Grab your spinning rods, boys and girls.   And lets get into a swimbait and spinning rod conversation, shall we?  The 3” Big Hammer swimbait tails and Lead Hammer Heads, are a true swimming bait.  A bait that you fish in 1 foot of water just reeling it on busting fish, or a bait you swim down  along a bridge piling in 30 feet over 80 feet for suspended fish.  Very versatile bait in its rate of fall, and ability to swim it thru any water column or multiple columns on the same cast.

We showed you a little bit of the 3” Hammer in action in Southern Trout Eaters in fact.  We also showed you the 3” Hammer can get magnum bites.  It catches numbers and size.  A great tournament bait, especially good in places like the Tennessee River and the Savannah River/blueback herring lakes,  where you have a lot of man made structure, things like barge tie ups, bridge pilings, wing dams, dam walls, and large marinas.

Fish, especially spotted bass, but don’t count mr. largemouth out, he suspends with the best of them buddy, love man made structures.   You need a bait that can get down in a hurry along a deep wall or piling and then you want to not waste the cast,  and fish right under your feet at times , looking at your graph, checkin’ out what those arches and marks will do when they see a bait of yours and you play a little pac-man on your graph—- the 3” Hammer is unique in that aspect in the world of swimbait fishing.

How universally edible is a 3” bait?  I mean, come on, every lake in the country has a 3” something that is edible and bass eat them.   Big Hammers come in colors that range from yellow perches, whites, smokes, neons, candies to ghost and sexy shads and just good ole Pacific Ocean baitfish standards like the anchovy, sardine, smelt variants and calico bass killers.

The 3” Hammer has the exposed Lead Hammer Head, and it can be a good semiconductor to gauge what type of bottom you are fishing — hard bottom, soft bottom, shells, wood (you hope not, Hammer’s no likey wood, fish over wood NOT in wood).  The 1/4 and 3/16 ounce Hammer Heads are about all I do with the 3” Hammer.    Just depends what depth I’m fishing, how quick I need to get there, the wind, current and other variables preventing me from fishing a 3/16 ounce basically. I’ll pick a 3/16 ounce to start and go to 1/4 if I know I gotta get down quicker harder faster deeper because wind, waves, sharp edges/ledges, or whatever.  The heads fit the baits perfectly, and when rigged correctly have a real slender and sleek swim, with that little square tail thumping and stretching the bait out as it moves through the water.

I use a 7’ 2” Shimano Cumara Medium Action spinning rod and Stradic 1000 Spinning Reel.  That Cumara spinning rod, well, actually I have 2 of them that rarely leave my boat when I’m tournament style fishing.   They are booth spooled with 15 # Power Pro tied to a 3 foot section of Yamamoto Sugoi Florocarbon.  I find the Yamamoto Sugoi Florocarbon exceptional stuff and I use old spools of 10 pound from drop shot rods as leader material for my braid+floro on my spinning rods. I use braid + floro on all my spinning gear. I rarely have 100% mono or 100% florocarbon on a spinning rod anymore.

The braid helps immensely with hook sets, sensitivity, playing BIG fish,  and honestly line management is so awesome, I no longer mess around with anything else.    Hook sets and constant pressure are key because sorta like a football head jig, the weight forward lead head swimbait can come popping out if a fish jumps and opens its mouth and shakes, but you can solve that with good pressure and braid hook sets to bury the hook and control of the fish and not letting it jump and spit the bait.

Gear For the 3” Hammer Tails (and Hammer Heads):  

3” Hammer Tails
Hammer Heads  (3/16 and 1/4)
Rod:   Shimano Cumara 7’2″ Medium Action Spinning Rod
Reel: Shimano Stradic 1000
Line:  Power Pro, 15 Pound Braid
Leader:   Yamamoto Sugoi Florocarbon, 10 Pound
Knot:  Double Uni Knot (for connecting braid to leader)

Strengths:  Deep man made structure fishing where fish can be suspended, at the bottom or anywhere in between.  Covering water on ledges and long tapering nothing points where fish are feeding, clay banks, etc.  Busting fish, try fishing these over fish blowing up bait.  Fishing over top deep standing timber, like, pumping and yo-yo retrieve sorta like a blade bait.   Paralleling bluff walls.

Ideal Conditions:  Big concrete walls and structures with current.  Big marinas, bluff walls, standing timber, long tapering and steep points, nothing banks, ditches, and deep schooled fish.

Notes:  Rig the bait perfectly straight for the right swim.  Glue head to tail if you want to make your bait last longer, once you know you have it rigged perfect.