Swimbait Advantage

[HLNichols]

I have fished since I could walk. I have used almost every lure/bait under the sun- that is, except for the swim bait. My question is, are swim baits a worthy investment? I really can't see much of a difference between swim baits and a jointed crank bait, despite the fact that one is rubber and one is plastic/wooden. Have I gone crazy by not using them, or am I not missing much? Does anybody out there use them as a go-to bait, like i do with soft plastics? If so, please enlighten me on techniques or any information, as to contribute to my barren, drought-ridden knowledge of swim baits. Thanks in advance. Any and all opinions, information, and/or facts are helpful.

Note: I have discovered that I have used swim baits on several occasions, unknowingly, as soft plastic. my mistake. This was ignorance on my part.

[outdoorsman110]

In my opinion, Swimbaits = Trophy Bass.

Huddleson Baits, LC Swimbaits, and Sebile are my favorite swimbait companies.

[WookieeJedi]

I'm not familiar with the Hudd baits, but just this past year, I bought two swimbaits. I got a Jackall Giron minnow and a Cabela's SS4 shad. I have only used the Giron so far, and it has caught some nice fish. It looks just like a bluegill in the water. I got the SS4 mainly to use on stripers, but I have my doubts about how it will handle more than one 15 pound fish. I suppose I will just have to see for myself, I bought it with club points anyway.

[North Ga Hillbilly]

Dont think swimbaits limit you to a few bites, I got 20 fish in 2 hours on the weedless hudd this day, none over 2#

NGaHB

[Bluebasser86]

Swimbaits don't nessasarily equal big baits either. If you don't want to jump straight into bigger baits get something like a 4" weedless Hudd. Everything from 10 inchers to 10 pounders can eat them. I fish a 5" Decoy Hydratail quite a bit and after you see enough 12 inchers inhale it so deeply you can't see the bait sticking out of their mouths anymore you realize they really aren't that big of a bait. I'm convinced that some of the fish I catch on swimbaits will not respond to any other bait. Part of my reasoning in this is that I fish some lakes that get tons of pressure. Every fish I catch on a jig, crankbait, plastic has a mouth that is all torn up from hooks. If I fish the same lake with a swimbait though I catch lots of fish that seem to have not a single hook mark anywhere. There is something about the subtle action of a swimbait that just drives fish crazy at times.

As far as being like a jointed crankbait, not even close. Crankbaits have a very mechanical swimming motion where the whole body of the bait moves. Most soft swimbaits only the tail moves very subtly side to side, just like a real fishes tail. You should at least give it a try. It doesn't require specialized tackle or a ton of baits. A couple plastic baits in natural colors and just toss them on a heavier rod like a flipping stick. If you decide it's something you like you can buy more specialized gear later.

[North Ga Hillbilly]

I fish a 5" Decoy Hydratail quite a bit and after you see enough 12 inchers inhale it so deeply you can't see the bait sticking out of their mouths anymore you realize they really aren't that big of a bait.

Cool to hear about the decoys, I've been thinking about getting a few for a while

NGaHB

[HLNichols]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. Now I know exactly which ones to purchase and keep in the box. Any particular retrieval? I figure the name implies: "swim". Also, are these seasonal baits, or do they work pretty much all year?

[flippin and pitchin]

Let me make a suggestion. The best place to start is at the beginning. Swimbaits at a catagory will drive you nuts. Get a couple packs 4.5 inch hollow body or soft body baits. Get some 1/8,3/16 OZ weighted wide gap hooks in 4/0 and some 3/8 ounce scrounger heads and fish them around everything you would a spinnerbait or crankbait. You will get bit. Then expand on those baits with larger baits like Hudds and so on. As you develope confidence and will figure out those scenarios and applications for different baits and get a feel for what will work.

[WookieeJedi]

Thanks, I have been using the Giron as a slower moving version of a jerkbait. It swims nicely on a slow, steady retrieve, so it does stand to reason that it will work just like a shallow crank as well. While I was putting my boxes back together last night, I noticed that I had bought some Storm swimbaits. I had them in with some other soft plastics I use primarily on stripers. I think I got them out of a discount bin at Gander. One is a pretty big minnow-type with a treble dangling from it's belly, and the others are rainbow trout imitations in 3" and 5" sizes. I think I'm going to give them a shot on LM, or maybe use the SS4 on LM and let the stipers destroy the soft baits.

[smalljaw67]

I have success with swimbaits from 3.5" to 5" and I have a few different versions I'll share with you. Here is what works for me, first is the rigged plastic swimbait, the one that works for me is the Storm Swim Shad, it is 4" and weighs 1/2oz, the reason it works is you can reel it slow and the tail will still kick and the only way I've caught fish with it is by reeling it super slow. For the unrigged solid plastic swimbait it is the 3.75" Lunker City Swim Fish, there are various ways to rig it but so far the most productive for me has been a 1/4oz round head jig and again, the bait is worked slow. For Hollow body baits the 3.5" and the 4.5" Luck-E-Strike Bass Magic swim baits have been the ticket, I use a weighted hook for fishing in 5' of water or less and I use a jighead in water deeper than 5'. The hard swimbaits haven't got too many fish for me but they seem to attract bigger fish, so far the Storm Kickin Stick and Sebile Magic swimmer have been the best, the Storm is a 5" bait and the magic swimmer is the 4" model.

[deep]

I'm looking at the baits I throw as I'm typing this..

I see about four 8" hudds (different colors and sink rates), a couple of weedless hudds, three Mattlures, couple of Ospreys, a real prey baby bass and a real prey trout.

Moving on to the hard baits, I see more Mattlures, two Slammers, one Rago, and a triple trout.

These are the baits that I regularly fish, day in and day out, Got more stuff new in pack, mostly softbaits. Unless it's a bluegill bait, I rarely throw anything smaller than 8" anymore.

P.S. Got a Tsunaga coming. Cool stuff.

P.P.S. Matt makes some really cool baits, and is a very helpful guy if you want to learn the sport of swimbaiting,

[catchnm]

Swimbaits......been fishing them for years now......mine are called Sassy Shads.

[RyneB]

I throw a 4 inch shadalicious all the time and it gets me more bites than most baits. I love it, i throw it in weeds, rip rap, timber. Its my favorite bait.

[logan9209]

Storm makes a Wild Eye bluegill and crappie. The half ounce has a belly treble and a 4/0? on the top. The quarter ounces have just the hook on top. I got the crappie version because the very first bass I "caught" was one that I pulled up from the bank by hand. You read right. He had a crappie caught diagonally in his mouth whose head was in the bass' gill plate. It could swim and was upside down, the bass I mean. Once I took the crappie out it swam away fine.

But back to the point. I have caught a couple of bass on it. At first I thought there was something wrong with it because at certain speeds it would try to swim side ways. Apparently this did it for the bass because that's how I caught them. I did take off the treble, though, because my lake is mostly shallow and the weeds grow pretty high. I may regret doing that one day.

You get 2-3 in a pack for around $5. There are better brands out there but not for my budget.