he doesn’t fish anymore, according to him) and bait designs.

Here is a picture of Scott, from out interview session that was featured in Southern Trout Eaters:

scott whitmer 22nd Century Bait co
Mr. Scott Whitmer the man behind the Triple Trout and Nezumaa Rat, at home in his shop, Long Beach, CA

Scott’s style is very Southern Californian.  Long Beach in fact.  In South Orange County, we have a punk rock scene, but Long Beach always seemed a bit more rockabilly and 50’s greaser style, which is cool with us and we share a lot of mutual DNA.   Scott is a craftsman.  He has a strong and loyal following.  He prefers to keep a low profile and make baits and quietly expand his business.  His baits catch fish, period, and there it was no accident that Scott and his baits (the Triple Trout and Nezumaa Rat) were featured in our film, Southern Trout Eaters.  The film leaves no doubt of the 10″ baits effectiveness for big fish and numbers, and covers topics like changing tails and shows us fishing and catching some serious studs on it.

The Triple Trout was conceived around being a jointed swimmer that required no bill and provided switchback and erratic jerkbait like actions and stalls that would fire up the Southern California trout eaters to chase and eat.    There is something special about the 10” Triple Trout.  It’s a known big fish bait, getting it done in places like Diamond Valley, Casitas, the Castaics, Don Pedro, San Vicente, Clear Lake to name a few.   Our message is around simplification.  The Triple Trout is on a short list of baits that have proven themselves to catch teen and double digit sized fish consistently—AND it’s a HARDBAIT.  There are a LOT of JUNK hardbaits out there, so pay attention to the ones that are actually catching fish.  That says it all right there.  You have to separate baits that actually have caught really big ones into a separate buckets and then analyze soft vs. hard baits.   The Huddleston, The Triple Trout, 3:16 Baits by Mickey Ellis, the Lunker Punker, MS Slammer,  and Rago Baits pretty much cover 95% of fish catches on bigbaits when you drill into it.

ten inch triple trout colors
From Top to Bottom: The 10" Triple Trouts from the film, Southern Trout Eaters: Silver Trout, Blue Trout, and Mackerel Trout

Our Film, Southern Trout Eaters,  explores fishing the Triple Trout for the Blue Ridge and Ozark Mountain trout eaters.  There is no doubt that bass in the MidWest and South are crazy and fired up about the Triple Trout.   We have been throwing the Triple Trout since 2005 in the South, and it’s a bait we’ve put the most time throwing, next to the Huddleston Deluxe family of baits.    We’ve caught the trout eaters on the Triple Trout, but the really exciting stuff is catching the blueback herring eaters, the big gizzard shad eaters, the brim/perch eaters, etc with the Triple Trouts as well.   There are 6-7-8-10″ versions of the Triple Trout, and you can expect us to have a write-up for each.

spotted bass on the 10 inch triple trout
One of the largest spotted bass I've ever caught, and it was captured on film and included in Southern Trout Eaters. Get your head and gear right, because the 10" Triple Trout will expose weaknesses in your mental and physical approach to bigbait fishing in a hurry.

Gear for fishing the 10″ Triple Trout:

Rod:  GLoomis 966 BBR

Reel:  Shimano Calcutta 400 TE

Line:  P-Line CXX Xtra Strong Moss Green, 30 Pound

Hooks:  Owner ST-36  (3/0 up front and 2/0 in the rear)

Split Rings:  #6 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings

Strengths:   The 10” is an excellent BIG FISH bait.  Double digits, teens, and the 7-8-9 pound fish will eat this bait.  You can cover a ton of water with the Triple Trout and look for followers and movement to understand what reaction the fish have a bigbait.  Excellent durability and fishability.  Can be fished at night, good thumping swim.

Ideal Conditions:   Water temps above 60 degrees or so.   The warmer the water, the better for the Triple Trout.  The fish need to be in a chasing, topwater, or otherwise positive mood where they’ll move to get a bait.   You create the bite with the Triple Trout at times, using a start stop and jerk bait like retrieve to turn neutral or negative fish into biters.   The clearer the water the better, but don’t fool yourself, this bait has enough thump and vibration  and color choices that even the dirty water guys will be impressed.

Notes:   If you want to get serious about trophy hunting, add the 10” Triple Trout right under 8” Huddleston Deluxe.  This bait separates men from boys.  When we recommend the 400 TE for bigbait fishing, this bait is a prime example.  In order to fish this bait effectively and not wear your arms and wrists out, you need the right rod and reel to match the physics this bait brings—and the fish that will commit to the bait.

10 inch purple trout
When they get the front hook on your 10" Triple Trout, you know they are liking the color you are throwing. 10" Triple Trout in "Purple Trout"

The Shimano Calcutta 400 TE Reel Discussion

Published: 1 October 2011
Written by Bait Bro
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Categories: Shimano

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHVHBYYN0MA]

Shimano Calcutta 400 TE

Here is a clip walking thru Shimano as a company, their background and expertise in gears and gearing, and how their products are proven to catch the largest game fish on earth on the cast and on the troll.   When you are ready to get serious about bigbait fishing, invest in the Shimano Calcutta 400 TE.  It has the large spool size, the gears and brake system, slower gear ratio, power handle, and torque to handle the physics of bigbait fishing.   Shimano doesn’t sponsor us or anyone else, really.  They make the best reels for bigbait fishing, hands down.   The Calcutta 400 TE is the reel that all serious trophy hunters are using to fish the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe and 10″ Triple Trout most effectively.