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Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD

The 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig

Published: 3 April 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Big Hammer, P-Line, Polarized Fishing Glasses, Rigging, Sight Fishing, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD
The Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig is part of a system. It's a system that involves using finesse baits and bigbaits to aggravate a fish into biting. The swimbait is fished as an 'intruder' and provides a power fishing approach to big fish, the female kind usually, but also good for the better than dink males you might need in a tournament situation.

We shared this rig in Southern Trout Eaters.  We have been getting asked a lot of questions about it, and Spring has sprung, so here goes.    Think of the 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig as a workhorse bed fishing bait, geared for ‘bigger’ fish.   The one rod you have rigged up in case you come up on or purposely hunt big fish on  beds.   We’ve had a few years to validate this rig, in the mountains, and in the grass of Okeechobee and Seminole.  I credit my friend and trophy bass hunter from the Bay Area, Rob Belloni, for sharing the fundamental of his Big Hammer Texas Rig with me. I’ve sorta dumbed it down since I’m usually not hunting double digit fish with it, most of my world, 4-9 pounders are king, with chances at double digits for sure though.    I’ve made my own adjustments and have made it a staple in my sight fishing system.   Rob has fooled giants, I have now fooled quite a few 4-9 pounders with it in multiple Southern States.   This is a great trophy and tournament style of sight fishing, and it points out the need for a knock out punch in your bed fishing arsenal.

The 5" Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig. 5" Big Hammer, rigged flat side up. Just bury your hook point enough to keep the bait weedless and free from snagging the fish, but able to sting one that just barely grabs it. Peg your weight, pitch and hop this thing around larger bed fish and see what happens.

The 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig:

Bait: 5″ Big Hammer Swimbait  (colors:  Pearl, Invader, Glowbug, Silver Phantom, Chartreuse, Fire tiger)

Sinker: 3/4 to 1 ounce Picasso Tungsten Weight or Pro-Metal Weights (since you just need ‘weight’ high performance tungsten not 100% necessary.)  (pegged)

Hook: 5/0 Owner Wide Gap Offset Worm Hook

Line: 25# P-Line CXX Xtra Strong w/ Palomar knot

Glasses:  Kaenon Hard Kore Y35 or C12 Lens

Reel: Shimano Curado CU200G6

Rods: Powell 7’10” MH (7105) Flipping Rod or Okuma Guide Select 7’6″ Heavy Casting (761H)

This 7'10" Powell Flipping Rod is a favorite all purpose 'heavy pitching' rod, for baits >1 ounce but not more than 1.5 or so. ie the Medlock Jig, 5" Big Hammer Rig, pitching 3/4 -1 ounce creature baits in grass, and light punching. The rod has guts. I think of it as a heavy pitching stick. I have whipped some nice fish with this rod. The short handle makes it handle and fish nicely, but long enough for leverage.

When you look at the trends in where bed/sight fishing is going, you will notice certain swimbaits and softbaits have flat sides or can be rigged flat side up are doing the most damage out there.  More cutting edge, more geared towards targeting bigger fish or a better mouse trap for fooling weary pressured fish.   The Dean Rojas Warmouth,  and the Jackall Clone Gill 2.5 and the Mission Fish are all part of the big picture of modern sight fishing.  All have wild variations and secret rigging and tricks I’m sure. I know the Hammer and Mission Fish best, both part of my toolkit.  Believe me when I tell you I use a drop shot a lot when sight fishing.  You need a big knock out punch and you need finesse, so I use the Mission Fish and Hammer as my big knockout punches, and drop shot/wacky and light texas rigs like the Warmouth and Clone Gill as my finesse approach.  I thought it important to note flat side up  or just flat sided bed fishing baits, have something about their swagger.  Flat sides, square/boot/slight swallow tails, realism, perch/bluegill profiles, buoyancy, weedlessness, unique vortex, and big fish attraction.   The Lateral Perch from PowerTackle is a derivative here, and likely a bed fishing bait for someone out there, but too has the this flat side up profile and swim, and is worth noting. I cannot speak to how well the Lateral Perch catches fish, but all of the other named baits I’m 100% certain catch fish on beds really well, and have too much in common not to connect the dots.   They all fish differently, but in the grand scheme of sight fishing, you better have tools that can be drop shotted, pitched, weightless/wackied, hopped, swam, and texas rigged if you want to be competitive.   Don’t just limit yourself to white tubes, craws and creature baits.  Be thinking perch/bluegill too.

The Okuma 7'6" MH Rod getting it done too. You need some 7'6" and shorter than 8' rods for fishing baits like the Mission Fish. This is an even beefier style of pitching stick vs. the Powell, but it takes the conversation to more like 2-6 ounce baits no problem. I liked using it for the 5" Big Hammer rig too. Lots of power and fished very nicely. The rod still has good feel even though my rig was under weighted for the rod, and it just worked for me.

The 5″ Big Hammer Sight Fishing Rig is an excellent sight fishing system.  You can see your bait very well in the black Florida water, and it shows up well fishing a bed fish in >8 feet of water in clear water.   The rig has ample weight involved, which means you can ‘rapid fire’ and harass a fish with the bait, pushing the fish around, and firing them up into biting.  The bait hops really well, and has the square tailed flap on the way back down to the bottom.  It’s more of a hop hop and slight drag and shake style of  bait.  The fish love to ‘catch’ the bait coming back down to the bottom, with a well placed and timed hop.  The 5″ Big Hammer gets bigger bed fish to bite and has an excellent hook-up and land ratio.  There is very little risk of foul hooking or snagging a fish, with the Texas rigged nature of the bait, which also opens up the ability to bounce the rig off of the side, head and tail of the fish, making them eat it.   You can expect to see a sight fishing production from us in the near future, highlighting this rig.  We gave a sneak peak of the bait underwater in our Lake Seminole FLW Evestart Preview video, in case you missed it.

Trout Eaters of Winter

Published: 13 January 2012
Written by Alex Tech
1 Comment
Categories: Huddleston Deluxe, Rate of Stall, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD

Here is an attempt to post an article that was recently published by Bass Angler Magazine (BAM), in their Q1 2012 Winter Edition.   Bass Angler Magazine is kicking butt with really good articles that are full of excellent content.   The articles are contributed by anglers who range from KVD and Elite/Tour Super Stars, to the AAA level guy like me, to women, amateurs, co-anglers, and regional and technique specialists.  Refreshing reading material, not overly edited and polished, but that’s what makes it real and the content genuine.   BAM comes out 4 times year, a subscription is $7.95 and available via Tackle Warehouse by clicking here.

Page 1, Trout Eaters of Winter, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Trout Eater of Winter, Page 2, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Trout Eaters of Winter, Page 3, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Trout Eaters of Winter, Page 4, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Bass Angler Magazine, Cover Shot, Q1 2012

Rate of Stall: A Discussion

Published: 28 December 2011
Written by Alex Tech
10 Comments
Categories: 3:16 Lure Company, Huddleston Deluxe, Nezumaa Rat, Rate of Stall, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD, Triple Trout

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAufr4YVk8I]

If I wanted to tell you that a Rate of Fall 5  (ROF 5) Huddleston Deluxe Trout is sometimes better than a ROF 12 or ROF 16 Huddleston Deluxe Trout, I would explain it two ways.  One has to do with the Rate of Fall and how slow sinking the ROF 5 is, compared to the other two.   The other measurement I’d like to provide you is it’s Rate of Stall score, meaning something I can ‘score’ the bait on and speak to the East and West travel of the bait (not just the North and South, as in Rate of Fall).   You can creep the ROF 5 along, and it still maintains its parallel to the surface posture, but moves toward you much much slower than doing the same thing with the ROF 16.  The ROF 16 wants to sink out and forces you to reel faster to get the bait planing toward you, which speeds up how fast it comes at you, the subtle difference between the time a ROF 16 vs a ROF 5 in terms of how slow you can reel each bait and fish it properly is a based in an understanding of Rate of Stall, at least, that’s what I’m calling it for now!  When fish are on points or offshore it requires a slower and more thorough presentation, and at times, the ROF 5 8″ Huddleston is the better choice (amongst the 8″ Huddleston Deluxe family of trout baits)  for 2 reasons:  Rate of Fall (ROF) and Rate of Stall (ROS).  ROS is not just a Huddleston thing, in fact, understanding ROS within the swim of the Huddleston conversation is an ‘advanced’ conversation.   Floating baits best help visualize Rate of Stall, a la the Nezumaa Rat, as you’ll see in the video clip.

The above video clip is an attempt to present the idea of Rate of Stall, and is the beginning to what will be a multiple part online discussion. We touched on Rate of Stall in Southern Trout Eaters, and I talked about how I learned how to alter my MS Slammer retrieve from a straight wind, to a more walk the dog, start and stop–more stalled retrieve based on what I’d learned from fishing the Nezumaa Rat.  I was able to keep my MS Slammer around the shade lines and steep faces of the Ozark Lakes, and that was where the fish were, and what it took to draw the strikes.      I’ve asked Rob McComas (who is featured in Southern Trout Eaters) who is a MS Slammer specialist and Matt Allen from Tacticalbassin.com to provide some feedback and prepare a video response to Rate of Stall.  I watched a video clip of Matt talking about the Lunker Punker and talking about fishing it over points, and I knew he would understand Rate of Stall and what I’m proposing here, so I reached out to get Matt’s perspective on the theme of Rate of Stall.  I’m hoping having an online discussion where multiple people can provide video responses can be done in an orderly and effective fashion and provides a refreshed medium to have online fishing discussions.    So, here is my part, just proposing Rate of Stall as a form of measurement and a rating or scaling system we might consider in talking about our baits.  The “East and West” if you consider Rate of Fall to be “North and South”.   I’m on Okeechobee right now, testing out Rate of Stall as it relates to fishing softbaits like the 3:16 Bluegill and neutrally buoyant and floating hardbaits like the 22nd Century Bluegill, rat baits, and MS Slammers in the grass, keyword:  “grass”.  I have other additions to Rate of Stall already underway, and I’m anxious to hear what Matt and Rob have to say about it, and we go from there.  Check back here, for updates and the various responses.  I have my fingers crossed, this online discussion format, with varying responses being stacked chronologically and playing off each other, will fly.   We shall see.  Please comment below, if you have some input on Rate of Stall.

nezumaa rat rate of stall
The Nezumaa Rat helped me grasp something I knew, but couldn't fully explain. Talking to Rob McComas, hearing what Matt Allen said about the Lunker Punker in one of his TacticalBassin.com videos, my experience with ROF 5 vs ROF 12 or 16, and grass fishing has lead me to: Rate of Stall. . Oh the grass fishing, probably nowhere more important is Rate of Stall and understanding it in bait selection, line (braid and its neutral buoyancy adds Rate of Stall for example), the vortex of the tail (boot vs. wedge vs. modified wedge), or the buoyancy (floating vs. slow sink vs. neutral) properties of various hard and softbaits. But Rate of Stall, I argue is a missing dimension in talking about the swim of most of the baits we fish. You've got to be able to talk about the East and West and track a bait as it swims or can be stalled, toward the boat (not just the sink rate, or North and South, as in Rate of Fall). The Net Net Net of this conversation is picking the right baits for the right situations and also applying the right retrieves, and/or a combination thereof. Ryan Thoni catching a small one, and the Nezumaa Rat shifting into high-low gear.

The Big O Sessions Part One: The Huddleston Deluxe Weedless Suite in “Grass Swimmers”

Published: 12 November 2011
Written by Alex Tech
No comments
Categories: 2011 Tournament Fishing, Huddleston Deluxe, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD, Weedless Swimbaits

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT2Y5HJExMk]

Here is some previously unreleased footage and insights into grass swimbait fishing with the Huddleston Deluxe Weedless Suite of Baits:  The Grass Minnow, The Weedless Shad, and the 6” Weedless Trout.   This is the first part of what we are calling “The Big O Sessions”, and this Part One is called:  Grass Swimmers.

This footage was shot on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, in January 2011.   We are celebrating the launch of a new site for southernswimbait.com and just celebrating rising water levels on Okeechobee and counting our blessing for still being on the road, fishing.  Gonna keep the train rolling into 2012.

Gear for the Grass Minnow:

Rod:  G-Loomis 964 BBR
Reel:   Shimano Curado  200 G6 or G7 (either 6.5.1 or 7.0:1 Gear Ratios will work)
Line:   Power Pro 50#
Knot:  Palomar

Gear for the Weedless Shad:

Rod:   G-Loomis 964 BBR
Reel:  Shimano Curado 200 G6 or G7 (either 6.5.1 or 7.0:1 Gear Ratios will work)
Line:   Power Pro 50#
Knot:  Palomar

Gear for the 6” Weedless Trout

Rod:   G-Loomis 965 BBR
Reel:   Shimano Curado 300 E
Line:  Power Pro 65 or 80#
Knot:  Palomar

Sunglasses:     Black Kaenon Hard Kores with Y-35 Lens

Notes:  Watch the hook sets in the above video.   Slower action rods, sweeping pressure set style hook sets.   Long whip casts, where you have 12-15” of line out from your rod tip and make a whip cast to get the bait out there and maximize casting distance with an 8 foot rod.  Whatever style or brand of sunglasses you wear, try out some Yellow lenses in the black Florida water.  You will be amazed at what Yellow lens technology does to brighten up that black Florida water, no matter if the sun is out or not. I wear my Kaenon Hard Kores with the Y-35 lens everyday in Florida (including out to the night clubs in South Beach, it helps me blend in with the hipsters!).