The Bettencourt Baits Dying Trout. Fusing a deadstick, stall, and slow grind approach.
I have a thing with stalling and deadsticking. It’s a universal truth of catching fish on bigbaits. It’s a part of my approach to picking baits, and choosing my style of retrieve. Context. The Bettencourt Baits Dying Trout is approximately 7″ long and no more than 2 ounces. It’s not exactly a mega-bait, but what it lacks in bigbait appeal, it makes up for in a killer swim, stall, and death dance. It’s also likely something the fish haven’t seen yet. I can see setting up on a prime rocky point, or offshore spot with a sweet spot, and really setting up for one or two prime casts. I would swim this thing right into mother hen’s den, and then kill it…..and let it sit on the surface for as long as you can stand it. Then twitch it once or twice hard and violent and let it sit again. You could really draw a killer strike on this bait, if you knew where some big ones lived and need a fresh approach.
Here’s a little video, from one my favorite places to film on earth, in Cotter, Arkansas:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/GIR6XGsyWiU]
Not to say, you couldn’t just ‘go fishing’ and catch fish with the Dying Trout. It’s a great bait, and my hat is off to Nathan Bettencourt for making baits uniquely his own. His Dying Bluegill was a fun bait to test. They aren’t swimbaits you go power fishing and cover tons of water with. You need to take your time to fish the Dying Trout or the Dying Bluegill right. So, if you found yourself in 3 feet of clear water on lake Okeechobee, and magnums up and around beds, you should fish the Dying Bluegill. If you find yourself off a prime main lake point with a sweet spot that gets a little shade in the afternoon, I’d fish it there. Another tool to try out. It’s going to force you to slow down, which is a good thing, most times.
Want to Buy a Nathan Bettencourt Dying Trout? Click HERE
You can get a good grind and dig out of the bait, you just have to be very mindful of your retrieve, and in total control/contact. It fishes like a square billed crankbait on the straight wind.
I’m using the official launch date of Southern Trout Eaters as July 3rd, 2011 as per this post announcing the film on the Trophy Fishing Forum of calfishing.com.
I wanted to thank the angling community at large, and certainly the swimbait fishing community for the support and genuine aloha around the release of Southern Trout Eaters. We announced a 6″ Triple Trout Giveaway on our Facebook Page that ends tomorrow at 5pm Central Time. We just posted a ‘success stories wanted’ contest on our Facebook Page and will be giving away six of our pre-rigged with Owner Hardware, 8″ Huddleston Deluxe Rainbow Trouts. That contest ends this Friday at 5pm Central Time. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more.
At some point, if you are passionate about something and work at it long and hard enough, you want to have an advanced conversation that gets into the weeds, that explores things with photos and video, that tests things out, that documents trials and errors, you want to hear opinions and inputs of others who share the same passion, you want to hear the good, the bad, and some controversy. At least, that is where we are at. That is what professionals do. And to have so many people watch and comment on Southern Trout Eaters on online forums and on the Tackle Warehouse product page, so overwhelming favorably, just speaks volumes to me about the risks we should take, the directions to head, and who we engage to get there.
Southern Trout Eaters fans are all over the world, not just the United States, which is incredible. Our blog traffic has increased 5-10X at peak times, year- over-year. Our YouTube channel has gone from virtually nothing to almost 200,000 hits in a year and approx. 500 subscribers. We were able to get a copy of the DVD to Manabu Kurita in Japan, and he sent us a kind note in return. I have received phone calls from guys who have won BassMaster Classics and FLW Tour Events giving me huge props on the film and what we did. Someday I hope to document some of it with film. It would be incredible to get some of these guys talking about Southern Trout Eaters who have been tournament fishing as long or longer than I’ve been alive. Some of my favorite feedback has come from friends and family who do not fish. People who for the first time I think sort of understand what it is we do and the search we are on.
Those of you who are clicking thru the links in our blog, or thru the product page at southerntrouteaters.com, or the ‘shopping link’ to purchase products from Tackle Warehouse are helping us out tremendously and that model is working. Between the sales of the DVDs and your support of our Affiliate agreement with Tackle Warehouse, you are making our fishing possible. You are holding us accountable and helping us show we are providing content that has value. So I say thank you and I plan on returning the favor with some fresh new content this summer, non-trout eater, swimbait fishing that I think you will enjoy, via Youtube. DVD just takes so much more time, effort and cost, it will be saved for special projects only, is what my gut tells me is the right way to play it.
Keep an eye on our Facebook Page, we’ll have some more contests this week. Thank you all for your support, looking forward to the next 365 days.
Headquarters of southernswimbait.com, Cotter, Arkansas. That is the White River out the window, and my humble little desk. One of the most profound lessons of the last year has been the realization I need to get off the road. I recently moved back in with Mom&Dad and am working on my 2013 season already. Too much time on the road, not having your own place to hang your hat, and not having an office (no matter how simple), a social life, a gym, or any normal things has been hurting me. Arkansas is all the way around a good thing for me, my wallet, and my fishing. I hope to edit like the wind from my little desk this summer and keep after it. I’ve struggled at times the last 365 days with what the heck I’m doing: 35 years old, no money, no job, no girlfriend sort of thing but between Arkansas, the continued success of Southern Trout Eaters and southernswimbait.com, and the 1.5 Terabytes of unpublished data I have of stuff people will enjoy watching, I’ve got a clear path into 2013 and beyond. Thank you for your support and helping me find my path.
Southern Trout Eaters DVD Review from Rob Newell FLW Bass Magazine March 2012
Southern Trout Eaters was released on June 27th, 2011 to the general public. It’s now 5 months later and we got some ‘mentions’ some places, but some straight up reviews with a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ are hard to come by. Understand the politics in reviewing a film that doesn’t feature or even remotely align with any of the banner advertisements and products the ‘reviewer’ is paid to endorse and weave into their messaging. That has only taken me 5 months to realize! Hahahahaha. So thankful for this review because it is genuine and touches on points I’ve been dying to have discussions around.
Let me walk through some highlights of the Fishstrong.com review, from my perspective:
It was a real review. Fishstrong.com’s Hale White not only watched the film multiple times and let the information sink in, he clearly internalized and thought on these subjects and it showed. Their review was not only professional and well written, it was incredibly creative. Fishstrong.com comes up with a list “welcomed deficiencies” and actually gives us props for them. Most places beat me up over the picture quality and music. Not Hale. He realized the content was the shizzle. And I realized in his review, that Hale is no joke. Credible is a new word I love to throw around. Got Credibility? Hale and Fishstrong.com earned my respect with this review big time. He took his time and had even called me to clarify a couple points about the film and the people in the film.
Wavelength: There is a term the Spanish use, and it goes: “Que Onda?”…or “whats up?” is how it is generally known. But as you get deeper into Latin and Spanish culture, you realize that when a friend asks another “Que Onda?” he is really asking, “What wavelength are you on?” Wavelength here being a metaphor here for: What is your fishing DNA? What is your fishing fabric? What mold are you from? Well, I can say I rarely feel like I’m on the same wavelength as most of the fishing industry. I see things one way, and the industry is telling me something completely opposite or turned around. I am far from always right, but I am not always wrong either. It was so refreshing to read Hale’s review and realize I had found one of those rare people that I might be able to engage to do the kind of collaborative work I have in mind to do. Thank you for the sanity check Hale!
Southern Trout Eaters even look good on the Fishstrong.com website. Thanking Hale White for his review.
