Awhile back, with a friend, I launched on famed Lake Guntersville in northeast Alabama. We were on the tail end of cold front. Morning temps were low enough that bibs, gloves and a thick jacket were required. Fortunately, the clear skies clouded up as we drove to the launch in Goose Pond and the breeze picked up enough to ripple the surface of the water.
The clouds helped raised expectations, but not by much. My buddy had been on the lake just two days before and it wasn’t fishing well.
As I rigged my rods for the day, I reach first for a jig and Chigger Craw combination thinking the fish would be locked tight to cover. But I also rigged up a four-inch soft plastic swim bait in case the fish were active enough to be on the edges of the grass mats we planned to fish.
My buddy, a topwater fan, reached for a frog first, then dipped into his supply of swim baits. He rigged up a 5-inch version of the same bait I had on…a Berkley Hollow Belly in Tennessee Shad.
As many of you have already learned, soft plastic swim baits are deadly lures that do many things well. I also suspect you’ve learned that they come with a bit of a learning curve. Here are a few tips that will make them more productive:
1. Rigging—When the bait is rigged properly it not only runs true at a variety of speeds, the body rolls side-to-side like a live fish while the tail kicks. In most cases, I fish the bait rigged with a single hook, even when fishing open water, and carry a selection of weighted hooks to meet conditions. The best hooks offer a large-screw-on bait holding device (Owner makes a great one), enough hook gap to handle the amount of plastic in the bait, as well as enough weight to control the bait. The hooks provided with the Hollow Belly do not come with a bait-holding device, but work well in most situations. To rig them, first run the hook eye underneath the head and out the front of the bait, then run the hook point through the belly and out the top. Do not run the hook point through the front of the bait and out as you would a Texas-rigged worm—the shaft-mounted weight will destroy your lure.
2. Retrieve—I’ve found a slow, steady retrieve is typically the most effective. At times, stopping to let the bait sink will trigger strikes. Once you find a speed that is producing, stick with it. That can be a challenge when fish are schooling and your adrenaline is surging.
3. Tackle—I’ve migrated to a 7-foot, medium-action rod with good power in the butt section when fishing swim baits. Bites can be surprisingly aggressive and without a soft-tipped rod hook-up rates can suffer (fish don’t have a chance to turn with the bait) or the fish fouls the bait.
4. Line—That’s the same reason I now fish these bait with either mono or fluorocarbon lines. Both offer a bit of give, yet not enough to hinder hook sets.
I’ve found soft plastic swim baits shine around cover, especially when there’s a slight breeze. They are ideal for working over weed tops, along weed edges or right through busting schools of shad.
In most cases, the five-inch version is a good pick, but I find the four-inch model is deadly as well.
We landed more than 20 bass on Guntersville the other day. Nearly all came on the Hollow Belly, including two over 5. It was the best bait for the conditions that day, and the primary reason we caught fish on a day that should have been much tougher.
-- Steve