The Huddleston Deluxe 68 Special. Wow. I only recently got my hands on a real one of these, and I’m blown away. Ken Huddleston believes in designing his baits to align with the natural world. We documented this in Southern Trout Eaters, and it was the most profound stuff I’d ever heard anyone speak with regards to swimbait fishing, and it was beautiful, because I got to film the conversation. Ken had been telling me stuff over the phone to prime me up a little, but we didn’t have the ‘big talk’ until we met in a park in Las Vegas for an impromptu interview that became the foundation of Southern Trout Eaters, and changed my world.
“Nature is subtle, it tries to blend in, and that’s the key, to catching these giants, that don’t make mistakes” — Ken Huddleston.
The Huddleston Vortex is both literal and figurative. Literal if you have ever committed time to swimbait fishing. Figurative if you are a person who isn’t satisfied with K thru 6 level fishing conversation your entire life.
The Huddleston 68 Special is a compromise. The 68 Special is the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe trout with the tail of the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe trout. The tail of the 68 special has 3-4X the surface area and volume of the standard tail on the stock 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Trout. We shared the ‘Sasquatch Rig’ in Southern Trout Eaters, whereby hardcore swimbait chuckers were cutting the tails off their 8″ Huddlestons and gluing them onto the 6″ Huddlestons. Ken decided it would be best to release a commercial version of the rig, since guys were destroying baits to make this rig, not to mention it’s a really hard rig to do, and it doesn’t hold up for days and days of chunking and winding. Think about Ken “Natural Dude” Huddleston making a bait that does a bunch of ‘vibrating’ and has loud over exaggerated movements and swim. The Hudd 68 Special goes against the grain of his design methodolog/beliefs , and I will argue, we (Ken included) are all the better, because compromise is a powerful thing, and in this case if gives us the best of 2 worlds: tournament and trophy fishing compromise.
The Hudd 68. Night Stalker color
Compromise is a word I have recently began to really think about and focus on. Compromise is so easier said than done. Think about your most fundamental beliefs, your core values, and then think about how difficult it is to compromise and accept or even be civil to others who have beliefs and core values that contradict, oppose, or attack your own. Think about how difficult it is to compromise a position of power, where you are the boss and you believe you are entitled or have earned certain rights or privileges, and then circumstances change, and now you have to give up things you didn’t have to. Those are incredibly challenging and humbling experiences, financially and spiritually. You can fervently fight, declare wars on things, and get really upset over having to compromise or you can take the wiser, more mature route and understand that compromise is one of the more sophisticated and enlightened positions a person can achieve. If you aren’t old enough to grasp this, someday you will. My modern day American experiences tell me the country is extremely divided, and getting worse. I believe the phrase “divided we fall” to be true, so let me take this opportunity with the Hudd 68 Special discussion to publish a little public service message around compromise. Compromise is a good and healthy thing, it ushers in moderate approaches to problems and differences, and ultimately provides a fair and just system where everyone wins and everyone loses–a little. The Huddleston 68 Special just might be the perfect compromise for guys like me: a tournament and trophy centric swimbait that borrows from the best of both worlds and applies in more waters all over the world.
Sasquatch! The big oversized tail exaggerates everything from the head wobbling, to the tail thumping, to how slow you can creep the bait and keep it planed correctly, to how the stops and stalls, to how it falls…Not to mention differences in lift, drag, displacement and overall profile.
You can only buy a Hudd 68 Special directly from the Huddleston Deluxe website ( huddbaits.com). They are often sold out and hard to get. You can search and troll eBay for them. I suggest you go to the Huddleston Deluxe website and sign up for the newsletter, right side column of the homepage and enter your email address. The newsletter announces when the Huddleston 68 Specials go on sale, and you better get online and get yours exactly as the newsletter announces because these things go fast. In fact, I’m hiring some hacker buddies of mine to launch a Denial of Service attack on the day the next Hudd 68 Special Sale happens, so nobody can get these things!!! Not really. The bait is smoking hot, and you can expect a swim signature piece committed to comparing the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe to the Huddleston 68 Special.
The Huddleston 68 Special blends tournament and trophy, big and small, simple and sophisticated, and just gives us another tool in our toolkit, which as a guy who fishes for a living, can use now and again. A new tool that does things my others do not, and builds off my most productive other tools.
Recommended rigging for the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Top Hook style trout swimbait. The #2 Owner hook fits the bait well and is about as wide as the bait, and of course is balanced, so it rigs cleanly with one treble in the belly, two prongs out, in perfect symmetry.
The 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Trout is sweet candy bar sized swimbait that fits certain applications in swimbait fishing. Namely, smallmouth, spotted bass, tournament largemouth, and trophy brown trout. The 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Trout, whether you are fishing the ROF 5 or ROF 12 model, both have a top hook. So, you don’t necessarily need a bottom trap hook, however, in a lot of open water situations or situations like smallmouth or spotted bass fishing where the fish don’t always inhale the bait, a good stinger hook/trap hook setup helps with hook up percentages and just get those short and underside bites in the boat.
You can bet I’m working on a matrix and blog post that speaks to treble hooks and swimbaits. Until then, let me try and simplify this. I always will use an ST-36 treble hook when I can get away with a 1/0 or bigger sized treble hook. The ST-36 is just superior sharp, well balanced, and hooks fish for me. However, when faced with using a #2 sized ST-36 treble hook, I assess my rod, my reel, my line and what I’m hunting, because you can bend out a #2 ST-36 treble hook using a Shimano Calcutta 300 or 400 TE, 65 Pound Braid or 25 Pound P-Line Copolymer, and a medium sized 8 foot swimbait rod. That is just the physics of swimbait fishing. Not to say you bend out a hook every trip because I’ve successfully caught many nice fish on #2 ST-36, however, I have recently began using the Owner ST-56 treble hooks in places where I need small, strong and uber sticky trebles, and don’t need something as heavy duty as the ST-66s we use as part of our Huddleston Rig. So, if you are fishing for big fishes, like 4-6 pound spotted or smallmouth or really big brown trout or are fishing straight 65 pound braid and have some decent largemouth going, consider the ST-56 because you won’t bend out a hook if you happen to hang the fish on one treble and things to the wrong way for you which occassionally happens when just the right amount of torque happens on one treble. You never know when or exactly why, just too much stress on it and it bends. This happens to all lighter wire hooks by the way. That is why hooks are made in 2X, 3X, 4X etc configurations. Physics is a much bigger part of fishing swimbaits because the baits and fish are so much heavier, and so are the rods, line, gears and torque of the reel. I would fish the ST-36 Stinger Trebles if I was fishing for money. Meaning, if every bite and getting every fish in the boat, and was likely after 3 pounders or even good solid 2+ pounders, where just catching the fish, where you not likely to be catching ‘trophies’ because you’re more in a tournament mode of hunting bigger fish, I’d go ST-36 because the odds of bending out a hook are rare, but it does happen. I’d take on the risk to gain the reward of the sticky-ness of that treble hook. It is incredibly sharp and perfectly balanced, so it rigs very cleanly.
24.5″ Brown Trout, Cotter, Arkansas choked the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Top Hook Trout. You don’t need a trap hook when they eat like this, but I like to have one on there, because they won’t always choke your bait, especially when it comes to smallmouth and spotted bass. Trap hooks just help, and the Owner Treble Hooks and Hyper Wire Spit Rings are a staple in my swimbait fishng and trap hook rigging, and have been for years. I’m getting better at matching my terminal and other tackle, it’s a system and mindset based on experience.
You could say I was stoked. Look how black that fish is. Really dark brown trout, up around the bend, Cotter, Arkansas White River.
Just wanted to share some more pics of the ‘big catch’. I’m still undecided how big the fish is. Bummed I was an idiot and didn’t measure the thing officially. I don’t typically measure or weigh fish unless they are giant, which is weird I suppose, but you sorta just go cool, I got a good one, and enjoy it for a while and keep planning more trips and well timed assaults.
The White River in Arkansas is a trophy brown trout fishery. Quite possibly the best brown trout fishery in the United States. Anytime you have a legit shot at a >24″ brown trout, you are trophy hunting, and in the White River, you have a legit shot at >30″ brown trout. The above fish is approx. 27″ long, but doesn’t weigh that much. Long and thin, but don’t get me wrong, one of the finest catches I’ve made in a while. 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout swimbait with the Southern Trout Eaters trap rig setup with gills added. The brown trout fishery that exists here is a wonderful story, and includes the names of people like Dave Whitlock and Forrest Wood as well as bunch of agencies, volunteers, State and Federal fisheries, and the Corp of Engineers…all working together and compromising. The White River has many secrets, many bends, many shoals, many miles and many fish. You need at least 2 probably 3 different boats to fish it properly, not including wade fishing. Brown trout are just an amazingly fun fish to hunt and catch. They are very gamey and eat moving baits, and definitely eat bigbaits. They are known to attack rats and birds and other terrestrials as well as other trout. Hmmm, that breaks my heart to hear!
Leviathan. The mouth of a brown trout from this angle can look like some crazy eel or serpent mouth. Very different mouth, tongue, teeth and bite than a largemouth, but still trout eatin’ lips!
Trophy Brown Trout Fishing with Swimbaits on the White River, Arkansas
We first broke the ice on the swimbait bite on the White River in what was documented in our film Southern Trout Eaters. Now, two summers later, we are living on the White and spending a whole lot more time and energy to really dial in the fish. We have a long way to go. Fishing in current is a new challenge in itself. The above is a short clip of an approx. 26-27″ trophy brown trout caught near Cotter, Arkansas, on the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trout swimbait, using our Southern Trout Eaters Huddleston Rig, with the added gill modification, ROF 12. We got some nice footage of the release and just wanted to share our ‘personal best’ with you. It isn’t often you wake up at 5am with swimbait fishing on your mind when the calendar tells you it’s July and the forecast is well into the 100+ degree mark. But that is what happens when you understand some of the nuances of Southern swimbait fishing. Trout Eaters are where you find them.
The Southern Trout Eaters rig works well with brown trout I’m finding. Like bass, big brown trout don’t always inhale the bait or eat it head first. Lots of swipes, kisses and short bites by those super smart brownies. ST-66 treble hooks are perfect for the rock hard bone razor teeth laden mouths of trophy brown trout.
Trophy Trout are not easy to catch or hold onto for a picture. Notice the size of the head and jaws vs. the rest of the body. A cool 104 degree July afternoon in Arkansas, contrasted by 58 degree water temps in the mighty White River.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?”
