Thanks

[Chaz Hickcox]

So I have posted a few times in the past trying to learn the ways of soft plastics.  I read a lot of what was said and had yet to have a day to apply it.  I tend to stick with things that work for me and leave the rest alone.  Well today at the marina the guy said the bite was on soft plastics all over.  I had a friend of mine with me, and I figured I'd use him as a guinea pig for soft plastics to get my confidence going.  So I t-rigged a zoom pumpkin and chart speedworm and made a cast to show ol' boy what to do.  I cast out about a foot from the shore, explaining what I have read while I was doing it.  I let the zoom sink to the bottom, waited, zipped the bait about 2ft along the bottom, waited, twitched, got thumped, waited 1-2-3, SET and wham 2lber in the boat.  Of course my friend was sure that I was an expert in such things because of this, and the t-rig was the call for the day with all the fish in the boat off of it.  So, apparently some of y'all know what you are talking about.  As I am new to soft plastics I will be asking a lot more questions.  I can answer anything you want about topwater and swimbaits, but soft plastics and me are just starting to get a long. 

[619bassman]

sounds good man, being from cali (the land of light line and finesse presentation) plastics are what I learned to fish on. glad to here you had a good day on the water. keep up the good work, good luck

[Chaz Hickcox]

See that's weird because in Az an Cali I used, light line a must, but mainly swimbaits.  Stayed away from plastics.

[Dan:]

See that's weird because in Az an Cali I used, light line a must, but mainly swimbaits. Stayed away from plastics.

What's the point of using light line on swimbaits?

Plastics are critical for "target-oriented" fishing. You'll be able to get many more bites with subtle and vertical presentations now than before you used  plastics.

[Chaz Hickcox]

See that's weird because in Az an Cali I used, light line a must, but mainly swimbaits. Stayed away from plastics.

What's the point of using light line on swimbaits?

Gin Clear water with visibility of 40+ ft. Seriously in 20ft of water you can look down and see where the fish are suspending and where the shad are. It's insane. Especially in the middle of the day when the sun is high and the light goes all the way down.  Here's an example of Lake Havasu underwater.  It's more clear than a swimming pool.

[Dan:]

I always thought that line with reaction baits didn't make much difference, but how light of line can you even use with swimbaits? You still have to use line that is heavy enough for the lure, any downsizing you do is still going to be visible.

[Chaz Hickcox]

true enough, but I use smaller swimbaits like the Castaic Hard Hard headed originals or something not more that 4". Out there swimbaits aren't the reaction baits people think about. I have seen shad school with the baits and have watched bass be chasers all the time. At that point you cast past them and slow retrieve by them until they decide to eat. Swimbaits out west are not like the YUM Money minnow design, they look like the real thing. They have to otherwise the fish aren't fooled. You have to imagine the ultrarealistic swimbaits were created in California because nothing else was fooling the fish.  It started with the A/C Plug and evolved from there when the A/C plug just wasn't cutting it enough.  They weren't designed to be reaction baits.  They were designed to be 'living' baits.

Forgot line test, Havasu, Mead, and Powell when fishing for LMB or SMB for that matter you line cannot exceed 6lb test ultraclear mono or flouro. Braids are a dead givaway and cannot be used, unless for topwater where it doesn't matter. I spent 8 years with my heaviest line being 8lb test.

[Dan:]

oh, the "finesse" "swimbaits." I thought we were talking about "real" swimbaits, those big giant ones that require 20lb line.