This may be completely “duh” to some people, but I am still acquiring my arsenal of glide baits and learning how to properly fish them in all sorts of places. The Deps Slide Swimmer 175 is a killer medium sized swimbait that is going to catch you quality and quantity. If I lived in Georgia and fished the Blue Back Herring bite, I would be all about the Deps Slide Swimmer 175 (SS175) in the Blue Back Herring color. This bait is 7.5″ long and weighs 3 ounces. It fishes like a a ‘fluke’.
Herring Eaters
May – June tends to be awesome time for the herring eaters. I think the bite goes thru the summer, you just have to adjust and fish thru crowds and the heat. Fish this thing on a medium 8′ swimbait rod, 65# Braided line (direct tie) and a 200 or 300 series 7.1 or 6.3:1 low profile reels.
Applications / Approaches for Herring Eaters with the Slide Swimmer 175 Blue Back Herring:
Docks-Fish the seawalls in between docks and long runs of seawalls anywhere you can find them. Especially early morning bite. Cover water with the Slide Swimmer. You can have a lot of fun high sticking with braided line and really pumping your bait upward so the glide breaks the surface. Then stall it out and let it just die. Or just parallel good sections and fish it slow and steady, sorta spinner bait style.
The Slide Swimmer is an amazing bait. I don’t care how you fish it. You can really jerkbait/fluke style fish it. So around certain docks, you could even pitch it into open slots and fish it out and draw out a biggun. I would stall it around shade spots, and just use it pull fish out from under floating docks. Fish the windy / outer side of anything if you get the chance.
Points-I would fish the Slide Swimmer 175 Blue Back Herring like a mad man on places like Lake Murray or Clarks Hill. I would run and gun as many red clay points and just good rocky points I could hit. I would spin around and fish way offshore those points. I found fishing over grass that was 15-12 feet deep with a Triple Trout a really good way to catch quality fish on Clarks Hill. I think the Slide Swimmer 175 would do some real damage on the herring lakes if a guy knew where the fish were. Herring eaters are hard to find and stay on. You gotta be able to fish up shallow then pull off the point, fish ontop, fish double fluke rigs, etc to pull ’em up. The SS175 is going to be another tool in your tool kit.
BrushPiles- I always think of Ryan Coleman from Flowery Branch, GA when I think of brush piles. I hired Ryan to take me fishing on Lake Lanier. He took me to some brushpiles and showed me the how they do it with the FishHead Spin over the brush piles. It was really cool to see how Ryan had the brush pile game down. I told him we’d be shot for cutting down a tree in California. I would suck at creating brushpiles. But if you know where there are brush piles, I would fish this bait over those brush piles, like you would your Zara Spook or GunFish.
Laydown Trees of course, too.
Man Made Structures – Whatever you do, DO NOT fish this bait around dams, big concrete pump houses, around bridge pilings. You will probably get your arm broke!
Smallmouth/Spotted Bass – Because this is a ‘medium’ sized swimbait, it makes it extremely attractive to guys who hunt big smallmouth. And spotted beasts. Spotted bass that eat herring are different than largemouth that eat herring. All I know is, the SS175 is a great selection when you have spotted or smallmouth basses on your agenda.
Saltwater – The BlueBack Herring is descendant the saltwater run herring. Herring are a great bait offshore in Southern California. I plan on feeding some calico bass, white sea bass, and yellowtail some Slide Swimmer 175 this summer.
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