Hard swimbaits

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Permalink Reply by Josh Potter on August 27, 2012 at 10:04am

I would probably switch to a bait with a more eratic action. I have never fished the bait you are referring to but swimbaits in general don't typically have an eratic action. I would try something that moves side to side quickly as well as something that will dive or drop quickly when "killed". I was on some fish a few weeks ago that would follow but not bite. I would bring them to the boat and as they swam off I threw a dropshot at them and they would simply swim over and look at it but not bite.

 

I did 2 things to remedy the situation. The first was switching to a bait that I could move very quick but also very eratic. I used a soft plastic jerk bait instead of the hard jerk bait that they were following. That helped a lot and about half of them would bite. After that I swithed my dropshot weight to a 1/2 ounce from the 1/8 for those that wouldn't bite at the boat. That also worked well. As the fish swam off I threw that heavy dropshot in front of them and it sank so quickly that they had no time to inspect it, they just ate it!

 

The awesome part of a swimbait sometimes is that it brings the fish out and now you know where they are. The trap is continuing to fish it and never hooking one. When I get followers I like to come back a few minutes later with something different and often times you catch them but you have to be willing to put down the bait that is "sort" of working and give them something quick and different.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Bavery on August 27, 2012 at 11:01am

Ahhhh the joys of followers. Ive had 25-30 follows in on day easy with no takers, in spring this happens a lot.

 

The thing you dont want to do it toss it at them over and over, then you will never get them. But, at least you know you are doing something right. Maybe try using a tad lighter line, casting from much farther away, try somehting with a similar pattern but with diff movement.

 

There is a million diff variations of what you can do, but one thing you MUST have when using swimbaits is a follow up bait. A big senko, smaller swimbait, etc etc.

 

I actually had one follower that wouldnt look at anything but one swimbait. I tried a follow up and a diff swimbait, but not so much as a look. So, I came back about an hour later and used the slow sink swimmer as a jig kinda. It was very a painful process but it got me the fish. The issue wasnt that the fish didnt want to hit, the prob was that I could see the fish. As soon as I got it to a deeper depth, bingo bango.

Permalink Reply by Chris Blandi on August 27, 2012 at 8:08pm

Josh Potter said:

The awesome part of a swimbait sometimes is that it brings the fish out and now you know where they are.

Shhhhhhh.  Swimbaits don't work anyway  ;-)

Permalink Reply by Chris Lambert on August 27, 2012 at 9:31pm

Some of the hard swimbaits will turn and do a 180 with a quick snap of the rod.  Did you try that?

Permalink Reply by Ryan Perrey on August 28, 2012 at 6:41am

I have that same lure in perch as well and was having the same problem (though I was convinced they would slay big smallies). Those have some crazy action to them. Try throwing a perch pattern crankbait next. That's what has worked for me anyway.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lunde on August 28, 2012 at 2:10pm

Once again everyone has been very helpful.

thank you