Olive Juice! The 3 Dot Olive color is a great rainbow trout pattern for your Triple Trouts, from Scott Whitmer and the 22nd Century Bait Company. We are glad to have access to it and provide it as part of our custom bait offering. It works really well, I find.
The 3 Dot Olive Triple Trout from Scott Whitmer at 22nd Century Bait Co is something we are proud to be fishing and offering. This is just a killer color on a killer bait, and it works great. How about 80# straight braid in super clear water? That’s called a bait that is getting after it. The 10″ Triple trout, gives them a look, a pause, a stall and a 180 degree cutback followed by a fluid driving swim which is why it gets bit. It’s not an easy bait to fish. There is a rhythm and flow, and probably the most important piece of equipment is the Calcutta 400 TE reel. Shimano no longer makes/offers the Calcutta 400 TE reel, so I’m going to have to recommend you go get yourself one of the new D Series 400s. I want one. I haven’t fished one yet, but hear they are killer. The amount of reeling, speed, torque and physics and chunking and winding this bad boy around for more than 1 hour will make you believe in round reels and gearing. Just saying. Cover water boy, and don’t put it down, and any other reel I’m aware of, you’ll be whipped quickly. You might get by with a Curado 300, but the Curado 300, IMO, is good for the 6-7-8″ Triple Trouts but lacks the torque for the 10″…but I know guys who throw the 10″ Triple Trout on the Curado 300. I find the 400 Series Calcuttas and the 10″ Triple Trout to be a good match.
Been a minute since I caught one like this. Nice 7+ pounder.
I had an excellent couple days back in the Carolinas, visiting with my friend Rob McComas. I really enjoyed the time away from Arkansas. I was on a short mission to pick up a boat I had stored out that way (jon boat), so I can put it in service (or sell it) around Arkansas. The conditions were Zeptember. Hot, but cool nights and mornings, and the fish did just what they should in Zeptember—-eat the Triple Trout. And that bite will continue until ? I’m going to be experimenting how cold of water I can still get bites on the Triple Trout in the Ozarks this Fall into Winter just to see. Here are some highlights from that day with Rob:
We are proud to offer the 10″ Triple Trout Bundle as part of our custom bait offering. We rig our baits with 2/0 ST-36 Owner Treble Hooks and #6 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings, and provide you a spare set of tails with each bait. Click HERE to get the full fledged look at our 3 Dot Olive Triple Trout Bundles in 8 and 10″ versions. The 8″ version doesn’t suck either. Especially if big spotted bass or smallmouth are your game. The 10″ is just a staple for big largemouth, and that is usually what I’m hunting.
The 10″ 3 Dot Olive Triple Trout Bundle:
$89.95
***10/8/12***NOON CST***SOLD OUT***CHECK BACK SOON
Okay fellas, just got another box of the 7″ bubble gum bass Triple Trout swimbaits, imported from Long Beach, California. We sold out all the 7″ bundled versions we had pretty quickly. You can click HERE to get a feel for the bubble gum bass Triple Trout, and understand the ‘bundled’ packages we are putting together, where we rig each bait with Owner Stinger Treble Hooks and Hyper Wire Split Rings, and provide you a package of spare tails (and see some video of the bait in action, and photos).
Thanking Ken Duke and the Bassmasters for the following article, published September 2012, in the BASS Times. Stoked to be featured as part of their ‘Lunker Hunter’ series:
The Bubble Gum Bass Triple Trout. A bit cheeky eh?
Bubble Gum is a great color for bass fishing. I use pink a lot to add flare to my baits. How much of a fruit do I sound like saying that? For the record, I have NEVER worn a pink button up shirt or gone there in the world of fashion!!! I’m comfortable with myself, and this isn’t about fashion—this is about fishing and the fish have validated many times over that hot pink/bubble gum is good stuff, so I just go with it. Over the years, working with Scott Whitmer to come up with colors and patterns that are legit, I’ve settled on this one as a go-to color than I’m in love with. Bubble gum swimbaits are not about catching lake records, double digits and the biggest fish out there, but they might. They definitely get attention from fish, and that is the idea. Good fish, the 3-7 pounders, but shoot, it’s not out of the realm of reason to stick a real giant on bubble gum colored baits, especially under dark skies and dark conditions. Smallmouth and spotted bass are particularly vulnerable to bubble gum colored baits, but so are largemouth. How does that saying go, “Fish don’t have hands”? Curiosity and instinct takes over and fish just have to come up and take a look sometimes, and with looks come bites. The more looks, the more bites. If you notice I masked the hooks of my Nezumma Rat pink way long ago, and sorta assumed that one would be seen in Southern Trout Eaters, and having it as the banner on this website gives it away. I use pink tails on certain Triple Trout and rat baits, and always will. You might be too macho to throw bubble gum baits, that’s fine, your loss. Here are a few highlights from a summer Ozark fishing expedition, testing out the Bubble Gum Bass Triple Trout:
We are committed to partnering with and fishing the best swimbaits by the best bait makers. The Triple Trout is a fish catcher, and I believe this Bubble Gum Bass color will help you catch fish, whether you hunt largemouth, smallmouth or spotted bass. That is beauty of it, it catches fish, period. You don’t need trout to catch swimbait fish and this is one of those colors you can throw anywhere: herring eaters, shad eaters, upland, midland, lowland, the Chattahoochee River, Okeechobee and the Florida black water, any Ozark Lake, the Tennessee River, the North Country lakes like Champlain or Erie, and anywhere smallmouth and spotted bass rule. Think of it like a merthiolate Trick Worm or something like that. A color that you pull out anywhere and get the fish to react. This is an excellent color for stained, and downright dirty water but is also outstanding in clear water too. So, this is a great bait, in a great color, that applies in a lot of areas for whatever species of bass, so we are offering it as part of our custom baits. We have rigged each bait with Owner Stinger Treble Hooks and Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings. Each bait comes with a package of spare tails.
3 Dot Olive Triple Trouts in 10″ & 8″ from southernswimbait.com
We are partnering with Scott Whitmer and the 22nd Century Bait Company to provide you premium colored and specially rigged/packed Triple Trouts from time to time. We are rigging the Triple Trouts with Owner ST-36 Stinger Treble Hooks, Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings, and providing our customers with a package of spare tails with their purchase. These are hard to find, hard get baits, and we’ve tested them and really like this color and believe you will too. We have a limited supply of 10″ and 8″ baits, so first come, first serve. You get one bait, pre-rigged with Owner hooks and Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings, and a package of matching spare tails per bundle:
$4.95 Standard Domestic Shipping to Anywhere in the United States, regardless of quantities of baits. For International Shipping, please contact us to make arrangements or get a quote for shipping costs.
Bluegill, brim, sunfish, shellcrackers—-and whatever other derivatives of a panfish, are excellent swimbaits. They are relatively new to me. I haven’t spent near the time chasing ‘bluegill eaters’ as I have chasing trout eaters. Why? Because trout eaters are the biggest bass you’ll ever catch in your life. But bluegill eaters are very important because they are more universal and more common in more waterways across the country and globe. Which also means they have more of a tournament implication and can be part of the tournament swimbait/bigbait conversation better than trout baits.
“Get in me belly” … tasty morsel 22nd Century Bluegill. Very nice universal paint job, profile, tail and swim. Don’t fish bluegill baits, I want it all to myself.
The 22nd Century Blugill is a beautiful little bait. It’s not a huge swimbait. In fact, it’s only 5 inches long, 1 and 5/8ths inches tall, and weighs approx 1.75 ounces total, so it isn’t a magnum bait in size, profile and vibration. There is something to be said about the size of a bluegill bait. Bass instinctively seem to have a threshold based on their own size, as to how big of a bluegill they will eat. Why? Perhaps it’s because a big bluegill will get lodged in the bass’s throat, and suffocate/kill the bass. In any event, small and compact bluegill baits in the 5″ range seem to be ‘right’. You probably aren’t going to catch lots of double digit bass on bluegill swimbaits. Feel free to prove me wrong and provide as much photo and video evidence as possible. But, you are going to catch a lot of 3-8 pounders, which are good fish anywhere, and are excellent tournament fish.
The 22nd Century Bluegill is from the Triple Trout family of baits. The influence is clearly there, including the pauses, turnarounds, and cutbacks, but the bait swims so fluid on the straight grind, it’s a nice ‘chunking and winding’ style bait because it just swims fluidly for days.
The 22nd Century Bluegill swimbait is a standard sinking hardbait from the Scott Whitmer/Triple Trout family of swimbaits. It has the same 3 piece make up and has the same swim signature, to an extent of the the Triple Trout. The bait fishes excellent on the straight reel. Just buzzing it along like you would a spinnerbait or swim jig. Just reel the thing. But of course, you can throw the cut backs, the 180 degree turn arounds, stalls, and pauses into the bait, which give it advanced swimming and fish appealing action to anglers with the skills to make the bait work for them. The swim is rather tight, because the joints and pieces of the bait are small and compact. The swim doesn’t have the wide carving S-turn swagger that the Triple Trout does, but you can see the relationship and family ties. In the very last few seconds of the above video, the music stops and you can hear the noise of the 22nd Century Bluegill. With the tight compact swim, you get a lot of clicking and clacking out of the bait. It’s a loud bait underwater. I am totally unqualified and unprepared to measure audio levels and decibels and things about underwater sound, but just from my experience doing underwater video work, the 22nd Century Bluegill is a noisy and clanky bait.
“Six Foot Peaks!” … the 22nd Century Bluegill is part of a wave of energy known as the “bluegill eaters”, that I’ve been working on and off for years, but quite a bit in 2012 along with the 3:16 Sunfish. “So you wanna fish pretty good, yeah? ‘Trow da bluegill baits brah”
The 22nd Century Bluegill is a perfect example of a swimbait that I rig with the Owner ST-56 Treble hooks. The ST-56 Treble hooks are needle point hooks, 3X strong, and a good fit for baits where I cannot get away with using the Owner ST-36 Stinger Trebles for fear of bending out the lighter wire hooks on the swimbait gear (rod/reel/line) I’m throwing it on. So, my advice is use Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings (#4s front and back) and change the hooks to a number #2 up front and #4 in the rear. That way, you’ll catch the < 4 pounders well, but when you get into the > 5 pounders, you won’t be bending out a hook leaning on a good fish to get control of her, which will likely cause the fish to pull off and get away. You probably want to invest in a pack or two of replacement tails for your 22nd Century Bluegill. You need the Small Triple Trout replacement tails, they are the ones that fit the 22nd Century Bluegill. Color is up to you.
“Neener neener neener…..catch me if you can”
2012 has been a year where I’ve gotten back in touch with line thru swimbaits and bluegill baits. I’ve spent a good amount of time exploring the bluegill bait bite on places like Okeechobee, Seminole, and in the Ozarks. Bass eat bluegill really well, and when you add spawning time into the mix, the bluegill creates a territorial/adversarial bite factor you don’t get with other baits. Bass will quite simply instinctively bite a bluegill that gets around their bed/nursing area, because bluegill tend to be thieves who survive on eating bass eggs or bass fry. Bluegill work in packs, in schools, where the sheer numbers of them overwhelm the lone male and female bass. There is a lot to be explored and documented when it comes to bluegill swimbaits, but let me be clear and say I think they are awesome and absolutely worthy of your time and money to invest in. They get bit, they catch big ones (not teen sized fish, usually, but still, bigguns), and since bluegill are so prevalent in places with bass, they are a good universal alternative to trout baits, the world over.
Scott’s bluegill has a killer paint job. I love purple in my baits, and this ‘sunny’ has plenty of purple, and a great scale pattern. It’s realistic and looks great in clear or off colored water.
The gratuitous profile shot, giving you a good feel for the bait. 5″ Long and 1 and 5/8″ tall at the tallest point. You’ve got Scott’s rotating hook hangers, and of course I rig with Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings (#4), and a #2 ST-56 Owner Treble up front, and #4 in the back.
The Owner ST-56 are a compromise between the ST-36 and ST-66. More on this all later, but I recommend this hook when you need small hooks ,< 1/0 and are fishing with 8 foot rods, big line and tend to get into bigguns.
