Cabelas Realimage Fork Tailed Swimbaits

[gunsndrums1]

Bought 2 real image swimbaits off of cabelas. They came in today, does anyone have experience fishing these? Seem to best most affordable swimbait, only about $5 each. Both in pumpkinseed color

[smalljaw67]

I have used the Sebile Magic Swimmer along with the Storm Kickin' Stick and the Storm Swimmin' Stick and I put those in the same category as the bait you just purchased. I didn't have any luck with these when I first got them, I could not figure out why I wasn't catching anything, they looked awesome in the water. Well I put them away and figured I'd never use them but then I read an article about using a magic swimmer at times when a jerkbait would work, so I began treating these as jerkbaits and I began having success. After I caught some fish I was able to put some things together and I'll share that with you. The first thing is water clarity, I was able to catch fish in stained water as well as clear but the best fishing was 3'+ of visibility, the worst fishing was less than a foot of visibility. The second is water temperature, I use suspending jerkbaits until we hit the "sweet spot" 55 degrees up to 62 or just before the fish go on beds, I found that 58 degrees seems to be when the most fish have been caught but the largest was caught at 56 degrees. The thing that worked was a slow steady retrieve, and during that retrieve if I didn't get a strike by the half way point in my retrieve I would give the rod a little jerk and quickly throw slack in my line, it would cause the bait to suddenly lunge forward and if you throw slack in your line just right, the bait will turn sideways, some will do almost a 180 but sideways is good enough. That quick movement with the change in direction has caused the majority of my strikes, I didn't even know a fish was tracking it and I'd give it that little pop and then slack and WHAM!!!! I can't tell you about the bait you have as I never used it but I did see it and the tactics I laid out should work well with that particular bait.

[a1712]

I give them to a few kids I take out and they catch fish. The short stocky one casts much better than the long thin one. I have a case beer box completely full of them. When they need replacements, I give them a few. They look fantastic swimming. Brian.

[gunsndrums1]

I have used the Sebile Magic Swimmer along with the Storm Kickin' Stick and the Storm Swimmin' Stick and I put those in the same category as the bait you just purchased. I didn't have any luck with these when I first got them, I could not figure out why I wasn't catching anything, they looked awesome in the water. Well I put them away and figured I'd never use them but then I read an article about using a magic swimmer at times when a jerkbait would work, so I began treating these as jerkbaits and I began having success. After I caught some fish I was able to put some things together and I'll share that with you. The first thing is water clarity, I was able to catch fish in stained water as well as clear but the best fishing was 3'+ of visibility, the worst fishing was less than a foot of visibility. The second is water temperature, I use suspending jerkbaits until we hit the "sweet spot" 55 degrees up to 62 or just before the fish go on beds, I found that 58 degrees seems to be when the most fish have been caught but the largest was caught at 56 degrees. The thing that worked was a slow steady retrieve, and during that retrieve if I didn't get a strike by the half way point in my retrieve I would give the rod a little jerk and quickly throw slack in my line, it would cause the bait to suddenly lunge forward and if you throw slack in your line just right, the bait will turn sideways, some will do almost a 180 but sideways is good enough. That quick movement with the change in direction has caused the majority of my strikes, I didn't even know a fish was tracking it and I'd give it that little pop and then slack and WHAM!!!! I can't tell you about the bait you have as I never used it but I did see it and the tactics I laid out should work well with that particular bait.

very detailed thanks. reading up these are good for big prespawn females when you fish in deep water that is next to shallow water. (a cove) This is the main reason why i bought them, and bigger is better in prespawn. all the bass  want to do is EAT