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bigbaits

The Okuma Komodo 364

Published: 7 December 2014
Written by Alex Tech
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Categories: Okuma, Reels
Wading, on a Tuesday afternoon. Braid, Okuma Komodo 364 and a top hook Huddleston 68 with the barb pinched down. Shallow water trophy hunting, White River, Arkansas.
Wading, on a Tuesday afternoon. Braid, Okuma Komodo 364 and a top hook Huddleston 68 with the barb pinched down. Shallow water trophy hunting, White River, Arkansas.

I’m realizing where I’ve made miscalculations and misjudgements in my fishing at times.   I’m a huge fan of big fat round reels. I am born and raised on Don Iovino “doodling” where short Phenix Rods, w Excalibur Handles and round Abu-Garcia reels where how you caught fish in Southern California.   Now, at a macro level, understand that Iovino was both right and wrong.  At that same time, a guy like Dean Rojas was smashing fish with reaction baits, challenging the finesse only / shaking 4″ worms on 8 pound line in >20 feet of water to get a bit.    My point being, I’ve made mistakes in REEL SELECTION at times.  Low profile reels tend to be way more easy to fish.  They weigh ounces less than the big gold Shimano Calcutta TE or D Series.  Low profile reels have way better gears than they used to, they have quicker gear ratios and line pickup speeds, and can handle all your bigbaits. I like the slowness of the round TE 400 for specialized Huddleston fishing. I can’t see myself not having a few 400 TEs in the boat with me, but the 300 Series of low profile swimbait reels continues to grow on me.   Anywho, besides ergonomic and aesthetic advantages, they tend to have faster gear ratios.  I suppose I need to say, the Shimano Curado 300 is and will remain a sick ass low profile swimbait reel that can handle bigbaits and big fish.   However,  Shimano is no longer in the position they enjoyed historically.  Insert Okuma.

Okuma provides a great value product.  They have made outstanding rods in the bigbait fishing department for years.  The Guide Select Series has been what I and many other recommend to beginning swimbait fisherman.  I know Mark Rogers and Mike Bennett a little bit, and know these guys charge hard and do a lot of hardcore charging.   They keep hardcore swimbait fishing happy and treat them with respect and aloha.  Check out what Oliver Ngy (Big Bass Dreams)  and Kevin Mattson (Bass King)  fish with.   Okuma wisely has decided to engage subject matter experts and figure out ways to partner and team up with them.  The result is what can be seen and felt in the Okuma Komodo 364.   Let’s be honest., the Okuma reels couldn’t compete in the quality department years ago, but now they can.  They’ve proven it now for the last few years, and the work of buys in both salt and freshwater are all the validation you should need.

Slinging a Huddie 68 at a 45 degree upriver angle. Fishing it back down and across. Sometimes stalling to a 45 degree downriver or more angle retrieve back.
Slinging a Huddie 68 at a 45 degree upriver angle. Fishing it back down and across. Sometimes stalling to a 45 degree downriver or more angle retrieve back.

You need a few 300 Series, low profile reels in your swimbait game.  Skipping 6″ Weedless Huddlestons under docks was a favorite past time of mine for years.  Low profile reels and dock skipping make a lot of sense.  A new trend in my Triple Trout fishing is fishing the 7-8″ Triple Trout on the Curado 300. The quicker gear ratio (vs the Calcutta 300 or 400) made fishing the Triple Trout way easier.   So, I find the mid range hardbaits to be an outstanding application of the 300 Series of reels.  What Kevin Mattson and Oliver Ngy have really opened my eyes to is the application of the 300 series, with the Komodo 364 to the megabaits, the bigger bigbaits like the Slide Swimmer 250.  The Slide Swimmer 250 and the magnum glide baits like the Roman Mades, Gan Craft and big Rago Glideaor, need to be a staple in your swimbait fishing, as are the Huddleston Deluxe, Triple Trout, MS Slammer and the rat baits of your choice.

The base of the Bull Shoals Dam, and the genesis of the White River trout fishery. Big browns live here. Don't fish here. You might get your arm broke.
The base of the Bull Shoals Dam, and the genesis of the White River trout fishery. Big browns live here. Don’t fish here. You might get your arm broke.

Here’s the deal, you can spend $250 on a Curado 300 and be happy. Shimano is not a company that can be engaged if you are interested in fishing for a living and want to partner with them in any shape or form.  Just leave it at that.  Fish their stuff, and be stoked, it’s awesome. Or you could spend $ 220, buy an Okuma Komodo 364, and align yourself with a company and group of guys the welcomes and engages the swimbait fishing community and subject matter experts. When there are alternatives out there, like Okuma and Abu Garcia that are making great value products that are high quality,  capitalism and free markets take their course.   I would definitely recommend the Okuma Komodo 364 now after fishing it hard. I haven’t caught the uber giants with it yet, but I did fish the gamut of my favorite mid size and magnum sized baits, and have wipped some nice fish.  I keep a pulse on what reels guys are really catching their fish with, and the Komodo 364 across both salt and freshwater continues to impress and amaze.   Check out Okuma’s facebook page to get a pulse on their community and O’hana HERE.

Blazing July Heat, 50 degree White River, and the Slide Swimmer 250. The Okuma Komodo 364 has the guts to lob megabaits. And the gearing and quality to do it 50B times in your lifetime. Low profile, quicker, and easier on your wrists. Talk about putting english into a Slide Swimmer and cutting current.
Blazing July Heat, 50 degree White River, and the Slide Swimmer 250. The Okuma Komodo 364 has the guts to lob megabaits. And the gearing and quality to do it 50B times in your lifetime. Low profile, quicker, and easier on your wrists. Talk about putting English into a Slide Swimmer and cutting current.  Notice the fish’s mouth got a little tore up, but Karma came around quick, notice my thumb bleeding on my right hand. She gouged me good as I tried to pick her up at one point.

 

The Promar Net is my livewell and definitely served it's purpose in spades this day.
The Promar Net is my livewell and definitely served it’s purpose in spades this day.

 

2nd Slide Swimmer fish. Notice how gold and orange this fish is vs. the above fish. This one was way smaller, like a 23" fish. The above fish was >30" and my biggest brown ever. I love the GoPro. Shots like this are random and just fun.
2nd Slide Swimmer fish. Notice how gold and orange this fish is vs. the above fish. This one was way smaller, like a 23″ fish. The above fish was >30″ and my biggest brown ever. I love the GoPro. Shots like this are random and just fun.

For what it’s worth, I highly recommend you invest in a Komodo 364, a spool of 65 or 80# braid, and pair it with the swimbait rod of your choice and application.  Braid and the low profile bigbait reel with the faster gear ratio have changed my fishing.  It works and is my system for many baits now with the exception of slow rolling Huddlestons , fishing for the ‘one’ in some super clear / super pressured situation.   I use florocarbon leaders where applicable.  Braid gives you WAY MORE control and play with your hardbaits.  You can make turns and stalls and cut water WAY BETTER than with mono or floro.  There is only usually a foot or two of line actually in the water ahead of the bait, because you tend to ‘high stick’ your rod tip on your retrieve with braid.   You don’t have the line sag and drag challenges you do with mono or floro.

Click HERE to purchase the Okuma 364 Komodo.

 

The Florida Five-O

Published: 9 January 2013
Written by Alex Tech
No comments
Categories: 2013 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Bluegill/Sunfish Baits, Florida, Huddleston Deluxe

This is my 5th season on Okeechobee, and getting ready for my final tournament for a while.  Okeechobee is a good 2+ feet higher than it was the last few years we’ve been here.  The lake is choked out with grass.  The low water years caused the grass to grow big and tall along the shore/super shallows, then add the 2-3 feet of water, and you have a jungle.  It can be very difficult to get around, fish, and just get a feel for Okeechobee right now.    There is a ton of punching and flipping water, with the current conditions.  This is probably the worst swimbait bite I’ve experienced at Okeechobee in the 5 years.  It’s just really hard to find fishable water where the fish are living, where you can swim a bait around and thru.  Add to that, with vegetation that is 3-5 foot high above the water line, it can be really hard to visually see places you want to get in and fish behind the grass lines.  I have been poking into various spots a bizzillion times, only to do a u-turn and come out because the magic pool was not indeed behind the reeds….

With the high water, in some places, the 3:16 Sunfish gets down a little deeper, and is working for me. Oddly, by fishing in 4 feet (vs. 1-2 feet) I'm finding I've got to get a bait down to 'em move. They won't come up top for the other bigbaits I'm throwing. And it happens that Okeechobee fish hate bluegill/sunfish.
With the high water, in some places, the 3:16 Sunfish gets down a little deeper, and is working for me. Oddly, by fishing in 4 feet (vs. 1-2 feet) I’m finding I’ve got to get a bait down to ’em move. They won’t come up top for the other bigbaits I’m throwing. And it happens that Okeechobee fish hate bluegill/sunfish.

 

It’s not all doom and gloom. I’ve had some decent days, and once again, find that I’m having to make adjustments to get it done.  I think I can catch 5 fish both days, and hopefully am good for a big bite or two, but without a big bite, I’m talking 8-10 pounds or so….But most guys are struggling too.  It’s just an off year, thick mats of grass, that of course make for good punching at times, but so thick you cannot get your trolling motor thru or do anything but flip or throw frogs over it.   One of the keys to the swimbait bite for me has always been finding the best bedding areas.  This has been the worst year by far, for the amount of beds and being able to see beds.

This is where you want your swimbait. Right over top of a good bed. However, beds are hard to come by. Like really hard to come by, and the stuff is so thick around them, no swimbaits, not even the weedless kind can swim. The few bed fish areas are getting a ton of pressure too. Of course there are some off the radar bedding areas, but none I found, and believe me, I've looked.
This is where you want your swimbait. Right over top of a good bed. However, beds are hard to come by. Like really hard to come by, and the stuff is so thick around them, no swimbaits, not even the weedless kind can swim. The few bed fish areas are getting a ton of pressure too. Of course there are some off the radar bedding areas, but none I found, and believe me, I’ve looked.

It can be an eerie feeling, not having much going on to get excited about, going into a tournament.  I can catch some fish, but man, I’m just not on ’em and the bigbait thing has been really tough.  Okeechobee is in a tough cycle at the moment. Not to say some guys won’t be catching 30+ pounds, because they will, but I will need some super good fortune to get a 18-20 pound sack.   I just haven’t got ’em figured out, and I’ve tried to become a puncher/flipper this year, spent days doing it, only to find myself disgusted with the results.   The good news is I can fish freely and just go fishing, and usually that is when I fish best and good things happen.

The water is so black you can hardly ever see the bottom right now. The water can be red too right now, mixed up between black and brown. The fish are in both the black and red water, and guys will get 'em on the outside grass line, and inside grass lines.
The water is so black you can hardly ever see the bottom right now. The water can be red too right now, mixed up between black and brown. The fish are in both the black and red water, and guys will get ’em on the outside grass line, and inside grass lines.

 

 

 

2nd and O for 2012–Lake Okeechobee FLW Tour Open Preview

Published: 8 February 2012
Written by Alex Tech
No comments
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Huddleston Deluxe, Rate of Stall, The Alabama Rig, Weedless Swimbaits
The House of the Rising Son: Okeechobee. Line thru, ball knobber boot tails, braided line and a trap hook rigging that brought me back to my days on San Vicente in the early 2000s. The 3:16 Rising Son, excellence is buoyancy and a thing I call, Rate of Stall---which are key to the grass fishing conversation--well, shallow grass anyway. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still a Vortex head, and Florida has other Vortexes that do damage besides hurricanes and tropical storms!!!

Alright, tournament time again, FLW Tour Open, Lake Okeechobee.   I haven’t said a whole lot since the Everstart.  Trying to manage information…This FLW Tour Open is my one Tour Event for 2012, and I dang sure don’t need to be helping out the list of guys who already are household names I’m fishing against!   So let me walk you thru my Everstart a little.  Day 1, I planned on throwing the bigbaits all day.  However, we had an unforecasted 15-20 MPH Wind from the NNE, that wrecked my major areas.  The wind not only seriously mucked up the water color, it was causing my bait to run funky.  Side wind and braided line swimbait fishing is no bueno.  Your bait tends to drag with the big bow in your line and there was no getting away from it.   I only had 2 fish for Day 1 and wanted to jump off the Kissimmee Bridge and just die.  My friend Roger Ray showed up at the house out of nowhere that evening.  He was down to fun fish, and it was a blessing to have a friend around and just snap me out of complete misery.  My only comfort was reading how many other guys sucked on Day 1, phew.   I mean, I drove straight home (was in first flight) fueled up the boat, and went to bed at 6:30.  Just so disgusted and angry, didn’t even check the standings until later that night.   Thanking Rodger once again for his use of time and timing.   So Day 2, I started in an area I’d seen a couple big ones hanging around beds, but not locked on, and wouldn’t eat.  Much better, calmer weather and conditions made things a little more normal and fishable to say the least.    I stopped short, set up, and made long casts to where I’d seen her and got a big bite in the first 2 minutes of fishing.  Solid 6+ pounder in the boat.  Hooray.   We moved a little further and fished on, and I made another long cast to another area a big one had been hanging around and BLOOSH, another solid 5+ pounder in the boat.  Hell yeah.  One hour in, I was back in the money and had plenty of time to fish.   I kept chunking the bigbaits the rest of the day, got another one 4+ and one about 2.5 just committing to the bigbaits all day.    Finished 21st place, and only weighed 6 fish for the entire tournament.  24 pounds in 6 fish.   Was 6 pounds from the Top 10 cut.  Kicking myself for being so one dimensional, because I could have easily made up 6 pounds in 4 fish if I knew what I know today.

There is a huge difference between the Gambler BB Cricket and the Beaver. The BB Cricket is probably 30% smaller which means it punches that much better, and the Beaver already rocks the house in the flipping and punching department. It's similar to the difference between the 6" and 8" Huddleston baits, big difference, but in small baits, the difference isn't so noticeable, unless you really stop and look and fish. The BB Cricket can be fished where few baits will punch thru, just due to simple design and super small profile.

So, to the Tour Event.  I have to credit my good friend and fellow angler, Casey Martin for helping me out a ton during off limits.  We did a bunch of fun fishing and filming on some other lakes around, and Casey showed me the finer things to grass flipping and punching. I needed to see how the latest and greatest stuff was being done.  Casey whacked ’em pretty good and showed me the advanced things about picking casts, where to hit, and how to choose and rig baits and the adjustments he made during a day.  Casey can compete with anyone out there.  Don’t let the fact he is fishing the Tour (and won 2 Tour Events and the AOY in 2011 as a Co-Angler) as a CoAngler fool you.  He fishes the Everstarts as a Pro, and is solid as a rock.

Thanking Casey for helping me with my grass flipping and punching. Casey has been living with Derek Remitz and Craig Dowling most of the last few years on Lake Guntersville, and has honed his grass fishing on the mighty G'Ville. I found myself for the first time in a long time, having to adjust the basic mechanics of what I was doing. Casey is so efficient when he flips, he mathematically beats most guys. More pitches, more clean punches, less time changing over hands (he uses a left handed reel) and keeps the rod in his right hand 100% of the time, and has mad skills in picking out the right stuff to hit. In exchange, I've been lecturing Casey on perfect proportions, Vitruvian Man, and fractal geometry. Poor Casey!!!

The things Casey helped tune me into, combined with some old skills I used to use on Lake Havasu back in the day before it was a smallmouth fishery have come back to me.  I’m fishing a healthy combination of flipping and pitching and punching and swimbait fishing tomorrow.  We have bad wind and weather, however, I’ve found an area I believe, if I can get to it (meaning if the wind isn’t so bad we cannot run to it) I can get in, and be safe from the wind.   So, one major swimbait area, and a lot of places I’m flipping and pitching and punching.   I’ve gotten into a pattern to narrow down the endless amounts of grass and overwhelming nature of Okeechobee, with regards to flipping and pitching, and can sorta bounce around and just fish the moment with that deal and feel good about catching some fish, and some of them can be good ones.   I needed a good way to fill up a limit because the Everstart showed me that even on a good day, I won’t get 5 in the boat, and I cannot afford to make any mistakes like that at the Tour Level.  These boys are incredible anglers and have whipped me badly before, and I cannot beat myself by being one dimensioned out there, especially since we have 15-20 MPH NNE  (just like on Day 1 of the Everstart where I struggled with the bigbaits so badly) forecast for tomorrow.   I need 5 and tomorrow is my long day, so I gotta use that time wisely.

The mighty Medlock Jig, double weed guard, 1 ounce and a the biggest baddest hook you ever seen on a jig. Brandon won the Okeechobee Everstarts the last 2 years in a row on this jig. I think it's safe to assume they are eating it.

I am boat 147 tomorrow.  Due in at 5 pm!  Long day, but the weather is going to be brutal windy and rough, but heck, I feel a whole lot better about catching a limit and maybe getting 1-2 big bites, no matter what happens with the weather or wind tomorrow.   Please know I am so overwhelmed and behind on so many things that I’m paralyzed at times.   I spend my daylight hours fishing, and evening hours getting the footage off the cameras and haven’t even hardly gotten to the editing.  The editing is the major heavy lifting, and I’ll be honest, I just haven’t had the focused time to spend on it all, yet.   I spent the majority of off limits fishing, filming, working on the boat, doing normal stuff, and some days just resting.    I have been filming A LOT since I’ve been down here. I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be doing with the all footage.    Thinking of working on another DVD project, thinking of just some mid-length YouTube series, and definitely have commitments to various business partners I’m obliged to fulfill, so therein lies my challenge.  So, when I don’t know what to do, the best decision is no decision, meaning, hang loose and the right paths will eventually reveal themselves.   Time’s a Revelator.    So bare with me, have a lot to share and show, bigbait fishing and grass flipping and punching stuff.  First things last, I’ve got to focus, keep it simple, make good decisions, and make the most of this event.

Okeechobee will not be won on the Alabama Rig, not even the Trip Jig, the modified castable rig, with 2 blades, a skirt, and 3 wires. I enjoyed 'field testing' multi-rigs for grass applications, and my work is not yet done, but it wouldn't be right to not mention that the Alabama Rig WILL NOT WIN on Okeechobee. More to come on the Trip Jig and various weedless setups I've been using (vs. exposed jig head and Hammers). Underwater photography and video is so filthy awful sickening.

The 5″ Big Hammer Swimbait

Published: 18 October 2011
Written by Alex Tech
2 Comments
Categories: 2011 Tournament Fishing, Big Hammer
The 5' Big Hammer
"Ladies and Gentleman, the mighty LEDGE ZEPPELIN" The 5" Big Hammer Swimbait, 1 ounce head, 5" tail in color #63 called Bay Smelt which looks a lot like sexy shad

The Big Hammer is a staple swimbait on the Pacific Inshore saltwater fishing scene.   The Big Hammer is a combination of a soft swimbait tail plus a lead jig head.  The Big Hammer is identified by it’s ‘square tail’ that produces its own unique vortex.   The lead jig heads are available in 1/2, 3/4, 1 ounce and 1.5 ounce sizes with hook sizes that match the bait perfectly.

big hammer square tail
The H-bomb square tail swimbait, producing vortexes and big bites in deep water before you knew the word swimbait
big hammer head
The genius of the Big Hammer as it relates to ledge fishing is bottom contact, rate of fall, and stroke-ability

The 5” Big Hammer, with the exposed lead head design, makes it an excellent deep water and offshore swimbait.  The best example of the 5” Big Hammer in action we can share is from Kentucky Lake.  Kentucky Lake is famous for it’s offshore ledge fishing bite.  You might be fishing the main river channel ledge, or creek channel ledges or where creek channels and the main river channel intersect.  When you look at the traditional baits, like football head jigs and big spoons, you realize there is a special trick to getting the schools of bass that position offshore on the ledges to bite, and that bite is called  a ‘stroke bite’.

big hammer bay smelt swimbait
Fish don't have hands, so they will 'catch' your Big Hammer when you rip it off the bottom and let it sink back down, Tennessee River stroke bite

I highly recommend checking out a video that Omega Tackle Company put out, that is over 2 hours long and a serious look into jig fishing and what is going on from a traditional fishing standpoint to catch fish on the Tennessee River (and the Ozark Lakes) .  Like many themes from Southern Trout Eaters, I think there are techniques and discussions that require more than a 5 minute YouTube clip to cover, and this Omega video is legit and worth checking out.  Stroking a bait wasn’t something intuitive to me.  I had never ripped any bait off the bottom to create the bite at a depth like that. It makes a lot of sense now, but wasn’t something that I just knew to do.  Stroking is key on the Tennessee River ledges to excite the school of fish and get them eating.

Stroking a Swimbait:

When you stroke a bait, you literally rip your bait 4-5 or more feet off the bottom, bringing your rod tip from 9 o clock to 12 o clock.  You drop your rod tip from 12 oclock back down to 9 oclock and pump and rip the bait off the bottom, creating a bite as the bait falls back to the bottom.  Rate of Fall is key to the bite.  You need a bait that falls really quickly and gets the fish fired up to eat.  Once you get one fish going, usually the entire school gets active and you can sit on one spot and catch a bunch of fish.   In the world of swimbaits, very little has ever been done to fish real swimbaits on the ledges.  Bobby Lane famously won an event on Kentucky Lake with the Power Mullet (now known as the Berkely Power Swimbait) , a saltwater swimbait that doesn’t have an exposed lead head, nor does it have the rate of fall of the Big Hammer.

The exposed lead head, and weight offerings of the jig head make the Big Hammer a superior drop bait.   And you want to talk about bottom contact?   You can feel rocks, shells, and soft bottom better with a 3/4 to 1.5 ounce Big Hammer swimbait than any football head jig, or wanna be swimbait with soft plastic molded around an internal body.

kentucky lake swimbait ledge fishing
Outside ledge fishing, Kentucky Lake, 5" Big Hammer, stroking a swimbait

I caught 17 pounds of fish on Day 2 of the Kentucky Lake FLW Tour Major in June 2011.  I caught the fish on the 5” Big Hammer, and was putting the ‘stroking a swimbait’ bite together during practice and it finally came together on Day 2 of the tournament.  Unfortunately, my Day 1 was a sub par performance, I only brought 4 keepers to the scales, which cost me $10,000.  I was close to getting onto something lethal with that 5” Big Hammer.  The bite was so new and intriguing, that I stayed after the tournament to explore the bite further, roll film and take pictures.

big hammer helmet
Helmet! This is no joke and not staged. You will pick up shells off the bottom with the Hammer heads, they fit the shells perfectly. Excellent shell bed detectors, which is usually helpful to find schools of fish

This technique is something I am proud of.  It is a case study in Southern swimbait fishing.  It was taking the conventional fishing wisdom (ie, stroking a football jig or spoon) and applying it to the right swimbait.  The Big Hammer is the right swimbait.  It comes down to rate of fall and bottom contact and that is where the Big Hammer shines and was the right application of a swimbait that is mostly thrown in the Pacific Ocean for calico bass.

big hammer saltwater fishing
The Big Hammer was born in the saltwater, calico bass fishing inshore style. Taking the Big Hammer to the ledges of the Tennessee River is the essence of southernswimbait.com, mixing appications, cultures and styles to catch more and bigger fish and blaze our own trails. With my bros Brett and Brice, Lower Trestles, CA, setting the kelp on fire.

Gear:

Baits:  5” Big Hammer Tails  (color #63, Bay Smelt, is HARD TO BEAT)
Jig Heads: Big Hammer Heads.  When in doubt, use the 3/4 ounce heads.  When in wind or deep water, go to the 1 ounce or even 1.5 ounce jig heads.  Bottom contact and rate of fall is key to stroking a swimbait.

Rod:  G-Loomis 964 BBR

Reels:  Shimano Calcutta 300 TE or Shimano Curado 300.  You need to be able to spool up a good amount of 17 or 20 pound mono, where you can make long casts, and get the bait down in 15-25 feet quickly and have plenty of line on your spool to re-tie often and the occassional break off.  The Big Hammer will get stuck in wood, you can bet on it.

Line:  P-Line CXX Green Copolymer.  17 or 20 Pound test recommended.

Strengths:  The strength of the 5” Big Hammer is that you can fish in water 15-30+ feet deep and maintain absolute bottom contact.  The exposed lead head design lets you know when you are on rock, shells, or soft bottom.  You can stroke the bait and it doesn’t foul up, it fishes very nicely as a stroking bait.  There is no wrong way to fish it, but stroking requires a special bait with a lot of weight in the head to make the bait shoot back down to the bottom, triggering the strike.   The fish literally catch it on the sink and on your next stroke, all the sudden you have pressure and a fish. You might feel a tick.  This is THE BAIT for ledge fishing.  I’ll go ahead and make a prediction, that this bait will win a tournament on Lake Pickwick, Wheeler, Guntersville, Chickamagua, or Kentucky Lake when put in the hands of someone like Mark Rose or Randy Haynes or someone with intimate knowledge of where the fish live on the ledges.

Ideal Conditions: Ideal conditions for the 5” Big Hammer are knowing where schools of fish are on ledges on the Tennessee River.   The 5” Big Hammer will get the school excited and usually the    ‘alpha’ female of the school eats the bait right off.  You’ll quickly get to the better fish of the school with the 5” Big Hammer.    Swimbait fishing is no different than conventional fishing in that you have to know where the fish are before you can worry about what to make them bite.   You can fish the 5” Big Hammer in 8 feet of water or in 38 feet of water.  You just change the lead head weight to match the depth and wind conditions.   It can be a great practice bait because you can cast it a mile, hop it and stroke it around and probe the depths efficiently.   If you live on the Tennessee River and like ledge fishing, do not overlook this bait.  This bait is a superior bait to anything Berkley is making or the other wanna be bandwagon swimbait companies out there.

kentucky lake ledge fishing with a swimbait
You can get 20+ pounds a day on Kentucky Lake with the Big Hammer, stroked around the right schools of fish