Getting ready to unload the SS250 in another fishy looking section of river. Notice my left foot and the pole where the camera is attached. My foot is holding the pole from rocking back and forth. I later would fix with electrical tape as gasket for a tighter fit.
I’m aboard yet another SouthWest flight, this time, leaving Little Rock, heading to New Orleans. I scrambled to get my stuff packed up. All the sudden, my 2 week fishing adventure/holidays 2015/ New Year 2016 trip is over. The first week I was here, the fish and the fishing was feeling right. Then, we got hit with Winter Storm Goliath. That sorta wrecked the second half of my trip.
Final tally – 1 bite (Huddleston), 3 BIG followers (1 Huddleton and 2 on the Slide Swimmer). No catches. Yay. At least I got to feel the burn of sore wrists and forearms from lobbing the bigbaits around.
This is the confluence of the Cotter Spring and the White River. It is usually crystal clear. Winter Storm Goliath wants me to come back to AR again soon. Sorta cramped the trout fishing!
Pole Cat –
I’ve been messing with better ways to shoot video. GoPro cameras are awesome, but I find them a little challenging to get good footage with, when it comes to filming your day of fishing. I use the heck out of my GoPros for underwater footage. They rock for that. I’m trying to get away from a camcorder style camera in the back of the boat on a tripod. The GoPro tends to excel at up close, in your face type action. I don’t particularly care for footage that is shot from a head or chest mounted camera. You miss a lot of what is going on.
The GoPro, I’ve found, is great when suspended about 2-3 feet above and 1 foot behind your head.
I ended up with a 10′ piece of 1/2″ conduit, purchased for $2.50 at Lowes. It miraculously fit perfectly in the seat mount/pedestal mounts in my little Tracker Grizzly aluminum river rig. I have some refining to do, but the POV (point of view) and accessibility of the camera while fishing was great.
You can use the web application to dial in your mounting. I find myself going manual a lot. I sorta know where to aim it now.This is what I was looking for. I want to see the bottom and have more of a bird’s eye view. Yes, I like to fish grass beds, whether I’m trout or bass fishing. Big fishes like grass.
You get a much better feel for the river, the bottom, and how shallow it can be, even when there is water running. I would love to show you what catching a big one from up here looks like!I cannot believe how different I am than a few years ago. It didn’t phase me to not catch any fish, and didn’t phase me the flood conditions pretty much messed up 50% of my trip. I have better control of my emotions and expectations. I am enjoying things and not getting all fussy about nothing. Amazing. Thank you yoga.
Pea Green Soup. Fishing main lake grass lines, uphill and parallel. Eelgrass. Low Down Customs 8′ XH.
Just in case you’ve somehow missed the glide bait thing, you best be throwing glide baits, bottom line. The Slide Swimmer is so killer its hard to quantify. I have to admit, I’ve only caught a few glide bait fish, and they were on the S-Waver. I don’t have a ton of experience with glide baits. They are something I’m going to have to learn a whole lot more of. But do yourself a favor and find yourself a Deps Butch Brown Slide Swimmer 250 in case you don’t know that yet. Do not pass go without one. They are that good. The hardbait version of the Huddleston, it’s been said. Get yourself an S-Waver to get started into glide baits, or go Roman Made. I know someday Butch is going to release a film that just blow everyone’s mind with giants. I’ve seen a video he played at ICAST in 2011 in Vegas at the Bassaholics Booth. It was sick and wrong, and it had many Slide Swimmer 250 in it back then. I know some guys who’ve been devastating big striper on it. My pals in the world of swimbait fishing pretty much have been crushing fish on the glide baits out West for >2 years at least. I know Oliver Ngy is going to blow some minds with his Big Bass Dreams DVD coming out. Oliver throws the Rago Glideator, and l don’t even know what else. I’m a boring old Hudd, TT, MS, and Rat guy! I don’t feel like I’m letting the cat out of the bag by any means at this point. I just hate talking about a technique or bait or something I don’t have experience on. I can tell you, the 80# Braid, the Slide Swimmer, the LDC 8’XH, and the 400 TE are just incredible altogether. Power fishing at times, and glide bait fishing it at times. Crazy swim on this bait. Hard to do wrong, but you can get incredible 3-4 foot wide side to side S walks, stalls, turn-arounds, etc and it can be burned and killed and 180’d and all kinds of craziness.
Flash Carp, yikes what a color! Saiko Butch you da man.
Controlled glides. I love the term glide because it nails the style of bait. Glide is a discussion point among surfers. There are 1000s of variations in surfboards that are between 6 and 7 feet long. Small changes in volume/displacement/buoyancy do dramatic things in the water, let alone changing shapes, width, thickness, rocker, length, concavity, etc. I think the world of glide baits has similar abundance of variations that will likely work if for no other reason, this style of bait gets bit, and things are just starting to warm up with them to the masses. These glide baits are killer, and I’m just getting going really focusing time on them, and I advise you do the same if you aren’t already! The Roman Made Mother, was the bait our boy Manabu caught Her on.
Would you like a shot of Wheat Grass? How about 1,000,000 surface acres of it! Okeechobee has lots of different grass. Eelgrass grows in some areas consistently year-to-year, and you always get different main lake water colors. This year, pea green soup is the theme in some favorite haunts of mine. Flipping and Pitching bite more so than a swimming bite I find in most areas, save the Box the the Pond.
Okeechobee has been a moving target this year. It’s not horrible, but it’s not the slug fest stomp its been the last 2 years. The water just isn’t good for a swimbait guy either. So its sorta fickle fishing at times, mixed with bad water (and wind) most places, most of the time. Algae bloom, dirty, choked out and the fish are outside grass line-ish oriented, so the bite becomes more pitching jigs and punching mats and that style attack. I have been throwing the Slide Swimmer 250 Flash Carp in less than ideal conditions on Okeechobee thus far. I was hoping for 3-4 feet of black clean water to work with, outside grass line, in certain areas, and it just hasn’t been there yet.
Want to give a shout to Ben Dehnadi and Low Down Custom Rods. Ben’s rods have really opened my eyes to much more progressive rod design. You need to get yourself a LDC 8′ XH for the Slide Swimmer 250. The Slide Swimmer is heavy…close to 6.5 ounces and it maxes out my Loomis 966 BBR rods that I love so much. The LDC XH fits that rod category you need for ‘megabaits’. The > 6 ounce baits, the big 3:16 Hardbaits, the big rats/terrestrial baits, the big Rago hard and softbaits, and whatever. >6 ounce baits require a special rod, even among the bigbait rods. I do fish the 8″ Weedless Huddlestons on this LDC 8XH rod, and love it. I swear I can lob that Huddleston 20% further in the open water sometimes. That thing flat flings a bait way out there. The longer than I’m used to rod handle really has extra leverage and surprisingly I find it fishes nicely under my arm pit, and just feels right to me. I’ve got 32″ arms. I get dress shirts with 17-18″ necks and 32″ arms! Hahahahaha. That aint no lie either. So the super long rod handles sometimes feel awkward to me. The LDC 8XH has a less parabolic action than the 966, but it still loads up pretty darn well, its just got more tip to it. You have a really more involved tip section, that is more in tune with finer things of swim, and helps soften the impact of bites so you don’t rip the bait out of a fish’s mouth, and definitely helps you in the casting department, it will load up and lob a 6.5 ounce bait like the Slide Swimmer very easily and low impact on your wrists and shoulders.
Net Net
Just like recommending the 8″ Huddleston and the G-Loomis 966 BBR combo, I think you’ll find the Low Down Customs 8 XH and Slide Swimmer 250 a winner. I have to admit, the LDC-8HX throws an 8″ Huddleston really well, and really far. It’s anexcellent big and mega bait rod, yet has the tip for the 8″ Huddlestons and 10″ Triple Trouts. You need to be throwing the Butch Brown Slide Swimmer 250. End of story. You’re current bigbait rod may not have the guts to throw it. I have many Loomis 966s and find them under-gunned for the Slide Swimmer. Get a rod for heaving and lobbing the >6 ounce baits
Notice, I’ve tied directly to the slip ring here. I think I like it without the split ring on front better. You get better head and bait control without the ring, just like with the Triple Trout on your stalls and twitches.
