When and where do you throw swim baits? Spring, Summer, Fall or all year. Do you throw them around docks over brush piles, what are the best places?
When and where do you throw swim baits? Spring, Summer, Fall or all year. Do you throw them around docks over brush piles, what are the best places?
Year round. Flats for me this time of year. Low light will always get more bites.
All year and everywhere. Match your depth of presentation to what you would normally throw in an area.
Docks and laydowns you're usually throwing something up in the water column so a lighter weight on a swimbait or slow fall on a glide.
Fishing rock piles, points, ledges etc where you'd grid a crank or drag a worm, go for a heavier weight on the swimbait and a fast sink glide to keep your bait on the bottom.
Caught 18lbs 10oz in two casts yesterday bringing a swimbait over the top of a brush pile. Most of the time I'm throwing one over/through grass but if you can work one through brush without getting hung up they can draw out some big ones. They are extremely versatile with the numerous sizes, rigging options and places to throw them.
All year. Just like you can catch fish on a jig all year, you just use different jigs for different situations. Same thing applies with swimbaits and glide baits. Glide baits are a spring through fall thing. Swimbaits can be all winter (unless the water freezes). Swimbaits encompass everything from 2.8" keitechs up to 8" Hudds for me.
2001 Champion 187 Yamaha 175
12' Talons, Lithiums and Garmins
All pulled by a Hemi
All year for swimbait and anywhere I can throw it. Glides spring and fall.
Y’all just slow rolling swimbaits?
Sapphire Blue/Black Bottom Vexus AVX 1980, Mercury 150 Pro XS
Bigger swimbaits like a magdraft have a speed their action is best so on those a slow roll is pretty much only option. The big tail will make them roll. You can kill them for a split second to draw a strike.Originally Posted by Cbump
Smaller swimbaits like a keitech you can move pretty quickly to get reaction strikes. Just not too fast as they'll roll on their side also
What size is popular now? Most lakes that I fish 4.5" is about the largest I can throw.
It depends on the size of bait fish in your waters. Generally for me I like to go a touch bigger than what the bass are feeding on. Especially this time of year with schools of fish. My thought is if I match the 1000 3.5" threadfin swimming by they see 1001 options. If I throw a 5" swimbait it sticks out in the crowd.
You can still get bit on big stuff on lakes where you shouldn't be able to. There's a lake just down the road from the house that the average size bass is under 2lbs and doesn't have any big bait fish in it. I still catch fish on an 8" glide occasionally. Sometimes the fish is barely bigger than the bait.
I wouldn't recommend spending big money on big baits if you don't have big bait fish in your water though
There is a guy that used to post his big bait catches on Ctfisherman.com. He wouldnt give location information but did disclose he targeted lakes with certain sized trout holdovers from the stocking program.
I'm attempting to fit some swimbaits: RAID Japan, O.S.P, Gan Craft, hard plastics and soft plastic.
Reply With Quote