Randall

They bloomed here and two days later cold in the upper 30's and rain. :'( Won't be long now though.

Thats what I spend most all of my time doing in summer/ fall once hydrilla gets up. Theres plenty of swimbaits that will work. Just need a bait that sinks slow enough that it will not hang up before you start your retreive. The bait will also have to hold up to the hydrilla once a fish gets down in it. If the bait has any breakage problems (weak hooks, rings, or construction) at all don't get it or you will lose fish on it and break the bait. Theres a ton of baits out there that will break trying to get a fish out of hydrilla. Also look for baits that don't roll over at the surface at high speeds. Hydrilla flats can be covered better at times with fast swimbaits and all day topwater strikes are common in summer as fast as you could ever reel the swimbait. Once the grass gets to the surface and treble hook and top hook baits are hanging up go to baits like the hollow body swimbaits, Mission fish, weedless Hudds/ Grass minnows and the Lake Fork weedless swimbaits. I don't go to them first because of the hookup ratios are not as good but somtimes when the stuff gets thick you have no choice.

I would never have used that line for fishing the way you were. Soft mono nicks too easy on the bottom and comes back on the hookset way too often without the bait. If I feel I need line that light it will be a good fluro because of the durability of the line. Most of the time I use 20-25 lb fluro for that style of fishing and it's very rare that I break off on the hookset swimbait fishing. If I use mono it will be 25lb test.

I was at a lake a long time ago probably 20 years ago and saw who I was pretty sure was David Fritts from a distance putting a boat in. When I pulled up next to the truck in the parking lot later there was a bunch of cranks hanging in the sun in his truck to fade the finish. I assume thats where it started with dulled and flat finishes since people had told me he did it to dull the finish later. I don't know if it works but I was sure he wouldn't go to all that trouble to hang them in a truck if he wasn't convinced it did something.

You might not want to hear it but slow roll trout swimbaits around the deepedges of that grass on good structure with deepwater nearby. Throw the bait out beyond the grass to the deepwater and slow roll the bait back into where the grass ends or bring the cast right down the outside edges. The outside edges of the grass near dropoffs into deep water will almost always be the key to catching the big fish in a lake like that.

Most of the time I use wire and crimps the same way Butch does in the video. Only difference is I use saltwater live bait hooks instead of the treble hook and my wire is usually a little longer. If I fish it at the surface I will use the bottom treble.

For colors just try to match the forage in the lakes you fish the best you can. My favorite is a rof 5 since I fish them very slow and in less than 15 feet of water most of the time. It also falls level instead of nose first and looks more natural on the fall. I usually try to chose the bait that is the lightest bait I can get down and keep down in the depth I am fishing.

Nice fish Paul. I have been chasing a few white fish myself this year. Happy New Year!

I think he cut the head off and stuck a rattle trap up in it.

The fins are made of resin and unless Rago does something different to the resin in the fins than the resin in the rest of the body the fins should float. So the bait might sink a tiny bit faster after a fin is removed but taking one off would actually have the opposite effect from what you are thinking. I have taken the fins off other Rago baits before with no problems.

For me personally. I would use a dremel tool and take the bottom fins off. Then put a coat of Devcon 2ton 30 min where the fins came off.

I heat up something metal like a knife and use it to melt the plastic on the underside of the bill in a straight line where I want the bend.

This past year I decided to use two baits that suit the way I like to fish and my strengths and have fewer lures rods etc in the boat. I don't even know what the third bait would be because two lures caught 90% of my fish. Those two were a swimbait and a straight tail worm. I filled in with other lures when need came to fish other lures but still cut the number of those other lures that I would carry. Most of the time I had everything I needed in one large clear flat tackle box. I spent much more time using my electronics looking for fish that would bite the way I wanted to fish and quit fishing for those that didn't. End result was more big fish caught including a huge fish right at 16lbs. More three pound plus fish and an average fish that was probably running around four pounds per fish. Funny thing was I did this fishing about 1/4 of the number of days I usually fish with just two baits. I think I learned something to apply to 2011.

Randall, how do you go about matching the size of the larger forage? I know there will be some jumbo bluegills (I am talking 10" or more). So I guess there will be a lot of little 5-6 inchers. In addition, I will have crappies, stocked brook and rainbow trouts in the reservoir, and a bunch of small sub 1 lb bass. Unless I catch one of those big largemouths and go about feeling in her belly (like Iaconelli said in his book).... and even then I'm not sure how to tell a trout from a 'gill from a crappie from a bass. Best place to start would be finding out what size trout they stock. The stockers will be the easiest prey to eat if they are in the under 12 inch size when they are stocked. I am looking for the largest meal that is plentiful and easy for the bass to catch and swallow and usually stocker trout are the choice when they are there. It also wouldn't hurt to pay attention to the size of those small bass swimming around. If I see a lot of small 6 to 7 inch bass in a lake I try to match the smaller bass. But small bass are usually harder for a big bass to catch and eat when compared to a stocker trout that doesn't know that a big bass is going to make lunch out of him. Seeing alot of 10 inch bluegills also tells me that there are not as many smaller bluegills most of the time that a big bass would target more if they were there in larger numbers. Crappie don't usually make up a large part of the diet of a bass unless they are small Crappie and easy to target in one place like when they are on spawning beds. I pay close attention to whats going on in the water and what I see in the gullet of a bass. If I go to new lakes I even may sample the stomach contents of a fish to figure out what they are eating. From doing this I have learned alot of info about how fish in one lake may differ in diet from another or how the diet can change at different times of the year or year to year where I fish.

I am not in the North but you could catch a 5 to 6 pound bass on any size swimbait. I personally try to match the size of larger forage that fish I want to catch are mostly feeding on when going to bigger swimbaits. Most of the time for me that's a five or six inch bait but could be larger at times. On a five or six inch bait I catch mostly three to six pound fish in lakes that have them but still get big ones to sixteen pounds as well. It makes no sense to me personally to try to use an eight to ten inch bait if the fish rarely feed on bait that size in that particular lake. There are times when I will go up to ten inch or larger baits though like when large gizzard shad are spawning on the shoreline or large trout have been stocked in a lake. My advice is to try to match what the fish you want to catch are feeding on and don't get stuck on any size bait for any size fish.

There was a lipped rattletrap at one time. I believe it is discontinued though.

I often heat up bills and bend them downward to get a shallower running bait. I do it pretty often with the balsa shad raps to make a wake /jerkbait out of them. It's also an easy way to mess up a good bait. I have shortened a bill or two to make a crankbait run more like a jerkbait. It's a trail and error process though and every bait will be different as to what you can do with it.

Thanks for the comments. The hybrids don't have the jumping and shaking ability of a bass but they have speed and power in a straight line pull. They will come a long way to get a swimbait too which makes them fun to catch on swimbaits. We probably had the most fun with the spoon and dropshot fish on light line. As soon as the hook was set the drag was screaming.

At one time that was me. :-[ ;D Switching to fluro and braid and learning to use a sweep hookset most of the time took care of most problems. Better drags on spinning reels took care of the rest. Mono just wasn't abrasion resistant enough for me.

At one time that was me. :-[ ;D Switching to fluro and braid and learning to use a sweep hookset most of the time took care of most problems. Better drags on spinning reels took care of the rest. Mono just wasn't abrasion resistant enough for me.

At one time that was me. :-[ ;D Switching to fluro and braid and learning to use a sweep hookset most of the time took care of most problems. Better drags on spinning reels took care of the rest. Mono just wasn't abrasion resistant enough for me.

Went to a lake a little over a week ago only to find the gate closed to the ramp because of county employees at the lake needing to take a furlough day. :'( Drove over to the next county and found Lake Varner open and fish willing to open thier mouth. Lost count of the number of fish but here are the four largest. Three big hybrids between 7lb 8oz and nine pounds and a big bass. Two of the big hybrids hit a High Power Shad swimbait and one hit a lipless crank. The fish were caught anywhere from the surface all the way down to twenty five feet. We caught fish mostly on spoons, Red Rooster dropshot flies, lipless cranks, and swimbaits.

Nice to see you posting. Congrats on the fish!

Yes and this might help with just Seiji Kato's baits. http://www.seijilures.com/biography.html

Yes and this might help with just Seiji Kato's baits. http://www.seijilures.com/biography.html