Anthony Gooch

Both baits have there time and place. I love the Hudd68's but I'm starting to love this bait as well. The Hudd68 will swim in a straight line with a decent amount of water being moved by the tail thumping, and a little bit of top to bottom body roll, if that makes any sense . The Line thru will swim in a strait line with a tight S pattern swim style, similar to that of other multi jointed swimbaits. It has a lot more of a side to side wobble as compared to the top to bottom body roll of a Hudd68. It seems to have a tightER s pattern swim style as you increase retrieval speed. One thing I noticed when experimenting with the Line Thru is that when I would burn it and then give it a firm twitch and a momentary pause the bait would dart and roll either downwards or upwards, it seemed to be a little different every time I tried. This has me excited because it looks like a frightened and fleeing stocker trout. That type of retrieve will also do well in clear water lakes when you have a follower that isn't willing to commit right away, sometimes you really have to entice them to strike. Hope this helps answer your question a little!

There are a lot of good lakes to try out down here. It depends on whether you have a boat or will be fishing from shore. From shore my main picks at the moment would be Morena, Poway, Cuyamaca. Murray has a great topwater/reaction bite in the very early hours of the morning or right before close... but it's not a viable option as of right now during most hours of the day because the fish are going deep and into the Tulles. From a boat my main picks at this moment would be El Cap by far, Lower Otay, Dixon, hodges, miramar. Check out www.sdfish.com The freshwater reports can get quiet a little from time to time, but it's probably one of the best places to get up to date information and reports about the lakes down here.

Hadn't given this swimbait a try yet, so I picked myself up a couple in the Slow Sink model about two weeks ago from East County Bait and Tackle in Lakeside, California. I hadn't heard a whole lot about them, and at first glance I was kind of skeptical on how they looked; mainly because I was worried about their durability. Upon first taking these out of the package and checking them out, my opinion started to change. They are very well put together for a soft plastic bait, especially for under $20!!! Took them out that next day after purchasing them and in the first 30 seconds of use my worries went away and I started to become very confident with this bait. The action is absolutely killer! I didn't realize how realistic/versatile this bait is in the water, I'm hooked! This bait can do it all. From a moderate slow roll, to pausing it to create a subtle and enticing glide, to burning it and ripping it to mimic a panicked trout fleeing for it's life. Had a few big females slam the slow sink that day but they kept missing the front of the bait ... Bummer. However, about 5 minutes into using this bait I was working a long cast back from the bottom of the lake in about 20 feet of water. I would give 5-10 turns of the handle at various speeds and then pause it for a few seconds to let it glide back down near the bottom. When I was about 15ft. out I did the same thing because I knew it would glide right next to this rockpile that was there. As soon it glided next to the rockpile I feel a tick and swing. I thought I had a new lake record Largemouth for about 10 seconds as I cranked this fish up to the surface. Little did I know, that when the fish reached the surface about 5 feet from shore, I was in for a big surprise... I didn't have an upper teen sized largemouth on... I had a 30+lb channel cat on!! Sadly the big cat made it's first roll there at the surface, and the bait came flying back at me, but it was a great adrenaline rush to start my morning. Not to mention I got some good footage on the GoPro of me jumping up and down yelling some not so nice words when the fish popped off haha. All in all no victims fell to the line thru that day after that, but I gained a lot of confidence in this bait because of that incident. I had another oppurtunity to get back out to that lake and throw the Line Thru earlier this week, but the water was way down, and the algae was blooming strong. I fished it hard for hours varying retrieves with no luck; the conditions just weren't there. Then around the time I was getting ready to leave I made a cast off a rocky point and worked the bait back slow with a stop and go retrieve to keep it down near the rocks, and finally I felt a thump. I swung hard on this fish and started cranking so fast that the fish nearly flew out of the water, I wasn't going to risk losing another monster if I came down to it! Sadly this fish was not anywhere near the size range I was going for, but nonetheless I was rewarded with a catch for my efforts. Even though this fish was only a couple pounds, It goes to show you that the Savage Gear Line Thru can entice fish of all magnitudes, whether it's a hungry 30lb Channel Cat, or an agressive 2lb Largemouth. I've seen some good things with this bait after only fishing it twice, I'll have to get myself a fast sink model as well sometime soon... I am beyond excited to take this baby out on a trout stock day this winter here in Southern California and tear up some teen sized Largemouths! Thank you Savage Gear for such a high quality, and extremely affordable swimbait. Those of you who haven't given one a toss yet, get on it!

Went out with a buddy last week on El Cap here in San Diego. Was a fun and relaxing day on the water. I spent most of the day messing with my new GoPro so the big fish honors went to my buddy that day, but all in all I had a blast and came away with some cool footage. This is my 2nd attempt at editing a video, I hope you all enjoy! Watch in 1080p for the best quality.

I haven't been in a couple months now. Swimbaits are definitely a good bet. Rainbow trout imitators, panfish imitators, and shad imitators should all produce. 90% of the fish are dealing with post spawn hunger so they should be getting more aggressive and transitioning a little more from eating trout, to eating shad and bluegill. Pay attention to the shallows when you first get there and take a good look around, if you see shad/bluegill moving up in the shallows then that will be your best bet for throwing swimbaits, over a rainbow trout color. The lake has a steep shoreline and drops off quickly, so don't focus too much on throwing swimbaits in the shallows if you aren't getting bit. Switch over to dropshot and texas rig if the weeds/algae aren't blooming too badly, and if they are blooming pretty badly throw weedless jerkbaits; such as, senkos and flukes and let them them sink down deep before you start working them in towards the shore. Good luck! I'll have to get back up there sometime soon myself. Let me know how you do!

Thanks everyone, glad to be here! PersicoTrotaVA... Yes, very much so! Big bass heaven year round where I live

Thanks Guys! Speed craw, I edited the post to show the line type and size I used for each of those fish above the pictures. Hi Salenity, the Megabass I-Slide has only had one production run in Japan so far. It's pretty much sold out in all of the Japanese retailers stores... but check eBay and Amazon; I keep seeing a few here and there popping up for sale on eBay. lmbfisherman, don't get any wrong ideas... dropshot only catches dinks

Thanks!