Swimbait beginner

[Brian4618]

I have been looking into buying a few hard body swimbaits for the upcoming fall and spring fishing season and was looking for some suggestions on a few baits to start out with. Unfortunately, I have a couple conditions. I dont already have a rod or reel for the massive 8 inch lures nor do I want to dedicate that much money on a setup that will pretty much only do well with the big swimbaits. Before I do that, I would like to test the waters with a couple smaller baits on some setups I already have.

Im looking for a couple baits that I can hopefully get under $25 just to see how I like it, how well it produces, and if I want to dedicate a new setup to fish swimbaits more effectively. I was looking at the Spro BBZ-1, Strike King Shad series, Koppers, and the Sebile's.

If you have any other bait suggestions please add your input and reasons why. I plan on using these baits on a 7' medium heavy rod with 50lb braid if that helps any. Thank you, Brian.

[coyotebass]

check out the H20 jointed swimbaits at Academy. good price, good bait. a step up from them Id go with the Strike King, (wake, wake jr, king shad)

castem out and reel em in. good baits. Ive had more luck with the smaller ones.

[Brian4618]

check out the H20 jointed swimbaits at Academy. good price, good bait. a step up from them Id go with the Strike King, (wake, wake jr, king shad)

castem out and reel em in. good baits. Ive had more luck with the smaller ones.

How is the quality of these baits? I dont want to buy the best, but I also dont want to waste money on a poor quality bait?

Also, can anyone give any input on the Tru-Tungsten Matt & Ish Tru-Life Swimbaits?

[Vinny Chase]

check out the H20 jointed swimbaits at Academy. good price, good bait. a step up from them Id go with the Strike King, (wake, wake jr, king shad)

castem out and reel em in. good baits. Ive had more luck with the smaller ones.

How is the quality of these baits? I dont want to buy the best, but I also dont want to waste money on a poor quality bait?

Also, can anyone give any input on the Tru-Tungsten Matt & Ish Tru-Life Swimbaits?

Just my input i wouldnt go with the SK....IMO they dont have much action at all compared to other swimbaits bc they only have one joint in the middle.

[SPEEDBEAD.]

check out the H20 jointed swimbaits at Academy. good price, good bait. a step up from them Id go with the Strike King, (wake, wake jr, king shad)

castem out and reel em in. good baits. Ive had more luck with the smaller ones.

How is the quality of these baits? I dont want to buy the best, but I also dont want to waste money on a poor quality bait?

Also, can anyone give any input on the Tru-Tungsten Matt & Ish Tru-Life Swimbaits?

I had good luck with the TT 5" this year.  My first choice for a hard bluegill is always a Mattlures. When a smaller profile BG bait is needed, the TT gets the nod.

I will warn you, the TT bait gets chipped easily. I have touched mine up with a black sharpie on the bluegill pattern.

If at all possible, save your nickels and buy a Mattlures Hardgill before next spring. You will not regret it. If you get it and don't like it, someone will buy it in the flea market.

Promise.   

[Brian4618]

Just bought a 4" and 5" Tru-Tungsten swimbait from ***, they are 60% off! at $12 each, I figured my pocket wouldnt hurt to bad if they arent what I hope for.

[gobig]

Hard to beat a 6 in BBZ1 in that price range. The other thing to do is search the buy and sell sections (some of the west coast driven websites have way more used swimbaits for sale) and ebay for used baits. A lot of times you can get some good quality baits for a fraction of the cost. Like speedbead mentioned if you buy good baits and you find out swimbaiting is not for you. You can offload good baits pretty easy and recoup some of your money. Hard to get rid of the cheap ones. Might have to use them as Christmas ornaments.

My other suggestion to you is if you are going to be throwing those tru-tungstens on braid. You might want to add a mono leader. When I use braid for swimbaits I go no less than 65 lb. Preferably 75 lbs. The lightest I would go on the mono leader is 20 lbs. I been using an Alberto knot to join leaders for a few years now with no failures.

[Hammer 4]

I agree with gobig..good advice. As far as the H20 baits are concerned, they swim pretty good, and do catch fish. My only complaint with them is, they sink very fast, in shallow water with lots of weeds, it's not a good way to go imho. Stick with the talapia, and or bluegill patterns..

Swimbaiting is addictive, so beware.. 8-)

[Big Bait Fishing]

i give a second nod on the 6" bbz , get the floater and fish it in relatively shallow water . the floater actually suspends 3-6" below the surface and still throws a little surface wake . in my opinion , this little bait is the best 6" and under swimbait for 20 bucks !! 

[HopelesslyAddicted]

Another vote for the BBZ.  It caught me my PB in my home state.

It is also excellent for the beginner because of the low price and you would really have to try hard to fish it wrong!  Just pick the biggest size BBZ that your current gear can handle.

[Mr.Sheephead]

cabelas has some cabelas brand hard swimbaits that are pretty good. I have the BBZ-1 cabelas version and i will say that it works, looks, and fished just like the BBZ but its half the price so i save about 12 bucks there, cabelas also has a seible magic swimmer look alike. Strike king has the King kong, king, and baby king shad swimbaits though they are more like cranks. look on *** and find some swimbaits that meets the size you want and find some cheap ones..... go cheap since your trying it out and not getting into it right away. Cheap ones exspensive ones they all work the same only dif is exspensive just has better color or better hardware in the lure. Swimbaits i hear are mainly spring/fall lures and they will catch you some big bass! the bigger swimbait the bigger the bass

[Brian4618]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Like I said before, I got a couple TT swimbaits because of the 60% off sale, I got the slow/fast sinking model in a 4inch bluegill pattern and a 5inch blue back herring pattern. When they come in, ill let you guys no how I do. I will probably move up to a better quality bait after this season if swimbaits work out, again, thanks for the suggestions.

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[gobig]

They work. One thing to remember is vary your retrieve. Mix it up, twitch it, burn it, pause it, dead stick it, walk it just play around with it. Your learning a new bait. If all you do is slow roll those baits your going to miss out on a lot of action.

[Micro]

The Koppers Blueback Herring is nice but beware it sinks pretty fast and sinks nose first.  The Sebile Magic Swimmer is a good bait and I have a few of those.  I've caught a decent number of fish on them.  There are slow sinking and fast sinking models.  They sink horizontally.

[Big Bait Fishing]

They work. One thing to remember is vary your retrieve. Mix it up, twitch it, burn it, pause it, dead stick it, walk it just play around with it. Your learning a new bait. If all you do is slow roll those baits your going to miss out on a lot of action.

seems like i recently heard someone say that somewhere  :-?

[Senkoman12]

i have a few bps z9r swimbauts. i got the 7in, 4in, and 4in billed. for yhe the money you cant beat them. $15 for the 7in though i got mine for $8 and $10 for the 4in and billed version. they have good action in the water. i havnt caught anything on my 7in becasue i dont have a rod heavy enough to throw but will next spring