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Small Bait Fishing

Spinning 3 Inch Hammers

Published: 10 October 2012
Written by Alex Tech
No comments
Categories: 2011 Tournament Fishing, 2012 Tournament Fishing, Big Hammer, Deep Swimbait Fishing, Rigging, Small Bait Fishing, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD

 

Just like Dolly Parton’s coat, my 3″ Big Hammer swimbait box, is of ‘many colors’.

The Big Hammer family of swimbaits has some prime real estate in my tackle boxes, boat, and ‘office’.  I spend a lot of time tinkering with the various flavors of Big Hammer swimbaits on and off the water.  The 3″ Big Hammer swimbait is a neat little bait, that fits into the “swimbait fishing with spinning rods” category. You can consider this a tackle review of the 3″ Big Hammer if that is what you’re after.  I score this bait a 9.99  (the only .01 deduction is because at times, a more rounded paddle/boot tail seems to be a better choice of swimbait for super finicky highly pressured fish) and give it an A+.   We shared how we fish bridge pilings with the 3″ Big Hammer swimbait in Southern Trout Eaters…one of the things that ‘just happened’ during the filming window we had.  I put together a little video clip of me fishing the 3″ Big Hammer swimbait on a spinning rod, with braided line + florocarbon leader, fishing the water intakes at the Kentucky Lake Dam.  Here are the highlights:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-EP0c86HXk]

 

Get the Lead Out

Swimbaits with an exposed lead head are something you need to pay particular attention to.  Exposed lead, like what the Hammer Head provides in the setup and rigging does some things that baits with internal weighting cannot.  Namely, the exposed lead head of the Hammer Head helps the bait fall straight down vertical, there’s no buoyancy or dampening of the weighting system by surrounding it with soft plastic.  Falling straight down makes a swimbait fish really well next to steep things, for example:  bridge pilings, dam walls, steep walls, man made structure, and fishing deep and straight vertical like you do in winter.   Also, you can fish the bait vertically under your boat and electronics really well, so when, for example, I was on Beaver Lake in the FLW Tour Major in 2011, the fish were in 15-35 feet of water suspended over cedar trees, the 3″ Big Hammer swimbait came thru for me, because I was able to count the bait down and fish it over top of the deep trees and yank the few fish I caught suspended around the tops of the deeper standing trees.   I just read about how the guy who won the BassMaster Southern Open on Smith Lake in Jasper, Alabama was using a small paddle tailed swimbait with exposed lead jig heads on 5# florocarbon…Go ahead and add the 3″ Big Hammer swimbait rigged on a 3/16 or 1/4 ounce Hammer Head ( you want both heads, same hook size, just have both for shallow to medium or medium to deep presentations), to the ‘single top hook swimbait’ conversation too.    The other derivative of the exposed lead jig head, and the fact the 3/16 and 1/4 ounce Hammer Heads were designed to match up perfectly with the 3″ Big Hammer swimbait tails, you get a swimbait that swims on the sink.  I repeat, swims on the sink.  The bait will spin and sorta meander slightly, depending how slack you give the bait on the fall, but in a controlled fall, where you keep slight pressure on bait as it’s sinking, that little square tail is twisting and recoiling and beating along on the sink.  There are a lot of garbage swimbaits out there that swim like crap on the sink….they tend to do nothing at all or sorta just fall like a blob, they don’t swim, they don’t orient nose down and swim on the sink and that is a huge deal, especially when fishing the deep and steep stuff.  You going to be pumping and yo-yoing your rod and bait a a lot.

 

How To Rig a Big Hammer Swimbait:

Step 1: Eyeball how the Hammer head jig head matches up with the 3″ Big Hammer swimbait tail. You want the top of the jig head/line tie area to match up perfectly with the top of the soft plastic flat top side of the swimbait tail. Pay attention to where the hook will come out of the bait…

 

Step 2: Use one of the edges of your thumb nail to ‘mark’ where the jig hook will come out of the Big Hammer tail….

 

Step 3, use the hook point to jab a little mark into the soft plastic where the hook will exit the swimbait, once you thread it on the jig head.

 

Step 3B, the mark should be dead center, and enough you can see it and use it to guide you as you thread the bait on

 

Step 5, very important. Insert the hook in the absolute center of the swimbait tail, whereby the top of the jig head lays flat (there’s no step up or down, the jig head and body come together clean and smooth). Use the line tie to touch the flat side of the bait to give you a guide, but pretty much, dead center of the “superman” shaped fat ‘v’ of the Big Hammer swimbait tail

 

Step 6: In one smooth motion, paying attention to push the hook thru the plastic keeping your North/South and East/West orientation as straight and plumb as possible, push the tail onto the jig head, and let the bait curl up in doing so, and time your exit angle so it comes out at the mark you did in Step 2 & 3.

 

Step 6 again…make sure you hook point comes out perfectly in the center of East and West, and also assumes you mark was accurate so you don’t have too little or too much length of swimbait tail threaded on the hook.

 

Okay, you’re done except for glue. Notice how the jig head matches up with the tail, at the top by the line tie perfectly. You can see how the jig head fits into the swimbait tail, thanks to the clear bait and some backlighting. You want things straight, centered, parallel and clean. No bunching or off centered rigging!

 

Once I’ve made a good rigging, I back the tail slightly off the head, and put a dab of superglue, where it runs down and gravity coats it all from top to bottom, and I push the tail back up and snug it tight to the jig head and let the glue dry.

Braid Connections

One of the more important developments in my fishing in the last year has been the move to braided line, almost exclusively, on all baits, all water clarity, and all rod types.  Not 100% but moving that direction.  The key is using floro and mono leaders at times, choosing the right knots, and matching your hooks and terminal tackle so your hooks and split rings and things don’t bend out or fail due to the power of braid.  I use Power Pro.  It has been really good to me.  I recommend 15# Power Pro Braided line and a 3-5 foot section (5 foot allows you to re-tie a couple times without putting a new leader on) of Sugoi Florocarbon.  I use 6-12# florocarbon leaders paired with 15# Power Pro braid on my spinning rods.  You change your leader sizes based on conditions and baits. I’ll fish 12# floro when fishing a small 3/8 or 1/4 ounce jig but will use 8-10# pound when fishing the 3″ Big Hammer on a 3/16 or 1/4 ounce jig head.   Braid has several advantages, especially on spinning gear.  First and foremost, line management. I find braided line handles and fishes really nicely on spinning rods.  I have 1000 and 2500 sized Shimano Spinning reels that both handle the small diameter of 15# Power Pro nicely.  You can ‘top-shot’ the braid, where you spool up 50-75 yards of 6# mono ( I formerly used 6# P-Line CXX on my spinning rods) and then tie on the braid and spool yourself on a good 75-100 yards of fresh braid, and then tie your floro leader to the end of your braid.   What knot do I use to connect my florocarbon leader to my braide?  The Double Uni Knot.  Google it, YouTube it….I use 6 wraps on each side of the knot, and it’s frickin’ excellent.  However, pay attention here, the Double Uni knot is NOT a good knot for attaching 80# or 65# braid to 25-30 pound mono.   The physics of bigbait fishing comes into play here.  DO NOT USE THE DOUBLE UNI to connect your bigbaits to your braid.  That is a separate conversation.  For some reason, that knot cannot handle the repeated casting/stress of lobbing >4 ounce baits.   I have 110% confidence in that knot though, in the smaller more conventional applications, like 15# braid to 10# florocarbon (my number one most common rig….3″ Big Hammers, Wacky Rigs, Shaky Heads, Jika Rigs, etc)

The Double Uni Knot is great for connecting

Braid provides you some additional advantages, especially when it comes to spinning rods and small swimbait fishing.  The braid is super sensitive, and I can feel my bait, the swim, and control the bait far better on braid than on mono.  When I go back to mono, my bait feels real mushy on the end of the line, and I don’t have the feel that I do with braid.  I can feel the bait swim on the sink and control the sink and depth the bait swims at so much better on braid. I know when I’m fouled up (tail gets stuck in the gap between a rigged bait and the hook), and I tend to be able to unstick myself or straighten out the lighter wire hooks of the 3/16 and 1/4 Hammer Head at times to get a hung bait free.  I re-bend my hook into place of course, and check the hook point to make sure all is well, and feel my floro leader to make sure it didnt’ get damaged too.  The hookset and hooking fish advantages are amazingly improved with braid.  I keep my drag fairly tight with the 3″ Big Hammer and braided main line setup.  A little line might pull off during a hard reel down and come up hard hookset, but not much.   The zero stretch of the braid gives you tremendous hook set capabilities you don’t get with 100% florocarbons or mono/copolymers.

You can use 1000-2500 sized spinning reels with braid, and they both work great. I love this little spinning reel, it just matches up with the tiny diameter of 15# braid nicely. Heck, I trout fish with this setup….Mepps and Roster Tail style with the braid + floro. You can throw light stuff (and heavy stuff) really well.

Miscellaneous

If you haven’t seen our Alabama Rig Super Nova blog post and video, click HERE to see it.  You want to have 3″ Big Hammers and Hammer Heads (3/8 recommended for the A-Rig based on hook size and strength, so you don’t bend out the 1/4 and 3/16 ounce lighter wire hooks) in your possession for your castable umbrella rig fishing.    Also, carry yourself some Super Glue and get in the habit of super gluing your Big Hammer swimbait tails to the Hammer Head and letting it dry BEFORE you go fishing.  You will make your baits last much longer by doing this.  If you get a good properly rigged Big Hammer swimbait and glue it the Hammer Head jig head, you can get 10-20 fish per bait.  You’ll get into bites where as quick as you can unhook and re-cast, you’ll just keep on catching ’em.

The 3″ Big Hammer was part of the Alabama Rig Supernova that happened on Kentucky Lake, the Fall of 2011, FLW Everstart Championship. Troy Anderson would win on the Co-Angler side on a handful of 3″ Hammers and heads I gave him, following our practice together. Hammers are a very important tools for all kinds of jobs.

 

The 3″ Big Hammer Photo Gallery:

[nggallery id=12]

 

Swim Signature: Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper

Published: 26 August 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: Rigging, Small Bait Fishing, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD, Weedless Swimbaits

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agdF6CxaSTI]

In case you don’t know this, you need to have yourself an assortment of colors of the Skinny Dipper from Reaction Innovations.  The bait catches fish in the grass, and it catches fish in the open water.   Reaction Innovations is owned and operated out of Alabama, but Andre Moore is originally a Californian.  I could tell you a story or two about Andre Moore back in the late 90s, fishing the WON BASS tournament scene, Lake Havasu, and a bar called Kokomos.   I was brand new 21 years old and hanging out with guys like John Murray, Byron Velvick, Dan Frazier, Steve Beasely, etc and just having the time of my life catching fish, killing it as a AAA/Co-Angler, and being a care free college guy.    I’d tell you a story, but then again, like the Tiki Bar in Clewiston, what happens at Kokomos, stays at Kokomos.

White Trash Second Generation. The ‘Dipper as its known, is a grass bait, and White Trash was the cats meow for a time on the Big O. Now, you have to get a little more creative with your colors and fish it smarter because Scott Martin’s place, sells at least 10 tons of these annually, for good reason but the ‘Dipper not only catches fish, it takes your fishing into new directions. The Speed Worm and Swim Senko are in the same conversation, but the Skinny Dipper is a perfect compromise of size, shape, swim, weedlessness, and clearly gets bit, and tends to get the biggest bites of the 3 baits in this conversation.

 

Andre Moore’s Reaction Innovations makes some killer baits.  The Trixie Shark is a sneaky toad style bait that has a unique sound and gurgle it produces swimming across the surface of the water.  Lots of Trixie Sharks are sold in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, I’ll put it that way. Just add grass and lily pads, and the Trixie Shark is on somebody’s rod.  The Sweet Beaver has so set the mark and bar as a compact flipping/punching bait, it’s hard to be a bass fisherman and not somehow come across the Beaver as a bait that is talked about and used.   And then you mix in the Skinny Dipper, and you have to be like, wow, Andre has made some really good baits that catch fish, and they each seem to have a unique fit or application, or do something different.

The body is short, stubby, and round and the tail is a paddle, and it is well proportioned to the rest of the body. Not a big thumping tail, but a tail that puts a lot of roll into the bait. The Skinny Dipper swims great at high speeds, slow speeds, and most importantly, swims well in the slop which means upside down and in and out of the water. I highly recommend braid.  50# mostly or 65#.  You of course can use good 15-20 florocarbon for open water and should, or use a leader of floro connected to your braid if you are down for that kind of thing.  I’m gonna try the braid to floro thing A LOT more my next time in Florida, for all my baits, not just the Skinny Dipper.

 

The Money Shot Violet Skinny Dipper was there when bass fishing was interrupted by this thing called the Alabama rig and Chad rode the wave and also did his own thing, see below…
You didn’t see this here. Don’t tell Chad. He will pound me. No, actually, this one and the one below I got permission. The 4th and final bait, his #1 bait for the event was not the Alabama Rig, the vibrating jig (below), nor the Scrounger (the above is a Skinny Dipper rigged on an Aaron Martens Scrounger head),  it was his ‘Stinger’ as he calls it, that one I won’t share, as per his request, back when I took these on the final day of the 2011 FLW Everstart Championship on Kentucky Lake.

 

Chatter cricket. Chattering Skinny Dipper. Chat-R-Dip. Cheddar Dip?!!!

 

Chad Prough is from Chipley Florida, which is Lake Seminole country, which also means, Lake Eufaula country. And here he is in Kentucky fishing the Tennessee River with one of his bread and butter baits fished on different heads and rigs. Nice adjustments Chad. On a tournament dominated by Alabama Rigs, Chad made the final day cut and had a strong finish without needing the A-Rig.   Chad is Team Reaction Innovations, and a super good guy, who had an incredible 2011 season all around, and keeps after it constantly.

 

The Vortex.

The Skinny Dipper on an Aaron Martens Scrounger Head and a vibrating/chatter jig head, sick and wrong. No skirt.  Do you see how this relates to the “Huddleston Vortex” conversation we like to think we broached in Southern Trout Eaters?  The footprint and swim signature of a vibrating jig and Scrounger head when coupled with a swimbait or any softbait for that matter,  is so unique and wild, that they go outside the parameters of the other 99.99% of baits and voila, the fish go nuts about them.  Guys will squeak out one or two more fish on a vibrating jig with a swimbait trailer than someone throwing a traditional spinnerbait at times, and how many times does one or two fish mean the difference between a good and bad tournament?   The fish have seen 10,000,000 spinnerbaits, and so when something that unique comes along with a swimbait attached to it, it gets woofed.  The Huddleston Vortex predicts things like baits with unique, very real, and very odd swimming patterns/footprints/signatures tend to catch more or bigger fish,  better than baits that are just ‘me too’ style baits that are just another jig, spinnerbait, crankbait,topwater bait, etc.   The Alabama Rig proved five baits trump one bait, why, among other reasons, 10 vortexes from (2 vortexes per bait (( <insert Ken’s voice>“one on each side of the tail“)), 5 baits on the A-Rig, stick with me now, we will be doing calculus here in a minute!) 5 little bait fishes has always been safe to eat.  Nothing had ever hooked a bass, that wasn’t trolled, that had 10 vortexes coming off it.    What other baits (besides the Alabama Rig) have crazy unique vortexes/swim signatures/footprints, especially when combined with a simple and effective swimbait like the Skinny Dipper?  Answer:  The Scrounger Head and the vibrating jig.

They pick off fish other baits will not, in the same areas other guys are throwing baits that have been thrown for X amount of years/seasons.  The Scrounger and vibrating jigs are just killer baits when combined with swimbaits like the Skinny Dipper.  What other swimbaits are good?  The swim senko for sure, Lake Fork Magic Shad swimbaits, and Basstrix style swimbaits are all excellent trailers on Scrounger Heads and vibrating jig, just stand alone.  Learn how to fish them.  You can deflect, bump, burn, slow grind, open water suspend, grass snatch, rock hop, and stroke both styles of head, and I promise you, these baits are tied on a lot of FLW Tour and Elite Series rods.  What swimbait they put on, unclear, but the Skinny Dipper is one of them, and the Scrounger and vibrating jig heads are fish catchers.  Big fish and tournament fish style fish catchers.   The Skinny Dipper serves up a simple purpose: being an all purpose, well shaped/proportioned bait, that serves as your full bodied ‘baitfish’ imitator on a number of different rigs and hooks.  It comes in really great colors and options, is relatively inexpensive, and is also weedless so it fits anything from Lake Lanier to Okeechobee in color and applications.  Keep it Soft Stupid.

Larry Mullikin pulling out the in the ‘coup de grace’ to the 2009 FLW Stren Series Lake Okeechobee event Co-Angler Division, out of Roland & Mary Ann Martins Marina. You can see Derek Jeter’s (big guy in the background onstage who would finish runner up in the co-angler division to Larry because of this fish) face as he has to look away from Larry’s fish. Ron Lappin asks, “So what did you catch it on?” Larry takes a minute, laughing…”Skinny Dipper………of course” … This was a month or so after Jimmy McMillan won the FLW Eastern Series on Okeechobee on the Skinny Dipper.  I finished 20th on the Swim Senko on the boater side with 10 pounds per day.

 

 

Going Green

I like to fish my Skinny Dipper on 50# braid (would go 65 pound if I was on bigguns in thick grass) with the plastic bullet head, and I tie on a 5/0 Owner Offset Shank Wide Gap Hook with a palomar knot, make sure my braided line is nice and black, and I go to work.  I fish the Skinny Dipper on the G-Loomis 964 BBR on a Curado reel and can fling that bugger quite a ways on that setup.  I get great leverage for casting and hooking up with that rod and reel combo.  You want a long rod to throw the Skinny Dipper.    You want a shallow bend in  your hook so your bait is more stream lined going thru the grass, mag gap and extra wide gap hooks aren’t my favorite, but probably are effective for someone.  The PayCheck Head Case is a great piece of terminal tackle and it really helps your rigging of the Skinny Dipper. It helps hold your baits true and helps your bait bull nose thru thick stuff, without ripping the bait or pulling the hook down the shank.  You’ll notice the bait spins at times in the above video.    The hook generally acts as a keel, keeping the bait oriented right, but the tail and design of the bait makes it roll back and forth, and at times, it will do complete 360 degree spins while fishing it.  Not my favorite, but then I realized this was a blessing and a reason it fishes so well in the grass.   The ability to be sloppy with the bait, and fish it thru super thick stuff, requires the bait swim in all kinds of weird positions, even out of the water.  That is were round baits beat flat sided baits.

 

The Skinny Dipper with the Owner Hook is a slender profile. I like the 5/0 hook because it reaches way back into the bait when you rig, but isn’t into the tail area where it would mess with the swim. The Owner hook is not a mag gap or super big bend, which help you slide it thru grass.

 

Reverse ribbing in the skin creates additional roll, drag, and footprint of the bait as it moves thru the water. The Owner Cutting Point hook is great with braided line. Fish load up on the bait, you drop your rod tip, and come up hard and reel like heck and you’ll stick the majority of your bites.

 

The Paycheck Head Case screws into the nose of the Skinny Dipper, and just helps you bull doze your way thru grass.

Swim Signature: Yamamoto Swim Senko

Published: 23 August 2012
Written by Alex Tech
No comments
Categories: Owner Hooks, Rigging, Small Bait Fishing, Swim Signatures, Weedless Swimbaits

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wExGeQfn0]

I’ve been a lifelong fan of Gary Yamamoto and his bait company.  Understand that growing up and fishing out West, Gary Yamamoto and his baits were staples in the desert lake (ie, Mead, Powell, Havasu) fishing scene and the Yamamoto Pro-Staff guys at the time (ie, Ben Matsubu and John Murray) were my idols coming up. I was fishing WON BASS as a AAA (meaning co-angler), and fished the desert lakes like Mead, Havasu, and the lower Colorado River.   So when Gary and Shin Fukae both had solid performances the FLW Eastern Series on Lake Okeechobee in 2009 (my first season on the Big O) I paid really close attention.  I remember going to the final day weigh in, it was cold and windy, and Shin was one of the only guys that caught a limit that final day.   He said ‘Swim Senko‘ and I took note.  This was the event that the late great Jimmy McMillan would win on the Skinny Dipper.   Swimming worms (you can call the Skinny Dipper and Swim Senko swimbaits of course, but from my perspective at the time, it was literally swimming worms) were something I hadn’t been exposed to or had any clue what was going on.

The mighty 5″ Yamamoto Swim Senko and 5/0 Owner Twistlock Open Gap Centering Pin Hook are a staple in my grass and open water fishing. Braid in grass and florocarbon in open water.

So, after that FLW Eastern Series on Okeechobee, about a month later, there was the FLW Stren Series event that I was signed up for.   This was my first months of ‘retirement’ from the corporate life I had just walked away from, so I was well funded and eager to fish, so I fished for about 25 days straight or something crazy on Okeechobee in preparation for the the FLW Stren Series event that was upcoming.  Besides just learning how to run and operate a boat in shallow grass and just get a feel for the Big O, I committed a lot of time to learning this ‘swimming worm’ deal.   It was a couple of things coming together all at once for me:  braided line, Skinny Dippers, 5″ Swim Senkos, Gambler Flapp’n Shads, Speed Worms, and Owner Twistlock Open Gap Centering Pin hooks.

Not sure why Junebug is such a good color in Florida, but it is.

In one month, I had gone from “get me off Okeechobee, this place is going to kill me and ruin all my equipment” to “I love this place, it has made me a much better fisherman.”    I had figured a few things out with the Swim Senko that helped me to a 20th place finish in that 2009 FLW Stren Series event.  The Swim Senko is a much more finesse swimming worm and bait than the Skinny Dipper.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE THE SKINNY DIPPER and it has opened up a lot more minds than just my own, but just like everything, there are subtle nuances that baits possess and do that others do not, and the swim senko proved to get way more bites in pressured water for me.   It has a smaller profile and footprint, and because the Skinny Dipper was being thrown by just about every other boat in the Monkey Box (water was high, like 14.50 that year, so you could get WAY into the Box and Harney Pond areas where we haven’t been since), I was catching fish and the boats around me were not.

This was the fish where the light bulb went off in my head, and I understood what I had been missing. Okeechobee, February 2009, expression session.

The Hook:

Owner’s Twistlock Open Gap Centering Pin Hooks were made to be fished with baits like the Swim Senko.   They do an excellent job of holding a bait on and keeping it true as you fish thru heavy grass (your bait doesn’t get pulled down the shank).   They make rigging super easy and give you a lot of life out of your baits.  You don’t have the same issues with the plastic getting worn out like you do when you thread on a worm Texas style.   They definitely are quality built, super sharp needlepoint, and robust enough to handle the rigors of 50-65# braided line, heavy grass and full torque by 8 foot rods and 300 series reels.  I like to fish the 5/0 with the Swim Senko, which might seem like overkill for the little bait, but it gives the bait extra weight for casting and its already an unrefined, unreal style of bait, so realism isn’t the issue, its about hooking ’em in the grass.

Green pumpkin or watermelon colors don’t suck either. The boot tail of the Swim Senko does a whole lot of twisting, which in turn, twists the entire body of the bait. One advantage round baits have vs. flat sided soft baits, is when you are in thick grass, where your bait is actually coming in and out of the water, round baits can fish cleanly upside down and all awkward like, whereas flat sided softbaits will skim across the surface or plane out to the side.

The Swim Senko has subtle things like added weight to the plastic (like the original Senko that has rocked the world, just by adding more salt and fat to their plastic, Yamamoto revolutionized making plastic baits that actually had some weight, so when fished weightless, they would sink and do subtle things that fish noticed and immediately responded to.   The tail of the Swim Senko is booted, but has unique ribs that give it a unique vortex.   The bait can be fished on spinning gear and skipped under trees and docks, or can be fished on 50# braid and light action 8 footers “getting after it” style in the thick grass

I wouldn’t say the Swim Senko is beautiful or gorgeous or has any realism associated with it to speak of. But it is a fish catcher. That is exactly why I like it so much, because it contrasts the “Huddlston Vortex” conversation about realism. You cannot join the realism conversation unless you have committed time and caught fish on both the very real and the very not real. The Swim Senko is Exibit A, the ‘unreal’ swimbait that catches fish. But then again, nobody is talking about 12+ pounders here, are they? We are talking tournament grass swimming baits.  I pin the hookpoint back into the bait, for weedlessness.  Ugly looking bugger, but dang if the fish don’t eat it.

Other Applications

The Swim Senko is a great trailer on your swim jigs and vibrating/chatter style baits.  They also make great trailer on your Fish Head Spins and the underspin style of bait.  They can be fished on light 1/8 and 1/16 tungsten weights with spinning gear and sorta shakey headed/t-rigged around creeks and things where you need to half way be swimming a bait and half way dragging and making bottom contact style bait.   Be sure to notice there is a Jr. or small 4″  sized version of the Swim Senko too, which is awesome to fit smaller profile swim jigs, vibrating jigs and underspins or an even more finesse swimmer in the grass…

Casey Martin Simplifies Florida Grass Fishing

Published: 21 August 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, Grass Punching, Owner Hooks, Rods, Shimano, Small Bait Fishing, Terminal Tackle

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sde0QhrZngY]

Casey Martin is a Canadian, and he blends in as a Southerner about as well as I do.   However, when you put a rod and reel in Casey’s hand, you’d think he was born and raised on the banks of the Tennessee River or in the lowland grass fisheries of Florida.   Casey fishes the FLW Tour as a co-angler and has won 3 events (the 2011 FLW Tour Open Guntersville “A-Rig” Super Nova Tournament,  2011 FLW Tour Open on Champlain, and the 2012 FLW Tour Major on Kentucky Lake) in the last 12 months.  Having a chance to fish with Casey during the off limits time prior to the 2012 FLW Tour Open on Lake Okeechobee afforded me some time to fish with Casey, and this blog post and the adjoining video are the highlights.  Casey has been working hard the last 5 years, living on Lake Guntersville, fishing with his pals Derek Remitz and Craig Dowling to hone his tournament and grass fishing approaches.  Clearly, it’s paying off.

Punching ’em in the mouth. Casey, the 4.20 Sweet Beaver, 1.5 oz of Picasso Tungsten and the 4/0 Owner Twistlock Flippin Hook getting it done, and then things tightened up a bit….

Casey keeps his grass fishing simple.  It goes like this:

  • Have a Sweet Beaver and BB Cricket ready to go as your punch baits (a full bodied punch bait on a 1.5 ounce Picasso tungsten weight, and a smaller profile Gambler BB Cricket as your fall back, the fish are pressured and not biting the Sweet Beaver anymore, more finesse punch bait)
  • Get in the habit of having perfect mechanics in grass punching.  Never waste movements, time or water by making the most precise and efficient casts you can (ie, his sling cast where he never touches his bait and slings an incoming bait back out using the momentum of the incoming pendulum).  Keep yourself in position and be ready for a hard upward hookset, get on the reel quickly, and pull fish out from the thick stuff as quickly as possible for the best chances of boating ’em.
  • Jig fishing.  Use the jig to fish the sparse stuff, where you don’t need punching gear to get thru the vegetation.   Sparse reed patches, isolated clumps of grass, and where ever you don’t need punching stuff to get a bait in.
  • Keep your hardbait selection simple.  Use a Devil’s Horse or gold Rattle Trap to cover water and find fish that are in between your flip and pitch spots.  There is no need to re-invent the wheel here.  Rattle Traps and Devils Horses in Florida are like drop shots and swimbaits in California.  They are proven and work, so just go with it.

Here is a breakdown of the gear Casey was using:

Punching Setup #1:

Reaction Innovations 4.20 Sweet Beaver, Penetration Color

1.5 ounce Picasso Tunsten Weight

Bobber Stops to Peg Weight

4/0 Owner Twistlock Flippin Hook or 4/0 Gamakatsu Flippin Hook

70# Daiwa Samurai Braid

7’5″ G-Loomis Mossyback Flippin Sticks with Left Handed Shimano Curado 200 or Chronarch Reels

Finesse Punching Setup #2

Gambler BB Cricket in Junebug

1 ounce Picasso Tungsten Weight

Bobber Stop to Peg Weight

3/0 Gamakatsu Flippin’ Hook

70# Daiwa Samurai Braid

7’5″ G-Loomis Mossyback Flippin Sticks with Left Handed Shimano Curado 200 or Chronarch Reels

Grass Flippping Jigs

Medlock Jigs are difficult to find.  The only place I know is: Lorida Bait and Tackle:  863-655-5510

Alternatives to the Medlock Jig are the:

Strike King Hack Attack Jig (1 oz)

Gambler Ugly Otter Trailer for Jig

Hardbait Setups:

Devils Horse   3/8oz. (any color)

Rat-L-Trap  1/2 ounce Gold Shad color

15# Seagar Florocarbon  (for Rattle Trap fishing)

 

Follow Casey Martin’s fishing at caseymartinfishing.com.  Casey is on his way to a stellar career in professional fishing, and is already competing and winning at the sport’s highest levels and continues to soak up and re-apply information and techniques he is learning with brilliance.  Casey works with the best companies in the business like:  Omega Custom Tackle, Picasso, Rat-L-Trap, Power Pole, Evinrude Outboards and Ranger Boats.   If you have a chance to interact with these companies, let them know Casey is out there not only representing this companies, but showing these products in real world/tournament usage.   It’s one thing to talk about products, its another to get film and footage that validates the things you are trying to convey.   Casey works hard at his fishing, while still holding down contracted work as an electrical engineer for the automotive industry.   Look for Casey to ease his way into fishing from the front of the boat at the FLW Tour level, but what is the rush?   Casey has nothing but time and wisdom to make good decisions at the right time.  In the mean time, look for him at the top of the leaderboard at the Everstart, BFL, and of course the FLW Tour Co-Angler levels for now.

“Anything I can do, Casey can do better! ( and faster, quicker, less complicated and more efficiently)”

 

***The ‘striping’ caused in some clips of the video were caused from a failed hard drive.  I went the thru the painful and expensive ‘data recovery’ process, hence the striping and distortion.***

Music:

“Che Seville”

Album: The Left Hand Side

Label:  Body Deep Music

Swim Signature: Owner Flashy Accent Trailer Blade

Published: 26 June 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: Owner Hooks, Rigging, Small Bait Fishing, Swim Signatures, Terminal Tackle, The Alabama Rig

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6k4B5tfsks]

Owner Hooks has done something pretty cool with the Flashy Accent Trailer Blade series.   The Flashy Accent is meant to compliment and add flash to any bait.   You can add a flashy blade on a barrel swivel to just about any bait  you can imagine.   I cannot at all claim to have even scratched the surface of what these Flashy Accent’s are capable of.  There are just too many baits and applications.

You have two willow leafs and one Indiana blade to choose from. Way too much still to explore, but pretty neat how well these compliment small baits, and even fish well stand alone.

Senko Upgrade:

Its hard to beat a Senko.  Any accessory that will actually compliment one of the Top 3 fish catchers of recent history, is something to consider.  Keith Poche put a blade in a Senko and put together an awesome 2012 BassMaster Classic as a result. A simple modification to a simple bait to give it a different look and fingerprint.  The Flashy Accent is perfect for job to Poche your Senko.  The Senko is so do nothing, so neutral buoyant, so simple, that adding flash to it and changing its original is always going to have drawbacks, but shoot, it’s going to have advantages at times too.  Around current, where the blade is going to be flopping and turning and churning in the eddies and fast water sections, the Flashy Accent is going to really liven up and enhance what the Senko might do.  I love how the bait helicopters straight down.  Looks like an arrow or missle or something headed straight toward the bottom, but also uses the blade to glide along.  The bait (and this happens when you’re drop shotting too) will rest on the face of the Flashy Accent and use it to plane as it falls sometimes.  The other times it tends to helicopter the blade, blade end first, of the Senko and I really like that look.   I tried to capture that in the video above.   Fishing the 5″ Senko on a #1 Owner Mosquito Hook with criss crossed O-Rings that you put on with a Wacky Tool.

Part One: Cut #1 Paper Clip. Use to pin the Flashy Swimmer, thru the swivel, you can even remove the plastic keeper if you want and save it for using as a hook keeper, the paper clip will hold the swivel metal to metal just fine. Super Glue paper clip into bait with Flashy Swimmer, very carefully, for added insurance.
Part 2: take the horse shoe cut paper clip and shove it down snugly into the end of your Senko. Use your pliers to narrow up and make the horse shoe longer, etc to best secure the Flashy Swimmer into the bait.
Completed Rig. Snug down the horseshoe and go fish. I like the larger of the two willow leafs for the 5″ Senko. The smaller willow leaf Flashy Accent would look great in the 3 & 4″ Senkos.

Head Spins:

The Fish Head Spin is quietly and consistently catching lots of fish in lots of places.  Grass, hard bottom, river, whatever.   Places where the A-Rig is now catching them, which is lots and lots.   The beauty of the Head Spin is adding some bladed flash to a swimming bait.  Now, with the Flashy Accent, you can turn your drop shot baits into mini ‘head spin’ setups.  Especially when you use full bodied drop shot baits.    As well, with the Flashy Accent Senko Rig ala Keith Poche’s 2012 BassMaster Classic performance, you are turning your Senko into a head spin/spinnerbait of sorts.  Notice how the Flashy Accent causes the Senko to fall blade end first, and how the blade turn and spins or helps the bait glide back to the bottom.  The Flashy Accent is helping us blend styles and techniques, and your only limitation is your imagination.   Here I am fishing the 1/2 oz Fish Head Spin with a Little Dipper as a trailer and the larger of the two willow leaf Flashy Accents.

How do you make a Fish Head Spin better? If “Fish Head Spinning” your Senko might make a Senko better, in some cases, how about Alabama Rigging (multi-rigging) your Fish Head Spin?  Where you have a sorta bait ball appeal, the Flashy Swimmer gives another blade and flash to the Fish Head Spin.

Drop Shotting:

You can drop shot the Flashy Accent Trailer Blade as a stand alone bait.   When your drop shot bait is on the bottom, you can do mini ‘strokes’ and the Flashy Accent fishes like a mini spoon, like guys who stroke spoons off ledges off the Tennessee River.  Pretty cool drop shot refinements and integration of a few techniques into one.  When you add a Flashy Accent Trailer Blade to your drop shot softbait, you give your softbait a look it probably hasn’t had much.  I found the Flashy Accent compliment full bodied shad style drop shot baits like the Yamamoto Shad Shape, Jackall Clone Fry  and Owner Wounded Minnow really well.   If conditions call for a more horizontal and castable drop shot approach, you can sorta slow grind/hop your drop shot to make it a swimbait with this setup.  Swimming your drop shot rig.   It has given me the idea that I really need to lighten up the drop shot weights I’m using, especially in shallow water/current situations where you want your rig to tumble and come over gravel well.   A well matched, l drop shot weight could be used to literally allow you to swim a small drop shot worm, like a fish head spin/drop shot combo, 1.5 -3 feet off the bottom from 0-100 feet.   Anyway, that’s what I saw in the Flashy Accent in its action and fishability with the Wounded Minnow.   I’m fishing the Wounded Minnow on a #2 Mosquito Hook.  You could definitely sorta ‘stroke’ your drop shot too, which is wild.

Drop shot the blade only and ‘stroke’ the blade on slack line with a drop shot setup. Pretty cool action and a new twist on drop shot fishing.
Owner Flashy Accent turns you drop shot into a head spin/swimbait of sorts, if you use a full bodied shad style drop shot bait. This is the Owner Wounded Minnow I’m using to show how the Flashy Accent compliments a drop shot bait.

Alabama Rig:

If you look at the implications of umbrella rigs and what the Alabama Rig did to our fishing, you realize we are foolish to not be using teasers and dummy baits at times give the appearance of a school of bait.   The Flashy Accent provides you a mechanism to ‘A-Rig’ whatever you want, like a hard bait, or any hard bait you can think of.    You basically are only limited by your skills with rigging, but the hardware is now there to add little blades to baits that otherwise had none.

Indiana Blade Owner Flashy Accent on a 3″ Big Hammer, which tells me it can be fished on the Alabama/Umbrella rigs too.  Why not add blades and additional teasers to swimbaits in some cases, especially umbrella rig cases?

The Rig Affect

You can say things about the Flashy Swimmer that put it in the same conversation as the Alabama Rig.  You are creating multiple flashes within one castable lure.  You’re re-arranging the way blades are being strung up and hung…lets see we have inline blades and safety pin framed bladed baits.  Underspins and Head Spins quietly join the party.  Look at what Spencer Shuffield did at the 2012 FLW Tour Table Rock Lake event and the umbrella rig he was throwing in Missouri.   It had 3 teaser blades as part of the setup.  Missouri is a 3 bait only state so to maximize his effectiveness and fish within the rules, here comes this edition.  Flashers and teasers, get your mind out of the gutter, we are talking about catching those suspended fishes that chase balls of baits here. My aloha pal Trevor Lincoln, from down around the junction of El Capitan and San Vicente Lakes (San Diego, CA), makes this bait called the Trip Jig.  I cannot share all the details of everything I know about the Trip Jig that my friends share with me because it’s not mine to share.  However, I can share what I’ve done to the Trip Jig thus far, since I fished around a lot of shallow grass this year in the SouthEast (Okeechobee, Seminole, Guntersville, Santee Cooper), and gone thru a bunch of Grass Minnows in the process:

The Trip Jig with 3 Grass Minnows on Lake Guntersville. The Trip Jig has absolutely no class: short skirt, flashy, teasy sorta bait that can be fished weedless style.

Moving Forward:

The Flashy Accent is a very unique accessory and new piece of terminal tackle in my tackle box.  I basically try putting it on a bunch of various baits and see how it swims and looks and fishes.   And of course, I’m fishing the ones I like and collecting footage to share in the future.   The Flashy Accent is just something that literally compliments or adds some flash to just about any bait in your box. I tried to show some basics on ways I have found worthy of exploration to start.  How about taking off hooks on hardbaits and using blades as teasers instead?  You ever notice some Japanese hardbaits come with blades as tails and they basically put blades in places we don’t expect them at times?  The umbrella rig and what we’ve learned about bass willing to chase an entire bait ball better than a single stand alone, especially while suspended.  All related stuff to where and why the Flashy Accent has my attention and is being integrated into my fishing.    Swimbait/bigbait implications?  Don’t know yet. Have some ideas and applications but haven’t validated it enough to say.  Work in progress.   Feel free to join the conversation and post your thoughts/experiences below.  MP

2012 Santee Cooper FLW Everstart Recap

Published: 22 April 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Huddleston Deluxe, MS Slammer, Rate of Stall, Rigging, Shimano, Small Bait Fishing, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD, Triple Trout, Weedless Swimbaits

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwLQGri_yvY]

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.

Here’s the deal with Wacky Rigging:

Rod: Shimano Cumara 7’2″ Medium Heavy (CUS72MH)

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.

Line:  15# Power Pro connected to a 2.5 foot leader of  10# Yamamoto Sugoi Florocarbon

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

Bait:  Yamamoto Senko 5″  Or Zoom Trick Worm (watermelon seed, green pumpkin red, black neon, black blue, or junebug)

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.

Here is the deal with the Grass Bite:

Swimming Baits:  Skinny Dippers or Swim Senkos or Gambler Big EZ  (black blue, watermelon/green pumpkins)

Frogs/Terrestrials:  Spro  BronzeEye Frogs or Poppin Frog or Paycheck Transporter Frog or Picasso Shad Walker  (natural colors/black)

Line: 65 or 50# Power Pro

Hooks:  Owner  Twistlock Open Gap (Swim Senko, 5/0 or 6/0 for Skinny Dipper), Owner Weighted Beast Hook (Big EZ, 6/0 w/ 1/4 oz weight)

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.

Santee Cooper Wacky Rigging a Senko
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?”