Randall

You don't need an expensive graph to see the fish eat your lure. I have seen fish eat and follow my jigging spoon an Eagle Cuda that I paid $50 dollars for at Bass Pro. You just have to have the fish symbols turned off and the sensitivity turned up enough to show the bait and the fish.

Its been my experience with swimbaits that more times than not they are going to swallow it if they can. I have never felt I needed a stinger because usually when I get one it is hooked deep in the mouth. May be different with spots or smallmouths or when LM are locked on beds I may add one sometimes but for the most part with LM it holds true. I am also like you in the fact I don't want to kill any big fish in the lakes I fish. I catch some big fish multiple times because I always try to put them back alive. I just usually take my chances and go without the stinger and take what I get. I personally don't feel like I miss enough to attach a stinger and I think the bait looks more natural with out it.

I am guessing about early to mid March. The sinker is good down to around five or six feet or so and right now the fish are just too deep but it won't be long. I did get one around six or seven pounds on one of my test baits that was a little different than this one and didn't swim as good as this one.

PM Lightning Rod. I think he has used them some in the past.

Since we are talking swimbaits I thought I would post one I made. With all the swimbaits out there I couldn't find one that was priced right and had the action and profile I wanted so I decided to design my own. The action and profile of the bait looks alot like a big gizzard shad instead of a longer skinny trout design like most swimbaits have. I have made it in a sinking and slow floating gliding topwater wake bait. Thanks to Whittler who helped me out by saving me a lot of time with getting the gliding turning action out of the bait seen in the first part of this video. http://media.putfile.com/swimbait-1 Here is a photo of the first bait I made also. I might in the future change the design of the bait around some and give it a different finish and change the shape of it a little to where it looks almost exactly like a shad and give it a better joint that looks a little better. But to be the first bait I have ever made even though I have modified plenty. I thought it turned out pretty good and IMO it has better action than most of the other hard swimbaits out there that I would have to pay a bunch of $$$$$$ for.

Thanks Whittler. I may have to try that on the next one I make.

A question I almost always get from people who fish with me for the first time is why I fish the hook I do on a trickworm while fishing. To most the hook looks to short for a longer worm like a trickworm. I use a 2/0 Owner Rig'n hook which has a short shank but a wide gap. There are plenty of hooks which will fit the worm well and have a longer shank which in most peoples thinking will hook more fish since the fish doesn't need to have as much of the worm in its mouth to get the hook. There are also plenty of larger hooks with a wider gap that will hold a big fish once hooked. But if I use any other hook than a 2/0 Rig'n hook the number of strikes and fish landed will go down because the action of the bait is not as good since more worm is free to move on the short shank Rig'n hook than with any other hook of the same gap size. If I go to say a 1/0 hook I will lose more big fish and miss more hooksets because the hook gap is too small. Choosing the best hook or number of hooks is very important to me and there is such a thing as too much and too little hook.

Anytime I see subjects or articles like this in a book, magazine etc. I try not to even read it. It will just cloud my mind with information that I am better off without. I did read your post and admire the thought that went into it but don't think I should think about fishing this way to be better at it or gain a better understanding of catching fish. I choose to keep it simple because at different time most of those things are important or most important. Sometimes those things including depth, which was most important, matters very little. Breaking things down like this and giving them numerical values causes over thinking simple things (at least to me) and what I call knowledge constipation. Knowledge constipation is having so much #?&% in your head that you can't get anything useful out of your head to use to catch fish. A success formula that causes this much thought will cause me a lack of success. I personally take all the information I have learned through years of fishing and make everything as simple as possible. That way my thoughts and decisions are clear and I have more confidence in the decisions I make since they were easier and quicker to make based on my simple thought process.

I remove the rear hooks on lipless crankbaits and replace the front hook with a larger hook. One bigger hook will land more fish than two small hooks. Fish don't normally short strike a rattle trap anyway when the water is cool which is usually when I throw it most often. When it comes to big fish over six pounds it will cause your hook/land precentage to not only go up but skyrocket.

Check out previous topics titled Javallon. The swimming shad is just a copy of the Javallon.

Best hook for the smaller bait is an Owner Rig'n Hook. It has a short shank and wide gap making it fit perfectly since the shank isn't too long and the gap is wide enough to come through the thick head I believe I have used both the 4/0 and 5/0 for the bait. I am sure the 4/0 fits pretty well.

Mike, nice looking bait. Not near as ugly as mine. :)Is it wood or made from a mold?

Some lakes are better topwater lakes than others. The lake I fish most Lake Varner here in GA is not a good topwater lake but I can catch topwater fish there because I know when and where to throw it. The reason is that most fish will not move a long distance to hit a bait there. There is a lot of bait and no reason for thm to expend the energy to move very far if they don't have to. What you will have to find on a lake like this is cover where bass are holding near the surface. The best example is grass growing near the surface but timber and laydowns will work also if the fish are close enough to the surface in them. I fish with a lot of people here in GA who fish Lake Lanier which may be the best topwater lake in the US. Fish at Lanier will come from 15 feet down and hit a topwater bait. These people cannot believe that they can't catch a topwater fish when they come to Varner because they are catching them like crazy on Lanier just a few miles away. The lakes have different forage and types of bass. Different things work on different lakes so it doesn't surprise me that a guide told you they won't hit it there. If you see the guide again ask him how good the topwater bite was before they stocked grass carp there and ruined the topwater bite. You might be surprised at how good it used to be before.. The reason is the grass carp ate all the cover near the surface and killed the topwater reaction bite. Just try the middle of the day when there is less forage fish shallow and a bass may move a little farther to feed, and throw it where bass are holding near the surface in cover.

The only hook I will use is an Owner rig'n hook in size 2/0. The reasons are its the only offset hook that I have found will not catch grass where the hook comes out of the head of the worm, it has a short shank and wide gap so there is more worm trailing behind the hook for more action, it is a strong wire hook but still takes very little force to go deep into the jaw bone or mouth of a big fish because of the cutting point. On a size 1 or 1/0 I just miss to many hooksets on a trickworm so a 2/0 size is what I use.

I see a crawfish as an easy bait to catch and swallow. The bass can just swim up slowly and suck it in. no energy wasted chasing it around. I use jigs as well when the conditions are right for them. My fishing partner Doghouse got a 10lber yesterday on a jig.

I have caught spotted bass in 30 to 35 feet of water on it but that was before I learned dropshoting. I think a dropshot or jighead would be a better bait for water that deep. Also Most of the lakes I fish are shallow and around 35 feet deep at the deepest point so I spend almost all my time in less than 20 feet of water and 95% of that time I am less than fifteen feet deep.

I rig them two different ways. My favorite is on a splitshot rig with a 1/32 oz splitshot about one to two feet up 8lb line. I will fish this down to around ten feet. If I go deeper I use a 1/16 oz shot. It takes patience to fish it this deep and slow but it works for the bigger bass as well as smaller ones. The reason I fish this instead of a Carolina rig is because fish spend most of their time suspended near the bottom. The Carolina rig pulls the bait across the bottom under the fish while the splitshot rig comes off the bottom a little in the face of the fish and falls back slowly to the bottom making it an easier target for bigger fish. It also looks more natural. I use a jighead like a 1/16 to 1/8 Spotsticker or Spot Stalker rigged weedless on 10lb line the rest of the time. The reason for this instead of a Texas rig is that a light jighead with a trickworm when jiggled comes off the bottom in a horizonal posture and looks more natural as it moves off the bottom slowly in the face of big suspended fish. I have found that bigger fish in the lakes I fish , like to strike a bait at or above their level and almost never on the bottom so both of these work for me since they present the bait that way.

Musky Inovations makes a bullhead swimbait with a curl tail.

If you find one I may buy some from you. The biggest trickworm style worm I have found so far is eight inches.

GRASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Works year round and really helps the shallow bite during a hot summer day.

Again with a 10lb bass.

The King Kong with a 9lb 12oz bass.

Roadwarrior read this off another website I had posted on about the size of baits and type of retrieves used to catch big bass. He asked me to post it here. so here it is. Should make a good topic for discussion. Big bass are not the most aggressive or the ones who eat the most. They are the most efficient. As they become older they become even more efficient at what they do. This is how they reach trophy size. They feed under optimum conditions and don't waste energy chasing around bait or swimming long distances to find or catch food. They develop a home range that fills all their needs and live in it without waste of energy. They live on the best structure in the area and the best areas that fill all of their needs. They even move around in a predictable manner taking the best routes from place to place. They even feed on the type of forage that gives them the biggest meal for the least amount of effort. Most of my big fish over ten pounds have been caught on trickworms fished slowly in areas where the structure and area was idea for them to live with out expending a lot of energy to live. I have caught ten pounders on a bunch of different baits but the times I caught them on power baits I feel I hit them in the head with it and got a reaction strike where they moved a few inches up to a couple of feet to strike. The key to keep in mind is that big bass want the biggest meal for the energy expended. That doesn't always mean the biggest bait they can get in their mouth since catching, holding and swallowing a big bait may take more effort from the bass than catching two smaller baits half the size of the big bait. Another thing I have noticed where I live is that big bass have learned to target a soft spined easy to swallow big baitfish like a gizzard shad even though they could also eat bluegill in the same area. I think they have learned that a gizzard shad is easier to catch and swallow than a bluegill. I see many more smaller bass seven pounds and under targeting the bluegill and shad equaly. I also think this is the reason big trout swimbaits work so well out in California for the giant bass. Here in Georgia where I live swimbaits that match the size, profile and swimming action of a gizzard shad work better than the big trout swimbaits even though the trout swimbaits are bigger and the bass are big enough to eat them. I feel the big bass here are more conditoned to eating a four to eight inch bait since that is what they are feeding on most of the time while anything over eight inches resembles something that would take too much effort to swallow since that is true from the experience of the fish since most fish over eight inches are another bony spiny fish that is hard to swallow and catch. If we started stocking easy to catch and swallow 12 inch trout in the same lakes down here the bass would probably start to prefer a 10 to 12 inch swimbait instead of the smaller four to eight inch bait. This is what I have learned while catching big bass in Georgia on Lake Varner which I consider Georgia's best public big bass lake and one of the best in the country. To apply it to NY or anywhere else in the country I think the same principles would apply but the forage and size of baits may change a little depending on what the bass have become conditioned to in that specific body of water.

Thats called a Water Gremlin Bull Shot. Its just a pinch on splitshot shaped like a bullet sinker.

Randall, I'd be interested in buying one of those from you if you make any more. The action of that bait is absolutely awesome! I kept waiting for a hog to explode on that bait during the whole video! Have you thought about adding some weight to make it go a little deeper? The way it is now would probably trigger some killer topwater strikes! I have made a slow sinker as well as the floater in the video. I am working on a fast sinker but it presents a few challenges so far and I am about to run out of free time with spring coming up. I think my slow sinker will run around four to five feet on a slow steady retrieve and will probably be the one I use most.