Swimbaits Part 6: They Work

When we started this website the goal was to teach anglers everywhere how to catch more and bigger fish. My fear is that we are slowly getting off track. I don’t want this site to be about giant bass on the West coast. I want it to be about big fish (whatever that means to you) in whatever place you happen to be from. I firmly believe that the concepts taught here will apply to you, no matter where you are. I do however understand that to many anglers some of these principles seem far fetched.

I too started out with very little confidence in myself and even less confidence in giant baits. And perhaps you’re right, you may be from one of the few lakes where swimbaits just don’t seem to work like they should. However, it is much more likely that after you commit the time and figure out what you can do to tweak these techniques, that you will catch better quality fish more often.

This is a short clip geared toward reminding you that swimbaits work on “ordinary” fish too. Its not all about giant bass, its just about catching quality. On a day when I was catching 1-2 lb fish I was able to catch a little better fish by increasing the size of my bait. No matter where you live there is a bass in the lake capable of fitting a swimbait in its mouth. Notice also that this fish was caught with just the stock hook. No added hooks were needed to hook the fish. When a bass is in the mood to feed, nothing is going to stop it from getting at its prey.


I’d love to hear some stories from other anglers. I get quite a few emails, private messages, and calls from guys around the country telling me about the fish they’re catching on swimbaits. Its time to give back and share a little, encourage some of the other anglers that read the site that haven’t experienced your level of success yet. I don’t care if its an 8 lber or a 2 lber, let’s hear about it.

Simple Swimbait Modifications

You don’t have to spend more than a couple days on Clearlake (or most other lakes) in the Spring to realize that, 1) you should be wearing a hard hat while you fish with as close together as all the boats get. 2) that the fish are beginning to see TONS of swimbaits. And 3) that you need to do something to stand out from the crowd. There are all sorts of modifications you can make to a bait but here are a couple simple ones that can be completed in a matter of minutes to make your bait unique. This video shows how to add gills and front fins to a Huddleston Deluxe 8″ trout but it can be applied to any swimbait to help you get more bites, even under pressured conditions.

Would you like to see other modifications? Let me know via the contact page or comments  and I’ll get the camera rolling. Enjoy!