There is a fine line between addiction and dedication. An intricate dance along the shared border of obsession and thoroughness. My love affair with big, West Coast, Cali style swimbaits began somewhere in the late 90s where I spent many hours fondling the dogeared pages of the numerous bass magazines stacked in my room as a teenage kid. The name
Castaic will always bring back fond memories of beautiful, giant baits that produced huge, sowbelly, bugg eyed bass. Look, I am a realist. I realize that locating fish is the name of the game here. Find the bass and then you can do serious damage with a drop shot, fishhead spin, or a well placed jig. I know a bunch of the O.G. Cali bassers did their damage fishing live craws. Yes, I know that tons of big bass are busted on drop shot, 4" robos. But there is something , something I can't quite articulate, about swimbaits. They just have this drawing power to them. They look real, feel real, swim real. They just give you confidence to look at them, like "hey, I would even believe that is a fish." Yes, I take my tackle box in the living room to look at them and play with rigging options. Yes, my wife yells at me. No, I dont listen to her. I just enjoy them, simple as that.
I have slowly began piecing together a swimbait box over the last few months. My goal is to assemble a versatile, swimbait arsenal of soft and hard baits to cover the entire water column. Slow sinking hard baits, fast sinking hard baits, floating hard baits, slow sinking soft baits, fast sinking hard baits. The swimbait world is a fractious one. You have the hard bait v. soft bait argument, you have the oversize bait v. match the hatch, natural forage size argument, you have the nuanced, super realistic v. bright, loud, out of place argument. No one seems to agree, however, anglers slay big bass with all of them. I am undecided on most of them, but by buying a wide range of baits, I hope I can gain some insight into what works best in my area.
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| My Swimbait Box |
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| 6" Osprey, 6" Baitsmiths, 7" Rago BV3D |
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| Soft bait lineup |
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| Hard bait lineup |
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| 8" Spro BBZ Slow Sink, 7" JSJ Floater, 5" Mattlures floater, 4" Spro BBZ Shad Slow Sink, 6" BBZ Jr. Fast Sink, 6" ABT Wagtail, 6" BBZ Jr Slow Sink, 7" Triple Trout |
My swimbait philosophy is to present a larger than normal bait that mimics something akin to a natural forage species. The 13" Rago Tool is out of play here, but I feel that there is happy medium between matching the hatch and presenting an oversized, easy meal. Besides, I just pulled a 7" shad out of a 2 and a half pound bass not that long ago. They can and will eat big meals. I know you have seen those pictures of dead bass who pie holed themselves trying to swallow over-sized prey. A 6"-8" bait seems to me to strike the perfect balance of big bait drawing power and natural forage size. I think we way too often assume that bass only consume small forage. A far as color selection, I tend to follow the school of presenting more realistic color patterns as the water transitions from murky to clear. I don't care for the photo wrapped baits, because I think bass key in more on subtle color changes versus photo quality realism. Swimbaits fill my brain and my mind begins to race when I start thinking this way. My cup overfloweth and I am overwhelmed with musings, ideas, and philosophy concerning big swimbaits. 2012 is the Year of the Swimbait according to the Chinese calander, so I am hoping to break new ground and make some decisive discoveries. If nothing else, at least it may get me closer to a double digit bass.
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