You have to check this thing out. The flying/swimming V. I messed around with the Picasso Bait Ball Extreme over the summer. Talk about a cool derivative of the Alabama Rig. There is a V4, V6 and V8 Model of the Picasso Bait Ball Extreme. I fished and filmed the V6 series. You basically have dummy baits that are coupled with hooked baits at the endpoints of the V. The fun thing is the shape and inherent light weight/neutrally buoyancy of this rig make it geared toward grass fishing and definitely busting fish/surface breakers that are chasing bait. You don’t have to reel like crazy to keep this thing up top. You can make the baits pop out of the water, creating your own fleeing school of baitfish or herring.
Can you feel the vortex? You can bet the fish can sense the vortex behind this rig and will sense it has a different signature than other Alabama Rigs. V for Vortex.
Stalingrad. The Vortex Formation, stalled, has a better fall than the Alabama Rigs with the 5 star clusters.
1/16 oz Picasso School E Rig with a big ole fat 5/0 hook. Get there. KVD Swim N Shiner, but whatever you swimbait of choice, I think you can worry more about where to fish than your soft swimmer of choice. Just match the hatch and get after it.You have screws to mount your dummy baits. The outside bait rigged with a 1/16ounce and 5/0 Picasso School E Rig Jig Head
You can add whatever swimbaits or jigheads you want to this rig to match your application. I can see putting a bunch of Skinny Dippers or even just the same above rig depending on how thick the grass, and go cover some water in Okeechobee. With braid, you can rip even top hooked swimbait thru grass and effectively fish. Don’t let top hooks fool ya, they are weedless when fished mindfully and with aid from braid. If you needed to sink this thing out, I think a more standard Alabama Rig would make sense, unless the flying V gave them a different look than the 5 Star cluster look? I can see throwing the V6 or V8 version all the way in the very backs of creeks and pockets and creating a fleeing school of bait effect on ANY lake or river system. You can fish this thing like a spinnerbait and cover water. I really would fish braid even in the clearest water. I can see adding a Robo Worm Robo Minnow or Keitech Swing Impact Fat baits in a more Herring pattern and fishing this thing fast n furious up shallow on red clay points, high spots and way offshore sweet spots. You could up this thing to 6 or 8 bigger 6-7″ soft swimbaits and literally create a good herring ball that might call ’em up somewhere between Keg Creek and the Monkey Islands!
Swimming V. The V-6 Picasso Bait Ball Elite, swimming along in formation.
The over under flying V performed by the RAF! V-6 Elite Bait Ball from Picasso. Fishes skinnier than your normal a rig and changes your formation.
I’m certainly not here to have a discussion about ethics and catching fish on beds. You have to sight fish to be competitive in tournaments, and if you are like me, you enjoy watching fish, fish behavior, and looking at fish while you fish for them. Bass have a lot of guts, gusto and balls, but most times, they can be very finicky and fickle. Bed fishing is an art, and I will tell you, drop shotting for bed fish is killer. The bait literally sits in the fish’s face and they sorta tend to suck it in. The Jackall Clone Gill is a little morsel at 2.5″ long–perfect size because its tall too, so its bulky but really slim and finessy too. When I saw these baits, I was said WOW. They are really bite sized baits that rig up nicely on a nose hook. I rigged the Jackall Clone Gill with a #1 Owner Mosquito Hook and a 3/8 lead drop shot weight with about a 10″ Leader.
You get great bait control, with a heavy/bulky bait on a drop shot rig. Especially at close range, you can give you bait slack and drop it, swim it, make it dart, etc. The side rig is just nutty. The bait will do 360 degree wounded/teasing bluegill death spirals around the drop shot weight. I enjoy watching how I’m working my bait, and watching how a fish reacts to it. That is what I really enjoy. Watching fish and watching fishing lures in action and seeing how fish react is why I love bed fishing so much. Bluegill are great baits around the spawn. Heck, they are great baits anytime, but you add bluegill/brim/sunfish family of fish around a bedding bass, and watch what happens. The fish really get fired up, and it’s can be the little edge you need to get her to eat. Give the Jackall Clone Gill a try when fishing for bedding bass. Bigger the fish, the better!
Nose RiggedSide Rigged Jackall Clone Gill on a #1 Owner Mosquito Hook
From above, the 8″ Weedless Trout in a not so trout kinda color.
Slide slippin’ around some eel grass
This color isn’t generally available yet. Ken sent me one, and since I’m fishing Okeechobee, I have been throwing this color. Thought I’d show the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Weedless Trout in action around some outside grass on Okeechobee. I have no insights into when Ken will have more 8″ weedless baits for sale, and what color schemes he will go forward with. I am just thankful to have gotten a few of them, and hope to show you some fish catches with them. MP
Sebile Spin Shad Deep Cold Suspended Crossover Swimbait Fishing
The Sebile Spin Shad is worthy of sharing. I took some film of this bait to supplement the FLW Outdoors article that Pete Robbins published called “Heavy Metal Jigging” available for you at the digital Bass Fishing eMagazine that FLW produces online, Nov/Dec 2012 Issue. After filming the bait and messing with it, I knew this bait was something swimbait guys and tournament guys alike might dig too. It’s getting winter time, and clearly spoons, blade baits, head spins, single top hook swimbaits all get bit in the winter/cold months. So, when I saw this bait, I realized it was a wonderful balance and compromise of various schools of fishing baits/techniques, and that’s what makes this thing legit. Not to mention, you have some pretty ‘big’ sizes available, so you can fish big or small, get deep, get around/thru suspended fish, get a down the line straight grind/swim out of the bait, and yo-yo and vertical fish really well.
Drop bait, swimbait, spoon, head spin, switchblade swim jig, melded together.
Think about an 8 foot rod, 7:1 reel, 50# braid and a mono or floro leader, and how much water (both covering water, and covering water column) you can haul thru here. With long rods you simply can pump your bait in big drawn out yo-yos, and raise it higher, sink it deeper, and get more fall and inflection with the longer rod, and then comes control. You can control a heavy slab spoon really well, the but Spin Shad has the rear blade that spins and levels the bait out and balances it and makes it orient correctly, so you can correctly slow roll at huge depths and know as its swimming along fine. It cannot be fished wrong, up or down, or anything in between. You can cover huge masses of water column with this style. The Fish Head Spin is a killer bait, you need to be throwing it, often, around suspended fish, Alabama Rig fish, or where fish are on bait. So, this bait takes the Head Spin in other directions and is a more heavy and down the line swimmer, because of the rear blade and weight/profile of the body, it doesn’t blow out or tend to require a really delicate and controlled swim like the Head Spin at times can require. The Head Spin you can sorta loose contact/connection with that bait easily, especially if yo-yoing gets into play, and it doesn’t have the vertical fishability either. Now, I love me some Head Spin, just pointing out it’s weakness is a powerful down the line swim and the Spin Shad is exactly that, and steadfast swimmer that has the right things to fish deep, steep and on the drop all while maintaining a spinnerbait blade that just doesn’t foul and works. Think about deep water, rough water/conditions, ledges where you need to snatch and excite the school of fish, making jerky actions and covering water quickly.
The Bettencourt Baits Dying Bluegill. Start, stop, kill, or swim. Interesting spin on flat sided presentations, and cool little swimbait.
Nathan Bettencourt has been quietly providing swimbait fishermen a unique offering of baits. Each bait he makes has incredible realism and attention to detail. He makes hardbaits and they all tend to have fur and hackle and have reproductions of the real fish inlaid as paint jobs. Nate sent me his Dying Bluegill and I have spent some time swimming it and messing with the action, and I have to say I like what I see. If I was fishing an area, where I knew a big one lives, I’d swim this thru, and then kill it. It has an incredibly slow Rate of Ascent, like ROA 3. You can get a feel for the bait, how it swims, how it kills and how it looks in the water here:
The Dying Bluegill swimbait just released today. You can purchase the bait online at bettencourtbaits.com for $29.95, that is $10 off the future retail price of $39.95. This bait is small, relative to the swimbait and bigbait discussion. It’s about 4.5″ long and weighs about 1 ounce. The fur material looks really good in the water, real subtle movement, and I have to say I really like the out of the box flat side down presentation of the bait. Bluegill swimbaits are something I’m making a conscious effort to explore and test, and serving them flat side down is really interesting.
Flat side down. One hanging treble from the side of the bait, and the bill, make this a unique swimmer and application. The Flat Side Down fits the ‘killed’ nature of this bait, hence the name, Dying Bluegill.
The bait will dive 3-5 feet, and once you kill it, it SLOWLY floats back to the surface, but I mean slowly ascends. You can twitch it and give it some English in the killed phase to make it look dying, but not dead yet.
Because the bait has a bill, it cranks down and swims along like a big flat billed flat sided crankbait. Too much torque will cause the bait to blow out, but just right, you get a nice fluid swim.
Nate has posted his own video alongside the links to purchase the BettenCourt Baits Dying Bluegill. View the page for the Dying Bluegill HERE. Bluegill eaters will be an ongoing discussion, just like the rest of the conversations about bass eating bigger fish or bigger creatures. Thanking Nathan Bettencourt for engaging us, and looking forward to sharing some of this other creations soon. Nathan calls Clinton, Missouri home, which makes us neighbors in the grand scheme of swimbait geographies.
The 2 ounce Warbaits Slayer Swim Jig and Sledge Hammer swimming thru. “and we confident, in the victory of good over evil” ……me say War (baits)
The WarBait Slayer Swim Jig
I haven’t been impressed by a bait company, a website, a video production crew, and just a group of fisherman like the fellas at Warbaits in a long time. I don’t know any of them. I know a lot of the fishing scene out West, but not these guys. These are young men in their 20s and late teens for the most part, or way cooler than me 30 thirtysomethings! hahahahahahah. Anyway, young, and running wide open, running a good business, with a good product and fishing and filming and doing the things a company who makes baits should have and do———-have sick and real footage of your baits in action. Your crew, your people, your vibration, your DNA, your ethos….our baits and gear are our lives, and the bass fishing media and industry is paralyzed into only doing tournament highlights and tradeshow + tournament guy in jersey highlights as their highlight reels….Which is fine, but after too many years of that stuff, it’s no longer credible because even if a guy wins a tournament on LURE X, the tournament itself is only a part of a the much bigger, more deeper, much more interesting fishing discussion about the bait or technique. Take a look at the Warbait videos, the videos from Radio Silence Fishing, etc. These guys are out there getting after it, and using the modern Internet properly, I enjoy their work and their baits. Heck, these are my people. I can relate to their style, the fishing, the water, the terrain, the boats, etc. It’s not about right or wrong or about style, its about the fishing, and these guys are working hard to produce good products and good media, and work really hard at the on the water fishing part, and appear to be having fun with it (love the War theme and derivatives that play off that for marketing and sales things, just incredible), and my hat is off to them. I’m going to suggest you look at both their Slayer Swim Jigs and Slayer Heads, (and the Warblade—you didn’t hear that from me) and rig them with Big Hammer swimbaits (all shapes and sizes 5″ to Sledge) and Robo Ocean Tails (both 5&6″ versions), if you fish for bass in deep water, maybe even as deep as 80+ feet, but certainly 10-20-30-40-50 ranges for sure. Check out the video we put together of the Warbait Slayer Swim Jig rigged with a Sledge Hammer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hma3FbDA76I]
I was first told about Warbaits by Brian Kettler at Big Hammer Swimbaits. He was telling me about these saltwater grade swim jigs I needed to check out. Boy was he right. You have to understand that the swim jig is probably the #1 best kept secret tool out there in most FLW Tour and BASS Elite series boats right now (the other two being head spins/tail spinners and chatter baits). Swim jigs are just awesome, and the guys at Warbaits make a bait geared for catching giant calico bass, halibut and other offshore gamefish off the coast of San Diego. The baits were made to fit the swimbaits that guys were already using (ie, Big Hammer). The Warbait Slayer Swim Jigs, you have to see. Big oversized heads, available up to 2 ounces with a 7/0 hook. This is where swim jigs and bigbait fishing intersects. There are now a zillion swim jigs on the market. Take a look at how many swim jigs are available in a size >1/2 ounce. Almost none. The Warbaits Slayer Swim Jig family is available in these great saltwater based sizes, so 1, 1.5 and 2 ounce swim jigs.
Flared skirts and full figured baits, I can dig it.
The Intersection of BigBait and Swim Jig
So why do you need a swim jig that is upwards of 2 ounces and has the hook to match the Sledge Hammer? Because you need to fish bigger, if you want to target the bigger fish. That is the lesson of bigbaits. You need to fish significantly larger (meaning, if you’ve never thrown a bait over 6″ long and 1 ounce, move up to 9-12″ long and 2-3 ounces…not just slightly bigger, way bigger). Where would a 2 ounce swim jig work? I’m not 100% sure all the places, but let me be clear and just tell you the entire Tennessee River system to start. I am going to guess at the North Country, Great Lakes, where you have offshore, fishing done in deeper water. The Ozarks, I will go ahead and volunteer to be part of that test group. I’m going to be probing the depths of many Ozark lakes in the cold and in the heat. Texas. I have heard a lot about big fish being caught offshore in Texas. So lets try and net this out. The intersection of bigbait and swim jig happens in deep water for the most part. You can swim the jig, but you can also drag, hop, and stroke the jig, and that is the key. Grass fishing up shallow with magnum swim jigs is a whole other conversation, one we’ll circle back to someday. The Warbait Slayer Swim Jig is the only tool I know that is geared toward catching fish in 15-100 feet (if necessary), besides just a standard lead head in 1-2 ounces, top hook style standard jig head. The size of the bait, the skirt, the weedguard, and ability to rig it with the good magnum kind swimbaits, makes it a unique tool.
The Sledge Hammer
I am a huge fan of Big Hammer swimbaits. I’ve been fishing them for years now, and have gotten pretty good with a few sizes of them. The Sledge Hammer is one I’ve only the last 2 years really put time into. The Sledge Hammer, is of course exciting to a guy who likes to throw bigbaits. It’s way bigger, 9″ long to be exact, and has a huge oversized version of the Big Hammer square tail, and slender/thin profile. Long and slender softbaits (think about big worms for a second) tend to get bit by big fish, and the Sledge Hammer fits nicely into a big, long, slender, swimming bait that almost nobody has an answer to. The Sledge Hammer is one of a couple swimbaits that match up with the Warbait Slayer Swim Jigs nicely. My other favorite swimbaits on the Warbait Slayer Swim Jigs are the 6.5″ Big Hammer, the 5.5″ Big Hammer, and the 5&6″ Robo Ocean Tail swimbaits. The Sledge Hammer is hands down the largest (yet not obnoxious) of the swimbaits you can choose to put on the back of your Warbait Slayer Swim Jigs and put yourself in position to catch a biggun.
Underwater video, and just paying attention and messing around, I realized the heavier jig heads (when talking about exposed lead head, top hook, single swimmers) swim much better at times on the sink/fall than with lighter weights. Not 100% true the world over I’m sure, but pretty confident about it with regards to plastic square and boot tailed swimmers from 5-9″ long. Heavier than normal jig heads help get more ‘falling swim’ out of your bait at times.
The Harder They Come, Harder They Fall
Everyone needs to pitch a 1 ounce Medlock Jig on 80# braid with a Gambler Ugly Otter Trailer on it around reeds in 1-3 feet of water on Lake Okeechobee. 1 ounce jigs don’t fall that fast. Especially with a big bulky skirt and bait with a lot of drag/resistance. So, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Come closer….let’s talk softly now so as no one else may hear. “The heavier your jig head is, the better your soft swimbait swims on the fall/on slack line” So, 1/2 and even 1 ounces aren’t enough weight to get a bigbait swimming right at times. You need 1.5 and 2 ounces to get the Sledge Hammer and 6.5″ Big Hammer fully swimming right, tail twisting and kicking, body moving, etc. There are inherent buoyancy properties of soft plastic baits and skirts combined with your line and stretch, etc etc etc whereby it becomes noticeably better/significantly better, to have twice the weight than you would when fishing for freshwater bass. The rate of fall, in this case, often is the key to the bite, or some of it, but I’m also weaving in, the heavier weight will pull your bait back down to the bottom harder and force a better swim out of your bait on the fall. You don’t get quite the twist and body undulation on landing, nor the pock marks on the moon effect in sand and soft bottom effect with a 3/4 – 1 ounce head on the Sledge Hammer as you do with the 2 ounce version. You get more glide and less swim out of the tail with lighter weights on the jig head with big soft plastics, especially at depth. And then of course the obvious benefits of better bottom contact, get the bait down quicker (more casts to more sweet spots on tournament day benefit vs. waiting for your bait to sink out), better at crushing rocks ( the 2 ounce Slayer Head crushes rocks and turns them to rubble when touching down each time, no, not really, but it does have more clank/noise/displacement than anything most guys are throwing). Out West, I read a lot more about guys fishing the “1-Ton” back in the day. The Yamamoto Jig with a 1 ounce Football Head on standard 7 foot bass rods in deep water. Same sort of deal. The heavier weight creates a reaction bite, or the better swim out of the bait which creates the bite, or it’s just that much more fishable (where can cast it way out and literally drag the bottom while reeling at near full speed if you wanted to….power dragging/swimming style. Anyway, the net net is try a 1.5 or 2 ounce Slayer Swim Jig and tell me it isn’t the shiz for fishing a top hook style swimbait out deep.
The Song Remains the Same
Everything I find myself doing is a ‘work in progress’ and part of other conversations and discussions. I have found some outside/deep water swimbait bites, and plan on exploring a whole lot more it. It’s the ‘single top hook’ swimmer vs. the A-Rig conversation, it’s the deep swimbait bite conversation, the TN River conversation, “swimbaits in current/moving water” conversation———but I will stop there. This is WAR. I have an ongoing war with the fish, war with myself, and war within the fishing industry about what is good fishing content and the dynamics of making a living fishing. It’s okay, it’s a healthy war, one that I enjoy most times, and one I plan on sharing with you each time I update this blog. You can expect some more on this subject sometime soon. I have learned a lot about and taken my own fishing to new levels with the 1, 1.5 and 2 ounce Warbaits swim jigs and various Big Hammer swimbaits (5″, 5.5″, 6.5″ and Sledge) for the last couple years, mostly fishing the TN River, things I plan on sharing, discussions backed up with film, photography, style and soul.
I hate that I killed this fish, but it didn’t go to waste and was an accident. Big old halibut destroyed the Warbait Slayer Swim Jig and Sledge Hammer (Sexy Dine) right off Trestles.
The Warbaits guys aren’t looking at my website or your website for ideas and stealing info and pirating stuff—they are out fishing, pushing, progressing, traveling and searching, and proving why their stuff is legit. These guys are leaders and are trail blazing their own paths with better products, and better media, all done and packaged better. They tournament fish too. Check out the SWBA (Saltwater Bass Anglers) . I’ll be fishing that SWBA for sure if I lived in the Dana Point/San Clemente, CA again someday. Calico bass in kelp are just awesome, and you never know what you are going a hook, yellow tail, white sea bass are there too, but big calicos will eat a spinnerbait, swimbait, swim jig, and all sorts of freshwater bass baits better than largemouth do! I swear, they are just awesome fish and it’s really cool fishing and its rad to see the Pacific Coastline become a good place for tournament fishing, especially bass. They are catching 25-35+ pound limits too, these aren’t no small 5 fish limits they are catching of calico bass. They fish the entire Southern California coastline, so it’s cool like that so you go from San Diego north to Orange County and Long Beach. Anyway, educate yourself on these guys and their baits. This is a style you are going to be using someday probing ledges, points, high spots, vertical faces, fishing over standing timber, etc to hunt and catch bigger fish out deep with a swimbait.
Crossover fishing. Sand Bass on the WarBait Slayer Swim Jig and Sledge Hammer. I plan on sharing what I know about saltwater fishing and how it’s helped me with catching them in the freshwater.
The Warbaits Slayer Swim Jig and Sledge Hammer Photo Gallery:
