Size 6 Owner Hyper Wire mangled in a melee that involved a big eyed bruiser that lived around a large laydown tree. Split rings on big hardbaits are particularly vulnerable to bending out. A fish can use the the hook points on the other side of the treble than he/she is stuck onto and create "lever action" and put incredible strain on your split ring and hook. You hook gets bound up on the side of the hardbait and if the fish has the direction and leverage, bad things could happen. Not often, but for the investment, it's a no brainer, especially if you are really putting time into hunting a big one.
With everything getting a little bit bigger, and more swimbait like, even more the reason to pay attention to your terminal tackle. All these long cranking rods like the Wright McGill, Okuma, Duckett Rods, that are approaching 8 feet long, microguides, 7:1 reels and guys are generally now throwing much longer rods on average than even a few years ago. Swimbaits aside, longer rods mean more leverage and power and torque that can be applied to fish and hence the need for superior terminal tackle. Faster reels mean more physics involved, speed kills and magnifies weakest links. The Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring was a God send to the swimbait fishing community years ago. It never ceases to amaze me how good simple terminal tackle can be so hard to find. Split rings are often an afterthought and not much of a conversation, but Owner changed that with the introduction of the Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring. Split rings can be a weak point, so be warned.
Practice what you preach. I have spent a lot of money over the years on Owner Hyper Wires. You can re-use them, they hold their shape well and they don't rust. I use the Size 4 thru Size 7 anytime I have a hanging treble, period.
Mini/Stubby Triple Trout: anytime I’m using small hard bodied swimmers, I tend to go for #4 Hyper Wires and Owner ST-56 trebles.
replacement split rings for RC 2.5s and other full bodied square bill and conventional crank and hard baits where big fish happen in shallow water, close range or on braided line. Even certain topwater baits, like the Pencil Popper.
Little hard baits need to be balanced too. Size 4 Owner Hyper Wires balance very nicely with the ST-56 Treble Hooks and are a good compromise for small baits where you need small sharp, thinner diameter hanging trebles. The Size 4 ring is just small and fits the size of the bait and hook nicely, and gives you a guarantee you aren't going to have split ring failure, even if you fish these style of baits on 50# braid, 17-20 mono or floro, and med-light 8 footers, which most of us tend to do. Little swimmers are best served on long rods, just like big swimmers, and you've got to balance the hooks and rings with to the rod and reel and just be sure you don't have a 'weakest link', because it will be found by the fish, sometime, and you better hope it's not the 'one'. Even 5-7 pounders can wreck cheap split rings. Tournament and trophy implications with split rings and hooks.
The #5 Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring on the 8" Huddleston Deluxe Trout. You want the smallest and strongest possible ring. It holds onto that #2 Owner ST-66 treble up front in our Southern Trout Eater Huddleston Rig, and it has never failed me.
The 7" Triple Trout, with #6 Owner Hyper Wires. Add to that, 65# Braided line, Calcutta 300 or 400 TE reels, moderate fast/slow action 8 footers and you'll understand that hooks and rings can easily be bent out, shore up vulnerability where you can and get the right rings especially for snatching bigbaits around grass on braid. The size 6 Owner Hyper Wire is probably the most universal for most hanging treble type baits.
7/9/12″ MS Slammer (the Slammer has HUGE eye screws that screw into the wood, so you need a big ring to get around the thick eye bolt/screws that make up the hook hangers on the MS Slammers) (SEE BELOW)
Number 7 Hyper Wires for the MS Slammer and any of the bigbaits with the big eye screws where you attach the ring to. You simply cannot get a #5 or #6 over the eye screw (without major effort). It's just not worth it. Get the #7s and be done with it and know you're ready for battle with the biggest.Bits and Bites/Speeds and Feeds
Bottom line is, if you are serious about your swimbait and bigbait fishing, you need to be thinking about Owner Hyper Wire Split rings. If you are a guy who is fishing 1 ounce rattle traps and big topwater baits and pushing the envelope on hanging trebles on your standard hardbaits out there, you should be looking at Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings as added insurance, size 4 in particular. Especially if braid and/or big fish are in your life. Once you start paying >$15 for your swimbaits and bigbaits, adding a $.50 split ring and premium hooks to your baits is just common practice. You can and will bend out hooks and rings. It’s either going to happen on a straight pull or it’s going to happen where the fish uses the hard body to pry open the split ring in an instant of tug-o-war. Anytime you get locked up on a fish, or the fish hangs the bait into a tree or in some grass, now split ring are tested. I’ve never had one fail me, even though I’ve had a couple bend out like the one above—but not fail, imagine what would have happened without using an Owner Hyper Wire? The fish and the hook would have been gone.
I love to be able to recommend something I’ve used for years and years and years and have no reservations at all about recommending. The G-Loomis 966 BBR is an excellent rod for the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe, which in itself, you need an 8″ Huddleston Deluxe rod, therefore, do not pass go until you have an 8″ Huddleston Deluxe rod! No kidding, that is what makes this rod something to consider in the BIGbait picture. So, dig this, you can throw all 4 ROFs from Ken Huddleston with the rod, but its also what else the rod can do which is serve as your ‘bigbait’ rod, the one rod you have multiples of so you can also fish 10″ Triple Trouts, 9-12″ MS Slammers, XL Nezumaa Rats, and various hard and softbaits in the 3-7 ounce range. This rod is not the beefiest of rods in the bigbait world. I totally understand and get where the G-Loomis 966 BBR is NOT a good rod for the ‘megabaits’ lets call them, these giant hardbaits and giant softbaits pushing 10-16 ounces and upwards of 18″ long or longer. You need super specialized rods for those baits for sure. What about the Alabama Rig and other castable umbrella rigs? You plan on throwing any 4-5-6″ swimbaits on it?
The G-Loomis 966 BBR on deck or in my hand. You need an excellent Huddleston Deluxe rod, and the G-Loomis 966 is that indeed, and since it also handles A-Rigs, 10″ Triple Trouts, 9-12″ Slammers, XL Nezumaa rats, etc its an interchangeable tool in my bigbait approach
I need a rod to get after it with the 8″ Huddleston, the XL Nezumaa Rat, or the 10″ Triple Trout, or whatever combinations thereof, so having one rod that can handle multiple bigbaits is key. I have at least four G-Loomis 966 BBR rod and four Shimano Calcutta 400 TE reel setups in my boat when I’m seriously getting after the trout eaters. And at least one of the above said combos onboard at all times, because it can fish whatever bigbait I might want to explore in a more tournament centric lake that has big fish in it, like an Okeechobee or Seminole or Santee Cooper. I know that with that rod, if things are good, and feeling right or just feel like chunking some big stuff, I have a rod that will handle any of my best big search tools. Rod management. If you’ve seen Southern Trout Eaters, about 90% of the fish I catch in the film are on that rod. The other 10% are fish I catch on ‘medium’ rods. But the film itself should serve as validation that the rod is a workhorse and staple tool in my bigbait fishing approach.
The G-Loomis 966 BBBR + Shimano Calcutta 400TE + 80# Power Pro = torque and power like few have experienced in bass fishing. To properly fish exposed or weedless bigbaits around grass , or to just ‘snatch’ your baits clean, this setup has grass fishing and bigbaits covered as well as the standard clear water and 30# copolymer applications.
Braided line? You bet. Try 80# braided line on your G-Loomis 966 BBR, and add whatever bait of your choice. 8″ Huddlestons in the grass on 80# braid? No, don’t do that. You will realize that a Shimano Calcutta 400 TE and G-Loomis 966 BBR not only match well in the mountains, but they match well in the grass. You might migrate south down the peninsula called Florida or wherever grass grows thick and heavy. It is scary the amount of force and stopping power that rod and reel combo deliver with 80# Power Pro. I’m seriously contemplating moving to Fort Lauderdale, selling software, regrouping, and fishing in S. Florida and Central Florida for a few years until I get more bites on 8″ Huddleston Deluxes with 80# braid involved and G-Loomis 966s and Calcutta 400 TEs!!! Talk about addicting. Big fish, big bites and vicious battles in shallow grass where your gear better be balanced and able to get the job done. Braid and a slow action parabolic rod is the reason God made hydrilla.
The A-Rig Affect
I found the G-Loomis 966 BBR to be an excellent rod choice for lobbing the ‘bigger’ castable umbrella rigs with the larger 1/2 to 3/4 ounce heads and 4-5″ swimbait tails. Another usage for an already proven combo. The rod can load up and handle the lob casting and swimming of a lure that weighs in the 4-5 ounce zone really well. And it doesn’t suck that the rod can whip 4-7 pounders like other rods handle 2-3 pounders. So with the effects of the Alabama Rig coming down on our heads, guys who’ve never considered a big rod for anything but flipping might like to know this rod will handle the rigors of the castable umbrella rig as well as swimming big swimbaits.
The Rod:
Moderate Fast: Parabolic action. The 966 BBR is slow compared to most, and that slower action means it has that parabolic bend, which means it doesn’t wear you out when you decide you’re going to lob bigbaits for 8-10 hours. The rod does the work of the casting and retrieving, and hooking. Since the rod loads up nicely, it has an inherent slight load it maintains while you’re retrieving your bigbait, so when a bite does come, you are in an excellent spot to hook and setup on a bite. The slow action gives the rod incredible power on the pull, which is key to whipping big fish early in the fight. This rod builds and maintains a lot of force and momentum and it really comes in to play once you get a big fish hooked up because you control and fight the fish while applying maximum pressure.
8 foot long: I like this rod is a full 8 feet long. I like a rod that maximizes length for added casting distance, feel and touch, and ability to direct my cast as the bait flies thru the air. I can also lay my line where I want it at the end of a long cast, giving me the ability to influence the swim of my bait by the bow of the line at the beginning of my retrieve.
Balanced: The 966 BBR is not the lightest most advanced rod on the market today. That is okay. You don’t hunt elephants with a BB gun. You need to match power with power and this rod has the mass and make up that matches bigbaits, big fish and has proven itself as a workhorse. We mentioned the physics of bigbait fishing in Southern Trout Eaters. The G-Loomis 966 BBR is a standard to measure the strength of your line, terminal tackle selections, whereby you have a standardized rod that you can shape your rigs and rigging around. The handle is ‘right length’ and the full cork uniform feel makes it comfortable. It just works.
Shimano Calcutta 400 TE: The 400 TE is the reel. So, think about this. I have a big round gold reel with incredible gears and gearing. It fits and compliments the G-Loomis 966 perfectly. It’s like they were made to fit each other, which they weren’t, but the rod and reel together balance. There are a lot of rods out there where the Calcutta 400 TE would be silly because it so far outweighs and out guns the rod, even though some guy put ‘swimbait’ on the rod. The reel matches the rod, and the rod matches the reel.
Interchangeability&Consistency: With a few 966 BBR + Calcutta 400 TE reels, I know I approach any bigbait situation, and be able to throw the various tools of my trade and not worry about having specialized rods onboard everytime. I can use the same combo for any of the bigbaits (or A-Rig) I throw and that is huge because rod management and being able to be efficient with your equipment makes a difference in your fishing.
I’ve had 3-4 G-Loomis 966 BBRs on deck for 6+ years. Interchangeable because they handle the tools of my trade equally well. Sometimes with fishing rods, you just find one that covers multiple baits and applications, and that helps you simplify your approaches and be prepared out on the water. It’s not uncommon to have 2-3 Hudds tied on the same day or need a 10″ Triple Trout and 8″ Huddleston for the same 100 yard stretch. Picking up the same rod with a different bait is easier to get used to than different baits on different rods.
Conclusions:
There are plenty of rods out there marketed toward swimbaits and bigbaits. Shimano/G-Loomis doesn’t even highlight or feature the G-Loomis 966 BBR as a swimbait rod. They have other lines of newer rods and actions positioned to serve these purposes. I understand progress and business and ‘how things’ go, but fishing rods are like classic shaped surfboards, or a fine shotgun, or perhaps a Tommy Armor 7 iron…somethings just work and are classic pieces of sporting goods. Gary Loomis is a legend in the rod building world, and this rod is one of his best known in some circles, and is a model you can talk about and appreciate because it was made in the Pacific NorthWest as a mooching and salmon rod, where they’d lob big hooks and lead for big ole salmon, and can connect the dots that the rod is just ‘simple’ but takes advantage of the physics and balances and compromises. Catching big fish by lobbing bigbaits, and we are talking about the same approximate size spectrum, so that is why I think the 966 crosses over from that original saltwater world to the freshwater bigbait space so well. You a V8 engine to tow a boat, so don’t try and do it with a 4 cylinder. You don’t catch trains on a bicycle, you need to match power with power, and the reel has to match the rod, and the big ole round goldie locks 400 TE to the G-Loomis 966 BBR makes me feel like I’ve got the perfect high powered rifle to shoot whatever big game I encounter. The G-Loomis 966 BBR is a ‘classic’ and a rod that set a benchmark out there in the bigbait fishing community and is one you can talk around other rods.
Many of my friends use Okuma Rods, Dobyns, and the G-Loomis Swimbait series of rod. Rods are a personal choice, and sometimes they are a business decision and sometimes they just are because that is what you have and you already invested in them, and they aren’t broken so you use what you use. I have zero reservations about recommending the G-Loomis 966 BBR because it has worked so well for me, for so many years, and continues to impress me with the things I can do with it (ie, 80 # Braid). You need a Huddleston Rod, you need a BigBait Rod, you need an A-Rig Rod, and this rod does it all.
Wacky Rigging. One of my favorite things to do in a small bait, finesse, tough bite, you just need to catch 5 fish and haven’t had a bite in a while style of fishing is wacky rigging. Wacky rigging is the canary in the coal mine to me at times. If you can’t get a bite, wacky rigging, you are very likely not around ’em. My 2012 FLW Everstart tournament on Santee Cooper, started by picking up my boat in Augusta, GA on the way to lake, with a fresh fiberglass patch from the damage it sustained from Seminole. So, I only had 5 days to prepare for Santee Cooper, and in case you don’t know, Santee Cooper is 2 lakes, connected by a canal, and it HUGE. I mean, a man could spend a lifetime learning Santee Cooper, and because it has grass in it, which even the types of grasses are constantly changing (and growing and being sprayed or eaten by introduced grass carp), Santee Cooper is a lake that changes often. Add to that, South Carolina’s real estate on the Eastern seaboard. South Carolina, goes from extreme mountain trout eaters in the West, to the lowland black water swamp, palmetto tree + Spanish moss frog, swim jig, skippin’ jigs, buzzbait, 30 pound sack capable water, to Atlantic Coast beaches that people surf regularly ( I scored fun 1-2 foot peelers at Hilton Head one 4th of July circa 2006, 10 foot single fin, 80+ degree water, and a lot of hootin’ an’a hollerin’!) in the East. Santee Cooper is big fish fishery and it didn’t disappoint. Look at the weights from the event, lots of 11-15 pound, 3 fish sacks getting weighed in. Guys on 4-6 pounders pretty good, just numbers hard to come by. Santee Cooper is on a healthy cycle and it could be a sleeper for an incredible event if scheduling and weather permit. I wished I’d had more time to practice and explore things, because a bigbait bait there is inevitable. I threw Slammers, 3:16 Sunfish, 22nd Century Bluegills, and skipped the 6″ weedless Huddie too. I didn’t have tons of practice, but my gameplan was mostly around catching 4-6 pounders off cypress trees, but of course trying to just go fish and find big ones coming or going or on beds. I thought I could win with the wacky rig—if I got the bites and got them in the boat, there are just some awesome moments in tree fishing where you can get on ’em good. I had good bites going, just not lots of them, and it was the same stuff I had done here 3 years ago when I finished 7th place. I had the bites to win last time. This time, I didn’t have the bites to win, but I had a shot at it, and I knew I could compete and perhaps win, just like last time, but this time, things didn’t work out quite so well, but I did jump off a big one that cost me a Top 20 or so. 5-6 pounder eats my Senko on the base of tree with sparse grass around it in about 3 feet of water, and rips line off immediately for 10 feet right under the surface just hot and full dig style and when I went to turn and stop her, she reared up and jumped mouth open wide reverse flip backside roll tail grab fakey and spits the hook. Fudge. Whatever, I’m sitting in 7th place overall in the the SouthEast Division, and had a great tournament and finished 35th place, just solid, nothing great, but I’ll take it because Santee Cooper is tough as she is awesome at times. I had 3 fish on Day 1 for almost 12 pounds, so fun day getting 2 bigguns onboard, and one 14.5″ keeper. Big fish on the spinning gear around trees is just exciting and fun. I kept working and working, and also had a grass pattern going that never panned out, so I felt like I fished pretty damn hard and smart, just didn’t have the next levels of fish I needed. Look at how few guys caught limits both days. See Results Here. Ken Ellis won the tournament wacky rigging a Trick Worm on deep trees. So, I was on the right track and had the right gameplan, I just didn’t have the trees and the knowledge of what trees. Finding deeper trees is a key, sparse grass is key, and areas adjacent or near spawning grounds, where the fish are pulling out of their spawning areas and resting up, feeding up and hanging loose on the natural cover/structures in the lake.
The Old South. Santee Cooper is near Charleston, a city rich in old America history, and is two lakes, connected by a canal: Lakes Marion&Moultrie, named after American Revolutionary War 1770s era Generals famous for using the swamps and natural terrain to drive the Brits out. And of course, the first shots fired in the Civil War, happened in Charleston at Fort Sumter. My journey from Atlanta to Santee Cooper literally mirrored General Sherman’s notorious “March to the Sea” campaign, that ended with the Confederate surrender of Fort Sumter and terms being served, where the first shots were fired 4 years prior. I enjoy that kind of stuff, because I really try to understand the various regions and people of this country that are so different than my own home, and their history. I like South Carolina for the fishing for sure. I used to do great business in nearby Columbus and I know Charleston is really cool and happening and fun, and yet you can get yourself extremely rural and off the grid in a hurry too. Perhaps I have a soft spot for South Carolina because my personal best 14.60 largemouth came from South Carolina in 2006. But I think it’s just a killer state of mind and of fishing. The extreme Appalachian to Atlantic old timey Southern feel is highlighted with the weather. You want to talk about hot and muggy? We had low 90s and 100% humidity a couple days. Sweltering heat at times for what feels like ‘early in the year’. I believe in the summer time, Santee Cooper might be the hottest place on earth. You just feel lowland and can sense the warm ocean offsore influencing things. But then again, as the tournament came around, cool, windy, foggy, really windy, really really windy, rain and volatile weather came, making finesse fishing around trees, a bit more challenging! I wore my bibs all day on Day 1, that cold you get when you’ve been baked by the sun and then things cool down and you’re just cold because you aren’t baking hot. Finesse fishing, wacky in particular, is best served up under the above weather conditions, because the smooth water allows you to make precise and long distance skips of your bait to the tree. Wind creates surface waves which put your bait up in the tree and ruins the distance and accuracy thing horribly, but it isn’t game over, you just have to work that much harder to fish the trees properly. The calmer, the more finesse you can get, for example, throw a Trick Worm vs. a Senko, because it falls and stalls mas bueno, which is the thing about wacky, it is about fall and stall, which becomes neutral or floating mid water column at some point, which means you can keep your bait suspended or ‘floating’ one foot down, one foot off the tree, in the shade spot on base of cypress tree better than just about anything else. Stall + Fall = 0
I stayed in Eutawville (“Utah-Ville”) at Bells Marina and fished with my good friend Ron and his son, that I’d met here a few years ago when I was here last. Ron helped me quickly get a feel for the lake and more specifically, the tree bite. The best trees tend to be deeper 2.5 to 4 feet of water, and have sparse grass around them, or just be on the ‘point’ or generally favorable position to feed from in a stack of trees. However, it’s sort of like flipping at some level, where you just have to put your head down and make hundreds of perfect presentations time and time again, and eventually you get a bite. And where you get one bite, you usually get more bites. Little flurries, I love you so! I tried to find good areas of trees in practice. Which I did. I also tried to find a grass bite, which I did with some help from my man Bobby Wood and Ron Buck. I practiced with them a day and really did some damage on Skinny Dippers and Swim Senkos around lilly pads, gator grass, and mixed stuff. With the cool weather we had for the tournament, my grass bite died on the vine. You just knew they were in the grass and biting for someone, but I had trees and grass to balance, and after starting each morning in the grass and coming up empty both days, I decided my grass bite was dead and didn’t try it afternoon of Day 2, just stuck out the trees, which helped because I got my 5th fish with 10 minutes left and helped me get a paycheck. I caught all 8 of my keepers on the wacky rig and only missed one bite, but it was a big one. Wacky rigging is a work in progress for me, and I love doing it. I love super finesse and super big stuff, opposing poles, positives and negatives, north vs south/ east vs west, natural attractions and relationships between the two ends of any spectrum. I love how it points out things to my bigbait fishing, because I think my success with bigbaits in a national tournament will be somehow directly or indirectly related to a super small bait bite or understanding of fish and fishing. For example, keeping it simple, just throw a Senko or a Trick Worm, or just throw a Triple Trout or a Huddleston or Slammer, having the right tools narrowed down for your window and using the small baits to either quickly fill a limit or be there as backup to back fill a couple big ones.
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000 or CI4 Stradic 1000 (small spooled reels handle 10-15 pound braid really well, that line has super small diameter and although I like big spooled spinning reels, smaller spooled small spinning reels are good too. You can throw small and light baits really well, and manage you line nicely. It all matches up, where you don’t have super thin line on a big spool.
Hook:Owner Mosquito Hook, #1 or 1/0, get the 50 packs, because you use these things a lot and you do break off at times because of the exposed nose hook, trust me, this is a good investment. Use bigger hook size in the wind
Rigging:Wacky O Tool and O-Rings: I put an O-Ring around my senko and slide the hook under the ring and just fish away. Sometimes I criss cross two rings and put the hook under the X, but I a really like the way this one fishes and rigs, it’s not perfect, but I haven’t found one that is!
Braided line + floro leader, Owner Mosquito Hook, O-Ring. I will use 2 O-Rings and criss cross them and put the hook under the X at times, but then again, I will just slip the hook under a single ring and just go fishing. I catch a lot of fish on this rig, and slight variations of it anytime I’m around shallow grass, wood, and rock. Trick worms and Senkos are blue chip baits, make sure you own plenty in various colors black to green. Get a feel for skipping, floating, dragging and stalling side rigged baits. Bait control.
Some really good fish were caught in the grass. You just had to have grass with bait or just fish in it. The grass was like the trees, lots to choose from, but most does/do not hold fish and even if they do, you have to be good to catch them, especially for 2 days in a row. Things change quickly on Santee Cooper.
I was getting 1 or 2 fish in the 4-6 pound class a day fishing the trees slowly and thoroughly with wacky rigs. Scattered grass, access to deep water, shade all helped the cause. I figured I might be able to squeak out 15 or 20 pounds a day on the right days. I almost pulled it off, but not quite. No regrets, looking forward to getting back there sometime and getting back to work. “Fine thanks……………………you?”
Nico Raffo shared two baits that have caught a ton of big ones and are proven in the field. I've never seen a 9" MS Slammer with more wear marks. An indication this bait gets fished A LOT.
The 9” MS Slammer is the first swimbait I ever committed to and was the first swimbait I ever saw fished. The 9” MS Slammer was developed in Central California, very closely with Lake Santa Margarita. Mike Shaw, the ‘MS’ in MS Slammer, lived in Atascadero and developed the bait, and tested it by casting, trolling and targeting big striper and big bass. Rob Belloni, was early on the bigbait scene, got to throwing Mike’s bait because he fished Lake Santa Margarita often as a Cal Poly SLO student. Cal Poly is where I met Rob, and Rob introduced me to the MS Slammer. The MS Slammer has been catching trophy fish quietly and not so quietly since the late 90s.
Rob McComas was early on the bigbait scene too, he just lived across the US, and was fishing Mike’s 9” MS Slammer on the trout fed lakes mountain lakes of Western North Carolina in the 90s. Rob was not only featured, but was a key figure in the ‘go ahead’ and production of Southern Trout Eaters. His footage is some of the best of the film, incredible topwater bites, big flushes…really capturing how it is with the MS Slammer and how it works and fishes. Rob has really opened my eyes to wood bait fishing and how to apply it. He fishes laydown trees and shade lines and focuses on and thoroughly dissects spots where the fish live. It’s a slower paced, more thorough approach to structure fishing.
Rob McComas, 9" MS Slammer fishing in Appalachia. Rob has been fishing the MS Slammer for over 10 years in the South, and has taught me a ton about fishing wood baits.
The 9” MS Slammer is an absolute workhorse. A bait you can tie on and fish all day and night and never have to adjust or fix. Its a killer night fishing bait, probably one of the best and the first bait I reach for when night fishing. It’s literally slaughtered big fish, I mean 12-17 fish in a single night and in broad daylight out West. It is a staple. Wood baits are killer. Each bait is unique. It has its own swim, own vortex, own buoyancy properties and tendencies. Wood bait fishing is so roots. The beautiful thing about wood is all the differences in wood and how you get a really bulks and bigbait that doesn’t necessarily weigh that much. 9” MS Slammers don’t weigh but X ounces, and they get an A+ in fishability. Just easy on you to fish and killer baits, and because it floats, you can fish intimately around wood, boulders, structure of any kind, just stalling and killing the bait along with swimming it along to keep it around the sweet spots longer.
Clarks Hill 9" MS Slammer, white. Waking the bait over hydrilla in 10-14 feet of water, the Slammer is part of our blueback herring lake assualt. Why? Because its one of the proven baits, you take the proven baits and apply them to your water. Keep it simple.
There are various retrieves and styles of fishing around the 9” MS Slammer. The most common method is a relatively slow and steady grind, making the single jointed top water bait swim fluidly and clacky, move a lot of water, throw a big wake, and have a brilliant tail that licks the surface and compliments the jointed swim. You can stop the bait and walk the dog or just pause it, and the buoyancy of the bait makes it do a 180 or so and it’s a cool way to change it up on ‘em.
You can definitely reel the 9” MS Slammer and fish it 4-12” inches under the surface. Rob McComas has some excellent retrieves he uses to keep just the top tip of the tail above the surface while the entire bait is under the water swimming along with a small disturbance on the surface for the tip of the tail sweeping along back and forth. Rob uses the 9” MS Slammer as a deflection bait too, making contact with the wood and rocks and things purposely to draw bites.
Strengths: The strength of the MS Slammer is its fishability. You can use various retrieves and styles of fishing the bait (wake, twitch, slow rolled, etc) and change things up cast by cast as you approach your targets. The bait rarely fouls up when casting or needs any sort of maintenance. You will need to change tails every so often, but just find yourself a good swimming 9″ MS Slammer and hang onto it.
Change your hooks and split ring to Owner. The MS Slammer is a workhorse and if you put quality hooks and rings on your baits, you're likely to catch and land most of your bites, even the ones that just slap at the bait. Sticky sharp Owner ST-36 Stinger Trebles and Hyper Wire Rings is what I recommend for all wood and big hardbaits. Once your bait allows you to throw anything larger than 1/0, the ST-36 is the hook.
Notes: You may fish the bait with a snap. It might change how you fish the bait and might work for some instances. I like to fish without a snap wherever possible, but understand that wood baits are unique and each one a different animal, so don’t be afraid to tinker and find what works best and makes your bait swim best.
Mike Shaw, Mr. MS Slammer himself, in his workshop. The 9" MS Slammer is a staple wooden swimbait and set the tone for waking bigbaits in the late 90s as big fish catching baits, day or night.
The Ozarks proved to be an unlikely place to validate the effectiveness of the 12" MS Slammer, as seen in Southern Trout Eaters
Big Wood. No doubt about it, the 12” MS Slammer is big wood and one heck of a bigbait. There aren’t too many 12” hardbaits that get bit, and we showed in Southern Trout Eaters, that the 12” MS Slammer is a standout big wood bait.
Mike Shaw, who now calls Utah home, used to live in Atascadero, CA, which was right up the road from where I went to college. Mike got hooked up with my good friend Rob Belloni, and Rob was who first introduced me to Mike’s baits. The MS Slammer is a simple yet effective bait, and one thing is clear, they get bit.
The 12" MS Slammer, fished in the shade lines and pockets of the bluff walls of the Ozarks, will get you a 20+ pound sack if you execute
Rob McComas has made an art of big wood bait fishing. Rob showed you how to catch 9” MS Slammer fish in Southern Trout Eaters too, but I got confidence in the 12” MS Slammer after talking to Rob at length about the number of bites and just overall fishability of the bait. You have to understand that even though the bait is 12” long, it’s made of wood, so it doesn’t weight that much. Composite and resin baits weigh much more at 12” than do wood baits, so the 12” MS Slammer is extremely fishable. It won’t wear you out and doesn’t require specialized gear to fish it.
Rob McComas, who has spent more time fishing big wood baits in the South than anyone, was where I got confidence to throw the 12" MS Slammer more
The 12” MS Slammer is a noisy, clacky, and super fishable big topwater wake bait. You can fish it around laydowns, shade lines, man made structures, grass lines and keep the bait near the critical zone for a long time. It stalls out nicely around structure. The hanging trebles hook fish and you have a very high hookup ratio on this bait. The MS Slammer family of baits are workhorses. You can fish and fish and fish them and rarely do they foul or need care. That fishability also makes them an excellent night fishing bait because you don’t have to fuss with the bait, just fish it, not to mention the loud clackity clack of the bait helps attract big nocturnal bass.
Mike Shaw, the "MS" in MS Slammer, in his workshop. The MS Slammer was a wakebait before wakebaits went mainstream, and they've been catching tournament and trophy bass since the mid 90s. You won't find a nicer, softer spoken man, or a workhorse swimbait like the MS Slammer.
Ideal Conditions: Rainy and cloudy overcast days are ideal for hunting big trout eaters with the 12” MS Slammer. Fish the bait slowly around key structure and vary your retrieves from a straight wind to walk the dogs with multiple pauses to get the job done. Anytime you have a lake with big fish and you are swinging for the fences, the 12” MS Slammer is a good call, and certainly anytime you go night fishing, reach for one of these and beware of toilet flushes and bowling balls falling from the sky style bites.
Notes: Carry spare tails, you never know when you might rip or tear a tail off on a fish. Tie directly to the bait and don’t worry about snaps to tie to.
The tail of the 12" MS Slammer is big, bulky, pushes a lot of water, and produces it's own unique vortex
