Luck Favors the Prepared

As a serious angler one of my pet peeves is hearing someone say that fishing is "nothing but luck." Anyone who has put time on the water knows this simply isn't the case. We spend countless hours fine-tuning our equipment, studying weather, following fish movements, pouring over maps, and occasionally even fishing in order to keep an advantage on the water and eliminate as much of the "luck factor" as we can.  However, as this week's video will show you, sometimes it just pays to have a little luck!

I guess there will always be a very small part of bass fishing that involves luck. The vast majority of it is skill but you still need the fish to do what they're supposed to do, when they're supposed to do it. On this particular day, the fish did everything right, even when things went completely wrong.

Its been quite a while since we just put up a fun video so this week we thought we'd do something different.

In case you don't understand what you're seeing, I'll give you some background. Tim is on Clearlake in Northern California. He's fishing a bait that we throw often, an S-Waver 200 in Light Trout. He's using a Dobyns 806H spooled with 65 lb braid and a 30 lb leader, afterall this is big fish country. Unbeknownst to him, he's nicked his leader and its no longer 30 lb.

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As you can see he gets bit several times but doesn't connect on the hookset. Now here is where the luck factor starts kicking in. In the moment, Tim just thinks he missed a bite, he has no idea (yet) he's enticed a wolf pack of big largemouth into attacking his bait. He immediately gets bit again, set's the hook, and breaks his weakened leader. On any other day it would be time to hang your head, shed a tear, and wave goodbye to your $35 lure and a BIG bass. But today, luck is on Tim's side. As a prepared angler he continues scanning the water instead of throwing a fit like most anglers would.

What he sees is a 2nd bass from the wolf pack try to steal the bait from the bass that broke him off. Now there are two bass (one on the front hook, another on the rear hook) fighting each other over the bait they're both hooked to. The fighting is so vicious they're actually doing cartwheels through the water. Tim springs into action with his net, scooping up not only his expensive swimbait but two big Clearlake bass!

There is no arguing that at this time, on this day, luck was on Tim's side. Too often things go terribly wrong. Gear fails, boats break down, bass don't bite, weather doesn't cooperate, but if you stay prepared the day will come when luck favors you and perhaps you too will have a day go from bad, to worse, to EPIC!

Congrats Tim and thanks for rolling the cameras so we could all see this crazy story play out. From cast to catch, one of the most amazing catches I've ever seen!

Monster Double Digit Bass Destroys a Swimbait!

If I had to choose just one way to target giant bass day in and day out, it would be the swimbait. Every year a variety of techniques put big bass in the boat but the most consistent option for the giants is the large swimbait.

On this day I had the pleasure of fishing with a close friend. We had put in a few hours already, catching just a few small bass on reaction baits in shallow water around grass. We had the choice of continuing to target those smaller fish or moving out to deeper water to try and get a big bass. We made the decision to move out and target the big females that were lurking on the ledges searching for easy meals.

On this particular day I used a Huddleston Deluxe 8" ROF 12 swimbait in Rainbow trout (there are no trout present in this lake but the bass don't care) and fished it with the stock jig hook. This allows me to work the bait through rocks without getting snagged on every cast.

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On just the 3rd cast, the giant bit. It just goes to show that throwing a big swimbait doesn't mean you're going to have to throw it for hours, waiting for the bite. When big bass are feeding, big baits work. In many circumstances they work BETTER than their smaller counterparts.

This particular fish was sitting on the top of a rocky ledge that transitioned from 6 to 17 feet of water. I set the boat in the shallows and cast off the ledge into the deep water. Wanting to avoid nicking the line in the rocks, I began retrieving the swimbait before it hit the bottom. As the bait came close to the top of the ledge the bass came up out of the rocks and intercepted it, resulting in a very aggressive bite. As you can see, the rest played out very quickly.

Catching Big Bass on the S-Waver 200

Several years ago the glide bait market exploded. Almost over night it became common place to see single-jointed, hard swimbaits on the decks of virtually every boat on the West Coast. It developed in to a craze with a cult-like following of anglers that believe glide baits will help them catch the biggest bass of their life. Frankly, they may be right. 

Before the craze though, there were only a few glide baits widely available to anglers. The most common of which was the S-Waver 168 by River2Sea. When they reached out to us last year about an upcoming project for a larger 200 mm version of their already popular glide bait we were all ears. 

It was an honor to get our hands on the baits before they hit the market. As impressive as the baits themselves were, we were equally impressed when we found out the pricing. In a world of 100-500 dollar glides the S-Waver came in at $34.99! The rest as they say, is history.

This video is about CATCHING fish and showing the power of glide baits, it really isn't about HOW we go about doing those things. Expect a follow up video explaining the details of equipment, a variety of baits worth looking in to, and the retrieves that will help you put glide baits to work for you as you pursue that giant bass.

Big Bass on the Spittin' Wa frog

Earlier this spring Tim and I were approached by River2Sea about a new frog they were planning to release at ICAST. At that time the Spittin' Wa didn't even have a name. After seeing the bait, having the opportunity to film with the frog before it hit the market sounded like a great opportunity and the chance to have some fun with a brand new product.I was looking forward to fishing with this unique frog, what I didn't expect was to start catching consistently bigger bass than I had caught on a frog in years past. After spending a few months with the bait I feel that there are a few factors contributing to the increase in fish size.

1) SIZE The Spittin' Wa 70 is a large frog. In fact, the only baits I know that are bigger are the Spro King Daddy, and the Snag Proof Frogzilla The large profile naturally lends itself to big bites.

2) WATER DISPLACEMENT The cupped face moves a lot more water than a traditional frog. As a result I was able to fish the frog out over deeper water and pull up large fish earlier in the spring than I had in the past. The wake that tracks behind this frog in open water is pretty substantial and helps to call fish in frog greater distances.

3) OVERSIZED HOOKS As odd as it sounds, strong hooks make all the difference in frog fishing. For many years a "secret" frog modification has been to reinforce the base of the hook where the shanks come together. The reason for this is that a hook can flex and deflect away from the surface it is supposed to penetrate during a hook set. While this doesn't happen often, it is most likely to happen on the largest fish with the largest hard bone section in their jaw. The hook in the Spittin' Wa 70 is larger and made of a heavier gauge wire than other frogs I have fished in the past. The result is a very stable hook that doesn't deflect when setting in to big fish.

I hope you enjoy the video. This frog is deadly and definitely worth adding to your arsenal. If you don't have the Spittin' Wa in a local shop you can pick them up and support Tactical Bassin at the same time by following this link to tackle warehouse.

I should also add that like most baits, I don't fish these straight out of the package. I shorten the legs and change the hook angle slightly before fishing the baits. I'll be sure to cover those modifications in a future video to clarify any questions. In the meantime, pick a few up and see if the size of fish your catching on a frog increases.