The Gambler Really Big GZ 8″ Swimbait Tail vs. the familiar 8″ Huddleston trout tail.

 

The Gambler Really Big GZ 8″ next to some other baits for some relative sizing. From Top to Bottom: The Big Hammer Sledge Hammer, the Gambler Really Big GZ 8″, the ShellBack Customs 6″ Swimbait, and 8″ Huddleston Deluxe trout.  

 

The hookset, the circumstances of this fish….Tip of the hat to Gambler,  my friends, my competitors, and to the mighty unique state of Florida. I had no doubt the 8″ Gambler Really Big GZ 8″ bait was gonna get bit.
One on the Gambler Big GZ 8″ and one on the Shellback Customs 6″ swimmer

 

3 fatties. I’m getting ready for Okeechobee in Jan 202X in my mind.  Gambler Big GZ 8″, Shell Back customs 6″, some Huddies, some bed fishing w Hammer, some, Harney Pond Duck Pond Casey Martin was here dot com.

Gambler in Florida is like RoboWorm or Keitech in California.  Gambler is based in South Florida, near Okeechobee and is known for in particular for its goodness around grass.  The owner, Val is a tournament fisherman and has won major events on Okeechobee.  I have seen him, competed against him back in the day, and know he is a solid fisherman.   They maintain a pro-staff of really good local and national anglers that tend to be good anywhere, but grass in particular.  Think JT Kenny or Brandon McMillan.  The BB Cricket is legend amongst the punchers.  Super small profile simple bait that fishes well behind massive 1.5ounce punch weight and beefy punch hook.

Right around the corner from the Kissimmee River. Bob Wood gave me an early tour of what the deal is with Okeechobee. Notice, the Gambler Flappy Shad swinging off his line. Look at the water we are fishing.  The flappy shad is little quite weedless buzzbait when you cut the tail and high stick reel it on braid.  Blamo!   

 

Jimmy, Day 4 final weigh in. Notice Koby Kreiger in the background. I knew I better get right in hurry.  Okeechobee was intimidating.  Not an easy read for me, but man, the lessons in life and fishing.  Okeechobee haunts me still. 
Day 2, FLW Series on Okeechobee 2009. I fished w Robert Gulley from MS. We had a great day. I somehow remember this day incredibly well.  Tin House Cove, boyeeeeee. 

When I first arrived in Okeechobee in January of 2009, the very first event I fished, within weeks of resigning from software world, was the 2009 FLW Series Event.  That was they event the late great Jimmy McMillan won. I actually fished well the first 2 days and totally choked the 3rd.  The irony, is I was fishing the Gambler Flappy Shad and sight fishing.  Day 3, things got wicked rough and windy, but behind the grass lines, the water was uber fishy. I basically rookied out, and to this day cannot answer why I didn’t just fish the wind the throw a spinnerbait.  I watched Dion Hibdon whack like 19 pounds all around around me.  Anyway, I was out.  Jimmy McMillan would go on to win.  The winning bait?  The Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper.  Over in this place called J&S which of course was the only corner of Okeechboee I hadn’t seen!   It would put me on journey of a braid on weedless swimbait fishing. 

Swimming Worms 

I had a golden opportunity to just put on a boot tailed swimbait like Basstrix paddle tail and would have made a $10K in my first event.  I just didn’t.  I fought the wind, kept looking for bed fish, and kooked out.   I didn’t have that in my game, saddly, out of arrogance. I fished ‘bigbaits’.  I fished other baits, but didn’t spend the time on the simple boot tailed swimmers, the paddle tailed swimmers, the simple swimbaits—–that I should have.  I should have had that in my game and kept with it.  It was a mistake I made all during my full time fishing journey.  Anyway, after that Okeeechobee event, I had nearly a month to prepare for the next one on Okeechobee.  

Tell me that isn’t a Florida largemouth? Black bass. Yamamoto Swim Senko. I would never suggest reeling them over grass!

 

That next 30 days, in my mind, will remain as some my finest and biggest progression in fishing, probably ever.  I will forever remember staying at the Roland Martin Marine.  I got over the Clewiston part of the lake in a hurry, and was far more enamored with Harney Pond, Monkey Box, the North Shore all the up to Okeechobee.  That being said, I learned that I could drive from Clewiston to Okeechobee and put in in the Kissimmee River and save the boat run, and wake up to some coffee and music of choice. I was driving my truck 1 hour each way from Clewiston, to go learn the ‘north side’.   I found the north side of Okeechobee fished more more liking and had these great pools and runs that got me dialed-in.  Braid was a huge part of the approach, boat handling, strong grass ready trolling motor and batteries…but most importantly was the mindset of shallow water weedless grass swimbait fishing.

As thick as the 8″ Hudd too. But has a much slender and rounder profile and is not as life like/fish shaped.  The articulated section helps the bait kick, and articulate and gives it a unique footprint. 

 

Weedless Grass Swimbait Fishing 

There is a steady progression of weedless swimbaits.  You could start with paddle tails, Speed Worms, and even curly tailed worms, that come to find out, fish really well when you just reel them along.  I quickly connected the dots between the Skinny Dipper and baits like the Yamamoto Swim Senko.  Gambler is to Florida like Yamamoto is to the West too.  I knew Gary Yamamoto had a great tournament on the Swim Senko, so I had to explore that bait too.  I LOVE putting in the Kissimee River, shooting the gap at Kings Bar and making my way West.  I really got to learn Okeechobee my first winter of 2009, by committing my time to the Midtown (aka Monkey Box/Harney Pond) and UpTown – Eagle Bay>JS<Kings Bar>Indian Prairie>.  The bait was the Skinny Dipper.  And the Swim Senko.  Ken Huddleston’s Grass Minnow become a goto for me a little later.  His 6″ weedless too, but the more simple, weedless 5-6″ swimbaits you use a screw lock hook to attach to, is what I’m saying.  The Skinny Dipper was king for a bit.   Other baits sorta came along, but nothing earth shattering.  Then, one day the Gambler Big EZ broke.  

Relativity. Theories. Science. Known vs. Unknown.  Sledge Hammer > ShellBack war >8″ Huddie.

All my South Florida buddies being all fired up about the Gambler Big EZ.  It pushed more water, had a different swim signature than the others.  It was catching better fish.  It was the trailer on the back of a chatterbait.  Of course, most lethal is the weighted screw lock (or unweighted too) just reeling it over, up and over, thru, and around as many good swim lanes and hot pockets as you can.  Braided line.  I remember guys at Santee Cooper getting good bites.  Seminole.  Okeechobee of course.  The core grass lakes we hit. 

 

 

Okay, I like pink tails, pink baits, but I didn’t choose the pink single wide to live in. It did work out just fine, thanks.

 

I lived in West Palm Beach for like 5 months, hoping to be a S. Florida surfer and Okeechobee local.  Not to be.  As I was about to move from the thug life side of West Palm Beach to Jupiter, a bombshell went off in my life.  I was at a software team event and somebody mentioned the new office in Aliso Viejo, CA.  Boom, I literally undid my world,  and jumped on the train back home.  So, it’s been a minute since I been around guys named Wood, Luke, Carter, McMillan, Tharp, Fitzgerald…but yeah, the Seminole winds blow thru San Clemente often. 

 

Tin House. Notice the dollar pads (not the dead gator. I was hungry and felt like some gator!) and the dark black coffee water. I really like dollar pads at times. They are fun to fish.
Box o Calico swimmer. The 6.5″ Gambler GZ Swimmers and the Shellback Customs swimmers.

Gambler makes a whole series of the EZ Swimmer.  It wasn’t really hard for me to buy a couple of packs of the Gambler Really Big GZ 8″ baits to ‘test’ them out on the calico bass.  I had already gotten the 6.5″ versions, but I was intrigued to see the bigger version. 

The Gamber Really Big GZ 8″ Swimbait 

You have to see this bait next to other known baits to appreciate it’s size.  Long, round, fat and a big paddle.  Big round style paddle.  Looks like a SUP paddle.  When the bait swims, it has a lot of ROLL.  The articulated section help the bait pulse and kick.  You can feel this 8″ swimmer on the end of your big beefy calico bass rod, far better than most of the weedless swimbaits I’ve fished.   It pushes a ton of water, and just happens to match up really well with the 12/0 Owner Beast Swimbait Hook and 3/4 oz weight. 

 

 

Okeechobee good swimbait spot. To give you an idea, you have to be ready for your bait to be out of the water at least 25% of the time.

 

Grass and Kelp fish very similar. You go over, use high stick retrieves, go thru, go around, bump and run, stall and straight wind your way around.

 

Kelp, and in this case, with boiler rocks to add to the mix, you need to be able to be weedless, rockless, and have eyes on the back of your head. Very dangerous fishing boiler rocks. 2 man fishing only, with one guy on the gas engine keeping an eye on the waves.

 

 

Choked. Pinned. Owner 12/0 Beast w 3/4 weight

 

[youtube=http://youtu.be/9k3WCuG_jK0]

I will admit it, I was a snob when I saw and heard about swimming worms.  I can think of 3 times the swimming worm was relayed to me as the bait, and I foolishly tried to make it a bigbait / swimbait bite without putting it into context.  When you fish Okeechobee, you will inevitably get around the Speed Worm bite.  Well, as you progress, you’ll migrate to the Magnum Speed Worm, and rig it with a jumbo offset worm hook and 1/4 – 1/2 ounce weight pegged and learn to swim, stroke, hop it thru the various grasses.  The big worm and special tail swim really well, and fish eat the heck out of it.

The Gambler Burner Worm tail.
The Gambler Burner Worm tail.

 

The Gambler Burner Worm tail (left) vs. the Zoom Magnum Speed Worm tail.  We used to modify our Magnum Speed worms with a small piece of copper tubing to make what is now OEM on the burner worm.  Just saying.
The Gambler Burner Worm tail (left) vs. the Zoom Magnum Speed Worm tail. We used to modify our Magnum Speed worms with a small piece of copper tubing to make what is now OEM on the burner worm. Just saying.

I found the swimming worm to be an effective technique on Okeechobee, Lake Seminole and Lake Dardenelle.  Dardenelle in the shore grass, over stumps and wood, and anywhere I could find grass the was submerged due to river levels.   Gambler doesn’t need my advice to create great products.  This company lives in South Florida and knows grass fishing way more intimately than me.  You have to appreciate the Gambler Burner Worm as a derivative of the Magnum Speed Worm.  The tail has a larger groove cut out of it, and it thumps and flaps better than the Magnum Speed Worm.  It is fatter than the Magnum Speed worm, but only measures approx 7″ in length.  It’s a fatty worm, that swims really good.

Purchase the Gambler Burner Worm from Tackle Warehouse:

gambler-burner-tackle-warehouse

I highly recommend you learn how to swim a worm.  You arent’ fishing for 10 pounders.  You are fishing for 3 – 5 pounders.  I really like 50# braid, a 1/4 or maybe even 3/8 ounce weight pegged and a 5/0 Owner Offset Worm Hook Texas Rigged.  You fling your Burner Worm way out and swim, stroke, hop it back much like you would a rattle trap in grass, or a vibrating jig.  The high stick retrieve.  Yo-yo it back while swimming it.  Let it fall and bury up in the grass and then lift up, reel it along and drop your rod tip and let it sink back down.  Fish tend to woof it and there’s no doubt when you’re bit.  The Texas rig nature makes hook ups pretty much 95%.   For those headed to South Florida this Winter, this is a swimming worm I’d have on board for Florida.   Gambler’s colors rock too.

Full worms compared.  Gamber Burner on top, Zoom Magnum Speed Worm below.  Texas Rig, with pegged weight.  Swim it and don't hate.  This is tournament swimbait fishing.
Full worms compared. Gamber Burner on top, Zoom Magnum Speed Worm below. Texas Rig, with pegged weight. Swim it and don’t hate. This is tournament swimbait fishing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwOv7G4AVWs]

Trevor Fitzgerald is lethal around grass.  He is a Florida native and gets it done around grass.  He weighed in 25 pounds this day, and gives you some insights into his gear.  Trevor and his wife operate Fitzgerald Rods and they are known as a solid, well built, quality rod, that are tested and designed (among other things) to handle heavy braided lines, big fish, and grass.

Trevor’s Tackle:

Gambler Jig Zilla

Gambler Mega Daddy (Green Pumpkin)

80 Pound Sunline FX

Fitzgerald 7’10” Big Jig/Mat Punching Rod

Keep an eye on Trevor.  He finished 2nd place in this event, and actually tied the guy weight wise, but lost the tie breaker.  I have the entire weigh in on film (most of it) and plan on sharing some highlights from the guys who were in the Top.  Okeechobee is a wonderful fishery, and it’s interesting to hear how guys catch ’em and the gear they use.  That Gambler Jig Zillais off the hook.  The jig bite on Okeechobee is there, and this just adds another dimension.   Adding your own creature/craw bait to a unskirted jig head, in the >1 ounce range.