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.
The fish have literally beaten the eyes out of my hard and soft baits lately. You are sticking your bites with braid and ST-66. Remember, you gotta match your braid with strong hooks, because you can bend hooks and hook points EASY.
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 noticed Kevin has ST-66 on his baits too. Gold bar Triple Trout. That other bait is MC Swimbaits’ Slug. Cough Cough. If I fished for big bass in freshwater, I wouldn’t look at that slug for big ones, cough cough. Corey makes some killer baits and has pioneered things that make a lot of sense.
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.
Good calico bass fishing is as satisfying as any largemouth bites I’ve ever been on. Great swimbait eaters. You have to search and work. I catch little ones around home, but there are good ones to be had at these local islands, LA County, Santa Barbara, Mexico, etc. That search is what drives me these days.
I will admit it, I was a snob when I saw and heard about swimming worms. I can think of 3 times the swimming worm was relayed to me as the bait, and I foolishly tried to make it a bigbait / swimbait bite without putting it into context. When you fish Okeechobee, you will inevitably get around the Speed Worm bite. Well, as you progress, you’ll migrate to the Magnum Speed Worm, and rig it with a jumbo offset worm hook and 1/4 – 1/2 ounce weight pegged and learn to swim, stroke, hop it thru the various grasses. The big worm and special tail swim really well, and fish eat the heck out of it.
The Gambler Burner Worm tail.
The Gambler Burner Worm tail (left) vs. the Zoom Magnum Speed Worm tail. We used to modify our Magnum Speed worms with a small piece of copper tubing to make what is now OEM on the burner worm. Just saying.
I found the swimming worm to be an effective technique on Okeechobee, Lake Seminole and Lake Dardenelle. Dardenelle in the shore grass, over stumps and wood, and anywhere I could find grass the was submerged due to river levels. Gambler doesn’t need my advice to create great products. This company lives in South Florida and knows grass fishing way more intimately than me. You have to appreciate the Gambler Burner Worm as a derivative of the Magnum Speed Worm. The tail has a larger groove cut out of it, and it thumps and flaps better than the Magnum Speed Worm. It is fatter than the Magnum Speed worm, but only measures approx 7″ in length. It’s a fatty worm, that swims really good.
Purchase the Gambler Burner Worm from Tackle Warehouse:
I highly recommend you learn how to swim a worm. You arent’ fishing for 10 pounders. You are fishing for 3 – 5 pounders. I really like 50# braid, a 1/4 or maybe even 3/8 ounce weight pegged and a 5/0 Owner Offset Worm Hook Texas Rigged. You fling your Burner Worm way out and swim, stroke, hop it back much like you would a rattle trap in grass, or a vibrating jig. The high stick retrieve. Yo-yo it back while swimming it. Let it fall and bury up in the grass and then lift up, reel it along and drop your rod tip and let it sink back down. Fish tend to woof it and there’s no doubt when you’re bit. The Texas rig nature makes hook ups pretty much 95%. For those headed to South Florida this Winter, this is a swimming worm I’d have on board for Florida. Gambler’s colors rock too.
Full worms compared. Gamber Burner on top, Zoom Magnum Speed Worm below. Texas Rig, with pegged weight. Swim it and don’t hate. This is tournament swimbait fishing.
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.
When you have a swinging weight that is connected to the eye of a hook by a single solid ring, you get a free flowing rigging system that changes things like: how baits rig, how they drop, how they fish, how they swim, how well they drag over stuff and the trajectory the baits follow when pulled/hopped and dropped. All things considered, the Jig Rig from Owner America, is a pretty cool innovation in traditional rigging and small bait fishing.
Green pumpkin blue Netbait Baby Paca Craw on the 3/0 with 3/16 oz Tungsten version of the Jig Rig. Me Gusta.
Trajectory:
I know, I contradict myself, talking about simplification one day, and then subjects like trajectory the next. You have to get into the sophisticated at times to understand why some simple things are so genius. The free swinging tungsten or lead weight associated with the Jig Rig changes the trajectory of the bait as it falls, drags, hops, etc. Instead of a bait arching toward you, as you hop it, the Jig Rig falls straight down. It almost feels like the bait is falling away from you, the drops are so steep. What this means is, when you pitch your bait next to a stump, the bait is far more likely to be right under the splash. Or when you pull a bait into a ‘sweet spot’ you can better guide your bait down into the sweet spot without it tending to bias toward you and the angle of your retrieve.
Steep and deep. The free swinging weight system of the Jig Rig changes the fall and overall trajectory of your baits. Not exactly a simple subject to explain, but hopefully you see how steep things that are moving in one direction drop out because of the hinged weight.
When I rigged the Jig-Rig up with a Basstrix Paddle Tailed Swimbait, it was pretty neat to fish a swimbait on a different style of jig head than I’ve ever attempted. Couple of important things to note about how the Jig Rig influences a single swimbait (and small soft plastic creature baits too).
Weedlessness: Because you are ultimately Texas rigging the hook, you have another viable weedless rig, for grass and wood fishing.
Rock-lessness: Because the weight snugs 45 degrees back under the bait as your drag it, you have a different kind of leverage, as if you are standing right over top of it, when it comes to popping yourself free. I was able to drag a Jig Rig with whatever bait I wanted to in heavy gravel and chunk rock bottoms, and it was clear the Jig Rig system provides excellence in fishing in rock and hard bottoms because you simply won’t get hung up
When you look at the ‘rock-lessness’ it is interesting because you are making bottom contact and creating deflections while your bait is riding slightly above it all, unfazed by a traditional jig head system where the nose and forward part of your swimbait is damped by the weight and hook. You can drag a swimbait over gravel and rock, and still get an excellent swim, where you get full swim out of your bait and don’t give up action because the swimbait is ‘anchored’ for lack of better term by the nose into a traditional jig head.
Drop Bait: When I was swimming the Basstrix over grass and over holes, it became apparent you can drop your bait right where you want it, and the trajectory doesn’t cause the bait to come at you, because the hinging action pulls the bait straight down at a super steep angle. It made me think about dropping a swimbait in the holes of grass around Okeechobee around spawn time. You could have all the benefits of a weedless swimbait, yet added benefit of a much better drop bait.
Pitching:
You notice when you pitch the bait, the free swinging weight system of the Jig Rig helps your casting accuracy and lessons the momentum required to pitch. It is strange, but the hinged weight sorta helps you sling the bait out there a bit easier. You definitely can cast this thing where you want it, and then drop it where you want it too.
The 3/0 + 3/16 oz. tungsten Jig Rig with a Zoom Speed Craw, gives you a feel for what the Jig Rig looks like when rigged.
Tungsten vs. Lead vs. Hook Sizes
You have a couple of options when it comes to the Jig Rig. You can buy the Jig Rigs with Tungsten weights or with Lead Weights. The hooks are needlepoint Z-lock shoulder bend hooks and are sharp, solid and rig cleanly. You have 3 sizes:
A 3/0 needlepoint, Owner sharp, offset worm hook with either a tungsten or lead 3/16 ounce free swinging weight (which is what I used to film and take photos with). I find this size of Jig Rig extremely appealing because it fits the ‘good’ small creature baits and smaller more finesse pitch baits so well. You’ll notice I used a Netbait Baby Paca Craw and Zoom Speed Craw to highlight how well the Jig Rig fishes. That was no accident, those are 2 baits that should be in your tackle box, always, all the time. The 3/0 hook and 3/16 weight matched up with the smaller swimbaits like the 4″ Basstrix Paddle Tailed Tube very well, and had a ‘spinning rod’ feel to it. Where I know I could fish that setup on a spinning setup (braid + floro leader of course) or on lighter action casting gear. The Little Dipper and smaller 4″ swim senko come to mind too, with this setup.
The 5/0 version has a 1/4 ounce weight available in tungsten or lead. It rigs nicely with 8″ Zoom Lizards, Brush Hogs, and Skinny Dippers, which to me are a larger, and more bulky offering than the above, but still in the finesse department. Basically, the 5/0 with the 1/4 ounce free swinging weight are more suited to pitching and small bait style swimbait fishing.
A 1/0 version in tungsten or lead with 3/16 ounce weights. This would be my small water, small fish, small bait setup. Like the Tiny Brush Hogs, or super small straight tailed worms, like 3″ Senkos.
A bare Jig Rig. Notice, the solid ring that attached thru the eye of the hook, and the weight is attached to the solid ring via a split ring.
Notice you tie your line onto the solid ring, NOT the small split ring the weight is attached to, and NOT the eye of the hook.
I’m excited about the Jig Rig because it’s going to help me with my pitching and short range soft plastic and creature baits for sure. Grass, wood or open water, I think it’s going to give the fish a slightly different look and feel, and certainly will be a top performing system (ie, weedlessness, rocklessness, and steep drops). It’s also a good alternative to a ‘shakey head’, where you are just trying to catch stubborn fish. The Jig Rig is going to add some color to my swimbait fishing too. You can better drag and simultaneously swim a bait, which speaks to a spinning rod setup mentality to me in certain situations. And the drop bait thing, to be dropping swimbait into holes in the grass, or in brush piles when you visually know you are right overhead, well, you just forget I mentioned it! You can expect some videos of the Jig Rig with fish catching involved.
Casey Martin is a Canadian, and he blends in as a Southerner about as well as I do. However, when you put a rod and reel in Casey’s hand, you’d think he was born and raised on the banks of the Tennessee River or in the lowland grass fisheries of Florida. Casey fishes the FLW Tour as a co-angler and has won 3 events (the 2011 FLW Tour Open Guntersville “A-Rig” Super Nova Tournament, 2011 FLW Tour Open on Champlain, and the 2012 FLW Tour Major on Kentucky Lake) in the last 12 months. Having a chance to fish with Casey during the off limits time prior to the 2012 FLW Tour Open on Lake Okeechobee afforded me some time to fish with Casey, and this blog post and the adjoining video are the highlights. Casey has been working hard the last 5 years, living on Lake Guntersville, fishing with his pals Derek Remitz and Craig Dowling to hone his tournament and grass fishing approaches. Clearly, it’s paying off.
Punching ’em in the mouth. Casey, the 4.20 Sweet Beaver, 1.5 oz of Picasso Tungsten and the 4/0 Owner Twistlock Flippin Hook getting it done, and then things tightened up a bit….
Casey keeps his grass fishing simple. It goes like this:
Have a Sweet Beaver and BB Cricket ready to go as your punch baits (a full bodied punch bait on a 1.5 ounce Picasso tungsten weight, and a smaller profile Gambler BB Cricket as your fall back, the fish are pressured and not biting the Sweet Beaver anymore, more finesse punch bait)
Get in the habit of having perfect mechanics in grass punching. Never waste movements, time or water by making the most precise and efficient casts you can (ie, his sling cast where he never touches his bait and slings an incoming bait back out using the momentum of the incoming pendulum). Keep yourself in position and be ready for a hard upward hookset, get on the reel quickly, and pull fish out from the thick stuff as quickly as possible for the best chances of boating ’em.
Jig fishing. Use the jig to fish the sparse stuff, where you don’t need punching gear to get thru the vegetation. Sparse reed patches, isolated clumps of grass, and where ever you don’t need punching stuff to get a bait in.
Keep your hardbait selection simple. Use a Devil’s Horse or gold Rattle Trap to cover water and find fish that are in between your flip and pitch spots. There is no need to re-invent the wheel here. Rattle Traps and Devils Horses in Florida are like drop shots and swimbaits in California. They are proven and work, so just go with it.
Follow Casey Martin’s fishing at caseymartinfishing.com. Casey is on his way to a stellar career in professional fishing, and is already competing and winning at the sport’s highest levels and continues to soak up and re-apply information and techniques he is learning with brilliance. Casey works with the best companies in the business like: Omega Custom Tackle, Picasso, Rat-L-Trap, Power Pole, Evinrude Outboards and Ranger Boats. If you have a chance to interact with these companies, let them know Casey is out there not only representing this companies, but showing these products in real world/tournament usage. It’s one thing to talk about products, its another to get film and footage that validates the things you are trying to convey. Casey works hard at his fishing, while still holding down contracted work as an electrical engineer for the automotive industry. Look for Casey to ease his way into fishing from the front of the boat at the FLW Tour level, but what is the rush? Casey has nothing but time and wisdom to make good decisions at the right time. In the mean time, look for him at the top of the leaderboard at the Everstart, BFL, and of course the FLW Tour Co-Angler levels for now.
“Anything I can do, Casey can do better! ( and faster, quicker, less complicated and more efficiently)”
***The ‘striping’ caused in some clips of the video were caused from a failed hard drive. I went the thru the painful and expensive ‘data recovery’ process, hence the striping and distortion.***
Owner Hooks has done something pretty cool with the Flashy Accent Trailer Blade series. The Flashy Accent is meant to compliment and add flash to any bait. You can add a flashy blade on a barrel swivel to just about any bait you can imagine. I cannot at all claim to have even scratched the surface of what these Flashy Accent’s are capable of. There are just too many baits and applications.
You have two willow leafs and one Indiana blade to choose from. Way too much still to explore, but pretty neat how well these compliment small baits, and even fish well stand alone.
Senko Upgrade:
Its hard to beat a Senko. Any accessory that will actually compliment one of the Top 3 fish catchers of recent history, is something to consider. Keith Poche put a blade in a Senko and put together an awesome 2012 BassMaster Classic as a result. A simple modification to a simple bait to give it a different look and fingerprint. The Flashy Accent is perfect for job to Poche your Senko. The Senko is so do nothing, so neutral buoyant, so simple, that adding flash to it and changing its original is always going to have drawbacks, but shoot, it’s going to have advantages at times too. Around current, where the blade is going to be flopping and turning and churning in the eddies and fast water sections, the Flashy Accent is going to really liven up and enhance what the Senko might do. I love how the bait helicopters straight down. Looks like an arrow or missle or something headed straight toward the bottom, but also uses the blade to glide along. The bait (and this happens when you’re drop shotting too) will rest on the face of the Flashy Accent and use it to plane as it falls sometimes. The other times it tends to helicopter the blade, blade end first, of the Senko and I really like that look. I tried to capture that in the video above. Fishing the 5″ Senko on a #1 Owner Mosquito Hook with criss crossed O-Rings that you put on with a Wacky Tool.
Part One: Cut #1 Paper Clip. Use to pin the Flashy Swimmer, thru the swivel, you can even remove the plastic keeper if you want and save it for using as a hook keeper, the paper clip will hold the swivel metal to metal just fine. Super Glue paper clip into bait with Flashy Swimmer, very carefully, for added insurance.Part 2: take the horse shoe cut paper clip and shove it down snugly into the end of your Senko. Use your pliers to narrow up and make the horse shoe longer, etc to best secure the Flashy Swimmer into the bait.Completed Rig. Snug down the horseshoe and go fish. I like the larger of the two willow leafs for the 5″ Senko. The smaller willow leaf Flashy Accent would look great in the 3 & 4″ Senkos.
Head Spins:
The Fish Head Spin is quietly and consistently catching lots of fish in lots of places. Grass, hard bottom, river, whatever. Places where the A-Rig is now catching them, which is lots and lots. The beauty of the Head Spin is adding some bladed flash to a swimming bait. Now, with the Flashy Accent, you can turn your drop shot baits into mini ‘head spin’ setups. Especially when you use full bodied drop shot baits. As well, with the Flashy Accent Senko Rig ala Keith Poche’s 2012 BassMaster Classic performance, you are turning your Senko into a head spin/spinnerbait of sorts. Notice how the Flashy Accent causes the Senko to fall blade end first, and how the blade turn and spins or helps the bait glide back to the bottom. The Flashy Accent is helping us blend styles and techniques, and your only limitation is your imagination. Here I am fishing the 1/2 oz Fish Head Spin with a Little Dipper as a trailer and the larger of the two willow leaf Flashy Accents.
How do you make a Fish Head Spin better? If “Fish Head Spinning” your Senko might make a Senko better, in some cases, how about Alabama Rigging (multi-rigging) your Fish Head Spin? Where you have a sorta bait ball appeal, the Flashy Swimmer gives another blade and flash to the Fish Head Spin.
Drop Shotting:
You can drop shot the Flashy Accent Trailer Blade as a stand alone bait. When your drop shot bait is on the bottom, you can do mini ‘strokes’ and the Flashy Accent fishes like a mini spoon, like guys who stroke spoons off ledges off the Tennessee River. Pretty cool drop shot refinements and integration of a few techniques into one. When you add a Flashy Accent Trailer Blade to your drop shot softbait, you give your softbait a look it probably hasn’t had much. I found the Flashy Accent compliment full bodied shad style drop shot baits like the Yamamoto Shad Shape, Jackall Clone Fry and Owner Wounded Minnow really well. If conditions call for a more horizontal and castable drop shot approach, you can sorta slow grind/hop your drop shot to make it a swimbait with this setup. Swimming your drop shot rig. It has given me the idea that I really need to lighten up the drop shot weights I’m using, especially in shallow water/current situations where you want your rig to tumble and come over gravel well. A well matched, l drop shot weight could be used to literally allow you to swim a small drop shot worm, like a fish head spin/drop shot combo, 1.5 -3 feet off the bottom from 0-100 feet. Anyway, that’s what I saw in the Flashy Accent in its action and fishability with the Wounded Minnow. I’m fishing the Wounded Minnow on a #2 Mosquito Hook. You could definitely sorta ‘stroke’ your drop shot too, which is wild.
Drop shot the blade only and ‘stroke’ the blade on slack line with a drop shot setup. Pretty cool action and a new twist on drop shot fishing.Owner Flashy Accent turns you drop shot into a head spin/swimbait of sorts, if you use a full bodied shad style drop shot bait. This is the Owner Wounded Minnow I’m using to show how the Flashy Accent compliments a drop shot bait.
Alabama Rig:
If you look at the implications of umbrella rigs and what the Alabama Rig did to our fishing, you realize we are foolish to not be using teasers and dummy baits at times give the appearance of a school of bait. The Flashy Accent provides you a mechanism to ‘A-Rig’ whatever you want, like a hard bait, or any hard bait you can think of. You basically are only limited by your skills with rigging, but the hardware is now there to add little blades to baits that otherwise had none.
Indiana Blade Owner Flashy Accent on a 3″ Big Hammer, which tells me it can be fished on the Alabama/Umbrella rigs too. Why not add blades and additional teasers to swimbaits in some cases, especially umbrella rig cases?
The Rig Affect
You can say things about the Flashy Swimmer that put it in the same conversation as the Alabama Rig. You are creating multiple flashes within one castable lure. You’re re-arranging the way blades are being strung up and hung…lets see we have inline blades and safety pin framed bladed baits. Underspins and Head Spins quietly join the party. Look at what Spencer Shuffield did at the 2012 FLW Tour Table Rock Lake event and the umbrella rig he was throwing in Missouri. It had 3 teaser blades as part of the setup. Missouri is a 3 bait only state so to maximize his effectiveness and fish within the rules, here comes this edition. Flashers and teasers, get your mind out of the gutter, we are talking about catching those suspended fishes that chase balls of baits here. My aloha pal Trevor Lincoln, from down around the junction of El Capitan and San Vicente Lakes (San Diego, CA), makes this bait called the Trip Jig. I cannot share all the details of everything I know about the Trip Jig that my friends share with me because it’s not mine to share. However, I can share what I’ve done to the Trip Jig thus far, since I fished around a lot of shallow grass this year in the SouthEast (Okeechobee, Seminole, Guntersville, Santee Cooper), and gone thru a bunch of Grass Minnows in the process:
The Trip Jig with 3 Grass Minnows on Lake Guntersville. The Trip Jig has absolutely no class: short skirt, flashy, teasy sorta bait that can be fished weedless style.
Moving Forward:
The Flashy Accent is a very unique accessory and new piece of terminal tackle in my tackle box. I basically try putting it on a bunch of various baits and see how it swims and looks and fishes. And of course, I’m fishing the ones I like and collecting footage to share in the future. The Flashy Accent is just something that literally compliments or adds some flash to just about any bait in your box. I tried to show some basics on ways I have found worthy of exploration to start. How about taking off hooks on hardbaits and using blades as teasers instead? You ever notice some Japanese hardbaits come with blades as tails and they basically put blades in places we don’t expect them at times? The umbrella rig and what we’ve learned about bass willing to chase an entire bait ball better than a single stand alone, especially while suspended. All related stuff to where and why the Flashy Accent has my attention and is being integrated into my fishing. Swimbait/bigbait implications? Don’t know yet. Have some ideas and applications but haven’t validated it enough to say. Work in progress. Feel free to join the conversation and post your thoughts/experiences below. MP
