I’m shocked this bait hasn’t won a major tournament for me or someone else yet.  This is a tournament swimbait if there ever was one.  Grass fishing is just one of the major opportunities for this bait.  The 6” Weedless Trout is a full bodied swimbait, but at only six inches long (weighs approx 1.75 ounces) this is a swimbait that gets the tournament style 3-5 pounders to bite, but has the potential for big bites.

To understand the 6” Weedless Trout, you need to first understand that the 6” Weedless Trout utilizes the patented Huddleston Vortex Tail.  This tail design has proven itself as a fish catcher, matching the swim signature of a trout or other bait fish.   The bait has a single molded in hook, with a collapsable air pocket chamber than encompasses the hook, making it weedless, but also enabling the bait to hook any fish that bites it.

Just like with any kind of frog fishing, we highly recommend you skip florocarbon and just go to straight braid and go to work.  Braided line provides line buoyancy characteristics and zero stretch that make it a lethal combination when combined with the 6” Weedless Trout.   The key to the hook set is using a slower action parabolic rod and letting the fish load up on the bait and then apply a forceful but not overly aggressive pressure set and constant wind to hook the fish.   You need to keep a high rod tip during your retrieve, and once bit, drop your rod tip, let the fish eat the bait a second, then sweep hard and reel and keep the fish coming to you.    Hookup ratios aren’t 100%, but with braided line we’re getting 8 or 9 out of 10 bites in the boat.

Dock Skipping: If you watch Southern Trout Eaters, we cover dock skipping with the 6” Weedless Trout. I can skip a 6” Weedless Trout under and around docks better than I can a senko.  This bait is a dock skippers dream.   You can put a full bodied swimbait in places the fish have never seen a swimming bait.  Lethal at times, when the fish are positioned way up under docks.  Again, braid recommended for ease of line management and for getting big fish out from under docks.

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Bait: 6 Inch Weedless Trout  (the ROF 12 is what we recommend for most applications)
Rod:  G-Loomis 965 BBR
Reel: Shimano Curado 300
Line:  65 or 80# Power Pro or P-Line Spectrex Braid

Strengths:  The 6” Weedless Trout puts a bait where only baits like swim jigs and skinny dippers can usually play.  The size of the 6” Weedless Trout makes it a standout, and will get bigger bites.   There are very few bigbaits that are weedless (the 3:16 Mission Fish being the other), so when you are throwing the 6” Weedless Trout, you are likely showing them something of size that they haven’t seen before.  The six inch size makes it a really good choice for tournament swimbait fishing, and will catch 2-5 pounders.

Ideal Conditions:  Shallow grass, lilly pads, lilly stems, dollar pads, reeds, hydrilla, milfoil, or whatever shallow hard grasses are excellent places to throw the 6” Weedless Trout.  The bait is extremely weedless and can be fished virtually anywhere without hanging up, yet able to hook a fish.   Wood is an excellent application of the 6” Weedless Trout too, where you need to make a lot of contact with the wood to draw a strike. You can fish through a laydown tree and purposely make a lot of contact with the trunk and branches, and get some big bites from trees that usually only see flipped baits, square bills, spinnerbaits and the traditional assortment of lures.   Docks too are an excellent application of the bait.  When you get some practice and the hang of it, you will find the 6” Weedless Trout one of the best dock skipping baits around, that has the potential to hook a giant.