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 (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:
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.
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.
I DO NOT have this bite figured out and by no means can speak as an authority. Something is always bedding on Okeechobee….bass, bluegill, talapia/goggle-eyes, and Asian armored catfish. There is a cycle and way of life in the lake, in all lakes I suppose, that mirrors this to some level. You notice bass beds become bluegill beds or talapia/goggle-eye beds. The beds get re-used. Sometime I’ll share what I do with the 3:16 Rising Son around bedding bass, but for now, just wanted to share a nice one I got on Okeechobee over the weekend. It’s NOT easy out there for me. Okeechobee is on a fickle cycle for a swimbait guy. Lots of algae bloom, weird color water, bad wind, overgrown and choked out. The good black clear water I like to fish is really hard to come by. The fish are more ‘outside’ grass edge oriented and ideally, I’d have nice black clear water, or inside grass pools with enough depth and life to hold fish. The bite right now, as usual, is a flipping and punching bite. That is how you will win on Okeechobee. If tide and time completely come together and you make the right moves during a 4 day event to pull it off, I think a sight fish/swimbait bite could beat a pure punching bite. I missed my opportunity, twice, at the Tour level to prove and show that. I have nightmares about it. It haunts me, and that is no joke.
See the light spots on the bottom int he bottom 1/3rd of this photo? Those are the ‘beds’ that get recycled during the year, bass>bluegill>talapia>etc
I am fishing in and around the Monkey Box, Harney Pond, North Shore area and I found some big hydrilla beds with clean water and bedding bluegill, that is all I can tell you. Hydrilla seems to be key for me, and I know was key for Brent Ehrler when the Tour was here and he finished 2nd. And Lord knows I could/should be punching, I just love the challenge of finding swimbait fish. The bite is way more a flipping bite and pitching jigs at the reeds. Anyway, I’ve found some bluegill beds (I think) in some thick hydrilla fields, and the water is by far the best black water I have found, and the water is fishable. The grass is not topped out in some pools and you can swim a bait thru it quite nicely. The 3:16 Sunfish (the Bluegill color is killer too) is a favorite bait of mine. I fish it with a 1/0 ST-36 Owner Stinger Hook, and 65# Braid, M Action 8 footer, and a Curado 300. It has a very down the line, nose down swim, which is amazing for a line thru bait with a 45 degree angle of attack between hook and line thru insert in the bait, that you’d think would bias more upward. The bait does not swim up or plane up, it really keeps its depth and drive ‘right’ on the straight grind. You don’t have to be overly technical to get the right down the line swim out of the bait, and can stall, snatch and buzz/burn it along too. It’s just a great bait, and I’m learning that May/June is bed time for bluegill all over the South, including Florida. You need to be throwing bluegill baits, and the post-spawn time of the bass tends to lead into the bluegill/brim spawn, which tends to be when the heat is setting in, mid Spring style. I catch fish on the 3:16 Sunfish and 22nd Century Bluegill right now.
Notice the round and honeycomb nature of the bluegill beds.
The Florida sun has been quite nice lately. Mid to Low 80s, but the wind has been relentless. Keeping it simple and setting my boat down 2 minutes from the launch ramp was a good decision. I ‘live’ in Lakeport on weekends.Blood sweat and tears, literally.I have been working hard out there, glad to get a good bite
It’s getting really hot, really muggy, and the grass is getting way thick. I always look for the cleanest/blackest water I can find with the most beautiful hydrilla, and usually the fish are there. I found a few instances where I could fish the XL Nezumaa around isolated clumps of reeds and buggy whips. The bottom is just carpeted with wonderful hydrilla, that really good green hard and crisp hydrilla, and the water is by far the deepest and clearest water I’m fishing the XL Nezumaa along walls of reeds too, and just trying to get a big bite where I can. As the heat sets in, I highly suggest rats and big wakebaits, like MS Slammers or 3:16 Hardbaits. Big topwater baits basically, the can catch a big one at high noon, blaring heat in the right conditions. And rat baits are super fun to fish-my favorite. Just super fun fishing and helps endure brutal conditions and heat.
I do like fishing certain bigbaits on snaps. I really find the Owner Hyper Cross Locks fit this bait, and my application beautifully. I like to walk and stall my rats. I do like to slow reel and wake them too, but man, I just can’t help but make that bait look alive and struggling out there. I only have small pockets of fishable water, I don’t usually have long runs of clean swim lanes to bring a top water bait thru, a bait like the XL Nezumaa, I can throw it right on the ‘point’ of a good isolated clump of reeds and usually there will be a hole in the hydrilla around the reeds enough to fish it out a few feet or more. You just don’t get 15-30 feet of swim most times, you only get 2-6 feet at times to work with, so you need a stallable bait, and a topwater is the bait, the ultimate stall bait. So around grass, or isolated layown trees, or around shade pockets, you want a bait that hangs in the little ‘pool’ you have to work with, and where too, you can get maximum action out of your bait when you do decide to walk it and really jerk it. The XL Nezumaa is violent and raucous, and you get a lot of action and noise and the bait only moved 4-6″ toward you. And with the right wind or bow in your line, you can float a bait like the XL Nezumaa rat in place. I am fishing 80# straight braid on my XL Nezumaa and recommend a Low Down Custom Rods 8′ XH if you haven’t ever tried one of those rods for lobbing a BIG bait like the XL Nezumaa or Slide Swimmer 250.
Gallery:
Casey Martin Weighs In: 2013 FLW Everstart Series Lake Okeechobee
Congrats to our boy Casey Martin, with a 6th place finish at the 2013 Lake Okeechobee FLW Everstart Series. Casey is just off the hook good. Follow him in 2013 on the FLW Tour, he’s gonna crush it: caseymartinfishing.com
And here is Casey at the FLW Tour, where he again took 6th place! Can you imagine a Top 10 in your rookie event as a boater? Sick:
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.
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.
