You have to check this thing out. The flying/swimming V. I messed around with the Picasso Bait Ball Extreme over the summer. Talk about a cool derivative of the Alabama Rig. There is a V4, V6 and V8 Model of the Picasso Bait Ball Extreme. I fished and filmed the V6 series. You basically have dummy baits that are coupled with hooked baits at the endpoints of the V. The fun thing is the shape and inherent light weight/neutrally buoyancy of this rig make it geared toward grass fishing and definitely busting fish/surface breakers that are chasing bait. You don’t have to reel like crazy to keep this thing up top. You can make the baits pop out of the water, creating your own fleeing school of baitfish or herring.
Can you feel the vortex? You can bet the fish can sense the vortex behind this rig and will sense it has a different signature than other Alabama Rigs. V for Vortex.
Stalingrad. The Vortex Formation, stalled, has a better fall than the Alabama Rigs with the 5 star clusters.
1/16 oz Picasso School E Rig with a big ole fat 5/0 hook. Get there. KVD Swim N Shiner, but whatever you swimbait of choice, I think you can worry more about where to fish than your soft swimmer of choice. Just match the hatch and get after it.You have screws to mount your dummy baits. The outside bait rigged with a 1/16ounce and 5/0 Picasso School E Rig Jig Head
You can add whatever swimbaits or jigheads you want to this rig to match your application. I can see putting a bunch of Skinny Dippers or even just the same above rig depending on how thick the grass, and go cover some water in Okeechobee. With braid, you can rip even top hooked swimbait thru grass and effectively fish. Don’t let top hooks fool ya, they are weedless when fished mindfully and with aid from braid. If you needed to sink this thing out, I think a more standard Alabama Rig would make sense, unless the flying V gave them a different look than the 5 Star cluster look? I can see throwing the V6 or V8 version all the way in the very backs of creeks and pockets and creating a fleeing school of bait effect on ANY lake or river system. You can fish this thing like a spinnerbait and cover water. I really would fish braid even in the clearest water. I can see adding a Robo Worm Robo Minnow or Keitech Swing Impact Fat baits in a more Herring pattern and fishing this thing fast n furious up shallow on red clay points, high spots and way offshore sweet spots. You could up this thing to 6 or 8 bigger 6-7″ soft swimbaits and literally create a good herring ball that might call ’em up somewhere between Keg Creek and the Monkey Islands!
Swimming V. The V-6 Picasso Bait Ball Elite, swimming along in formation.
The over under flying V performed by the RAF! V-6 Elite Bait Ball from Picasso. Fishes skinnier than your normal a rig and changes your formation.
In case you don’t know this, you need to have yourself an assortment of colors of the Skinny Dipper from Reaction Innovations. The bait catches fish in the grass, and it catches fish in the open water. Reaction Innovations is owned and operated out of Alabama, but Andre Moore is originally a Californian. I could tell you a story or two about Andre Moore back in the late 90s, fishing the WON BASS tournament scene, Lake Havasu, and a bar called Kokomos. I was brand new 21 years old and hanging out with guys like John Murray, Byron Velvick, Dan Frazier, Steve Beasely, etc and just having the time of my life catching fish, killing it as a AAA/Co-Angler, and being a care free college guy. I’d tell you a story, but then again, like the Tiki Bar in Clewiston, what happens at Kokomos, stays at Kokomos.
White Trash Second Generation. The ‘Dipper as its known, is a grass bait, and White Trash was the cats meow for a time on the Big O. Now, you have to get a little more creative with your colors and fish it smarter because Scott Martin’s place, sells at least 10 tons of these annually, for good reason but the ‘Dipper not only catches fish, it takes your fishing into new directions. The Speed Worm and Swim Senko are in the same conversation, but the Skinny Dipper is a perfect compromise of size, shape, swim, weedlessness, and clearly gets bit, and tends to get the biggest bites of the 3 baits in this conversation.
Andre Moore’s Reaction Innovations makes some killer baits. The Trixie Shark is a sneaky toad style bait that has a unique sound and gurgle it produces swimming across the surface of the water. Lots of Trixie Sharks are sold in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, I’ll put it that way. Just add grass and lily pads, and the Trixie Shark is on somebody’s rod. The Sweet Beaver has so set the mark and bar as a compact flipping/punching bait, it’s hard to be a bass fisherman and not somehow come across the Beaver as a bait that is talked about and used. And then you mix in the Skinny Dipper, and you have to be like, wow, Andre has made some really good baits that catch fish, and they each seem to have a unique fit or application, or do something different.
The body is short, stubby, and round and the tail is a paddle, and it is well proportioned to the rest of the body. Not a big thumping tail, but a tail that puts a lot of roll into the bait. The Skinny Dipper swims great at high speeds, slow speeds, and most importantly, swims well in the slop which means upside down and in and out of the water. I highly recommend braid. 50# mostly or 65#. You of course can use good 15-20 florocarbon for open water and should, or use a leader of floro connected to your braid if you are down for that kind of thing. I’m gonna try the braid to floro thing A LOT more my next time in Florida, for all my baits, not just the Skinny Dipper.
The Money Shot Violet Skinny Dipper was there when bass fishing was interrupted by this thing called the Alabama rig and Chad rode the wave and also did his own thing, see below…You didn’t see this here. Don’t tell Chad. He will pound me. No, actually, this one and the one below I got permission. The 4th and final bait, his #1 bait for the event was not the Alabama Rig, the vibrating jig (below), nor the Scrounger (the above is a Skinny Dipper rigged on an Aaron Martens Scrounger head), it was his ‘Stinger’ as he calls it, that one I won’t share, as per his request, back when I took these on the final day of the 2011 FLW Everstart Championship on Kentucky Lake.
Chad Prough is from Chipley Florida, which is Lake Seminole country, which also means, Lake Eufaula country. And here he is in Kentucky fishing the Tennessee River with one of his bread and butter baits fished on different heads and rigs. Nice adjustments Chad. On a tournament dominated by Alabama Rigs, Chad made the final day cut and had a strong finish without needing the A-Rig. Chad is Team Reaction Innovations, and a super good guy, who had an incredible 2011 season all around, and keeps after it constantly.
The Vortex.
The Skinny Dipper on an Aaron Martens Scrounger Head and a vibrating/chatter jig head, sick and wrong. No skirt. Do you see how this relates to the “Huddleston Vortex” conversation we like to think we broached in Southern Trout Eaters? The footprint and swim signature of a vibrating jig and Scrounger head when coupled with a swimbait or any softbait for that matter, is so unique and wild, that they go outside the parameters of the other 99.99% of baits and voila, the fish go nuts about them. Guys will squeak out one or two more fish on a vibrating jig with a swimbait trailer than someone throwing a traditional spinnerbait at times, and how many times does one or two fish mean the difference between a good and bad tournament? The fish have seen 10,000,000 spinnerbaits, and so when something that unique comes along with a swimbait attached to it, it gets woofed. The Huddleston Vortex predicts things like baits with unique, very real, and very odd swimming patterns/footprints/signatures tend to catch more or bigger fish, better than baits that are just ‘me too’ style baits that are just another jig, spinnerbait, crankbait,topwater bait, etc. The Alabama Rig proved five baits trump one bait, why, among other reasons, 10 vortexes from (2 vortexes per bait (( <insert Ken’s voice>“one on each side of the tail“)), 5 baits on the A-Rig, stick with me now, we will be doing calculus here in a minute!) 5 little bait fishes has always been safe to eat. Nothing had ever hooked a bass, that wasn’t trolled, that had 10 vortexes coming off it. What other baits (besides the Alabama Rig) have crazy unique vortexes/swim signatures/footprints, especially when combined with a simple and effective swimbait like the Skinny Dipper? Answer: The Scrounger Head and the vibrating jig.
They pick off fish other baits will not, in the same areas other guys are throwing baits that have been thrown for X amount of years/seasons. The Scrounger and vibrating jigs are just killer baits when combined with swimbaits like the Skinny Dipper. What other swimbaits are good? The swim senko for sure, Lake Fork Magic Shad swimbaits, and Basstrix style swimbaits are all excellent trailers on Scrounger Heads and vibrating jig, just stand alone. Learn how to fish them. You can deflect, bump, burn, slow grind, open water suspend, grass snatch, rock hop, and stroke both styles of head, and I promise you, these baits are tied on a lot of FLW Tour and Elite Series rods. What swimbait they put on, unclear, but the Skinny Dipper is one of them, and the Scrounger and vibrating jig heads are fish catchers. Big fish and tournament fish style fish catchers. The Skinny Dipper serves up a simple purpose: being an all purpose, well shaped/proportioned bait, that serves as your full bodied ‘baitfish’ imitator on a number of different rigs and hooks. It comes in really great colors and options, is relatively inexpensive, and is also weedless so it fits anything from Lake Lanier to Okeechobee in color and applications. Keep it Soft Stupid.
Larry Mullikin pulling out the in the ‘coup de grace’ to the 2009 FLW Stren Series Lake Okeechobee event Co-Angler Division, out of Roland & Mary Ann Martins Marina. You can see Derek Jeter’s (big guy in the background onstage who would finish runner up in the co-angler division to Larry because of this fish) face as he has to look away from Larry’s fish. Ron Lappin asks, “So what did you catch it on?” Larry takes a minute, laughing…”Skinny Dipper………of course” … This was a month or so after Jimmy McMillan won the FLW Eastern Series on Okeechobee on the Skinny Dipper. I finished 20th on the Swim Senko on the boater side with 10 pounds per day.
Going Green
I like to fish my Skinny Dipper on 50# braid (would go 65 pound if I was on bigguns in thick grass) with the plastic bullet head, and I tie on a 5/0 Owner Offset Shank Wide Gap Hook with a palomar knot, make sure my braided line is nice and black, and I go to work. I fish the Skinny Dipper on the G-Loomis 964 BBR on a Curado reel and can fling that bugger quite a ways on that setup. I get great leverage for casting and hooking up with that rod and reel combo. You want a long rod to throw the Skinny Dipper. You want a shallow bend in your hook so your bait is more stream lined going thru the grass, mag gap and extra wide gap hooks aren’t my favorite, but probably are effective for someone. The PayCheck Head Case is a great piece of terminal tackle and it really helps your rigging of the Skinny Dipper. It helps hold your baits true and helps your bait bull nose thru thick stuff, without ripping the bait or pulling the hook down the shank. You’ll notice the bait spins at times in the above video. The hook generally acts as a keel, keeping the bait oriented right, but the tail and design of the bait makes it roll back and forth, and at times, it will do complete 360 degree spins while fishing it. Not my favorite, but then I realized this was a blessing and a reason it fishes so well in the grass. The ability to be sloppy with the bait, and fish it thru super thick stuff, requires the bait swim in all kinds of weird positions, even out of the water. That is were round baits beat flat sided baits.
The Skinny Dipper with the Owner Hook is a slender profile. I like the 5/0 hook because it reaches way back into the bait when you rig, but isn’t into the tail area where it would mess with the swim. The Owner hook is not a mag gap or super big bend, which help you slide it thru grass.
Reverse ribbing in the skin creates additional roll, drag, and footprint of the bait as it moves thru the water. The Owner Cutting Point hook is great with braided line. Fish load up on the bait, you drop your rod tip, and come up hard and reel like heck and you’ll stick the majority of your bites.
The Paycheck Head Case screws into the nose of the Skinny Dipper, and just helps you bull doze your way thru grass.
Swimbait Tails by Category: May-June 2012 FLW Bass Magazine Reprint
Click the above imaged for the enlarged version, that you can read. This is a digital image of an article I was fortunate enough to get done in collaboration with Curt Niedermier. The intent was to take a simple look at various tails on swimbaits and understand some subtleties and just keep it simple.
