Steve Kennedy Swimbait Jighead

[Mattbassmaster]

Has anyone figured out the Swimbait? sliding jighead line thru deal Steve throws everytime he is Smallmouth fishing up in new york?
He rigs his bait line thru with a treble by threading with A needle but I haven't figured out the jighead hes using. Any ideas?

[DrewFlu33]

Knowing Steve and how his mind works, I'd bet a fair sum it's one he makes himself or his dad makes it for him. He's an engineer by trade and a tinkerer at heart and both he and his dad have an insane amount of talent for things like that. He's on BBC, maybe he'll see your post and chime in!

For what it's worth, I've used long aluminum pop rivets with the shank pulled out to make a channel to run a line through a fluke from the nose to the belly slit before so I could use a treble hook for short striking smallies in open water. Just put the small end of of the rivet in the nose and angle it toward and out the belly slit. Then I used a "rigging needle" that guys use for rigging up dead bait to look natural and threaded the line in that way. Once you run the needle through a time or three to ream out the plastic in the middle of the rivet you can easily thread the line through without the needle; you could probably even use the shank from the rivet to ream it out.

I think I got the tip from Ott DeFoe's win in LaCrosse 3 years back or so. If you did that and ran the line through you could put a bullet weight or some other weight on the line before tying on the treble hook or whatever hook you want to use then rig it up how you like with some glue or even pinning it in place with the hook. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it might be something to mess around with. The only cost would be a small pack of rivets to experiment.

[Jesse-C]

I thought I heard them say it was a keitech that he threaded thru.

[krindgen]

In a pinch you kin use a plastic straw or coffee stirrer for the "thru" part. I worry about the rivet collar breaking line? I can see using like a punch rig weight on the nose with a piece of tubing on the back.

[DrewFlu33]

In a pinch you kin use a plastic straw or coffee stirrer for the "thru" part. I worry about the rivet collar breaking line? I can see using like a punch rig weight on the nose with a piece of tubing on the back.

Rivet collars have been good in my experience, but that's definitely a valid concern! I've not had that issue, but also haven't done it a whole lot. Not the same thing obviously, but the punch skirts I use from ACT Lures I'm fairly confident are tied around a (short) aluminum rivet. I do use those a lot and have never had them fray my line for what that's worth. I've probably gone through 25 or 30 of them over the last 3 years since I started using them.

The straw is a good idea, especially for softer stuff. Definitely wouldn't have to worry about that fraying the line, and wouldn't add weight if that's a concern.