here we go he took it Wow
you know you know when they want it when they do that that's awesome guys awesome
what he took
all right
hey folks glenn may here with bassresource.com and today i want to
talk to you about fishing the paddle tail swim bait that is some people call
this a bhoot tail swim bait it's got that little that this little puppy right
here you guys have seen these before with that little tail right there that's
what I'm talking about a little 6 inch this is the rage swimmer right here I
love this bait there's a lot out in the market but there's a lot of different
ways to fish it they're extremely popular baits so I'm gonna go through
and show you guys how to fish this first of all we're going to go with rigging
and then I'm going to show you a lot of different tricks and tips for fishing
this bait starting with the rigging so what we want to do with is starting off
with the hook there's two different schools of thought here I'm rigging a
lot of people like to use a screw lot hook or OTT screw lock well first of all
you have to have weight a kilo weight my opinion I like to use a quarter ounce
keel weighted bait keeps the bait running straight but this is the screw
lock right there see that it's hard to see maybe against my hand you can see a
little bit better but typically what that screw lock does is see it hangs
like that with the bait with the hook just like that so you screw that into
the nose of the bait just like you know you just literally screw it in and it
holds the bait in place and then you can rig it Texas rig like so it sits in just
like that I'm not a big fan of screw locks at least for this bait the reason
being is no matter how I rig it don't know what I'm doing wrong but every time
it's just a little bit off-center from the eye of the hook either one side or
the other so what runs a little bit cockeyed just like that a little bit
sideways on me and I'm not a big fan of that I don't like that now maybe I'm
doing it wrong and you guys have a tip for that but I haven't had it Avenel to
bring it perfectly straight with a screw lock so instead I just use a standard
keel baited hook like this problem as you like okay cool well how do you rig
it well if you try to rig it regular Texas style
what you do is you go right down the nose straight down the nose right down
the middle just like you know with you right to the bend of the hook you flip
it out you start to go through and you hold on hold on hold on we hit that wait
what are you gonna do you just gonna push it on through and I'll tear up your
bait now now that you've made that little channel we're gonna use that
let's back that up a minute we're just gonna take that eye and now go right
back through that hole we made and it'll go right back in just like so sorry it
goes right back in sorry right through boom thought it comes perfect so you
first make that little channel and now you can rig it right through it's
perfect and when you rig it you just want Texas rig text beause that if you
want to call it that but I just like the skin hook a little bit bring it right
through and that's how it's rig perfect okay I'll take that hook point put that
in a little bit now I can bring it in cover without it getting snagged on
anything okay so this rig that I've set it up right here this is a weedless type
setup and the reason I've done it this way is a lot of the stuff that I fish in
is weedy lots of flutter brush cover lots of
submerged weeds and I don't want this to get hung up however if I were fishing in
a lot of rocks and open water another way you can rig it is with a jig head
and that's just simply there's a weight in the front and then you the hook comes
out the top and it's exposed I don't have any of those with me because I'm
not fishing those on this lake but that's another way to rig and fish these
baits is with an open jig head the thing is with those is you are going to get
hung up so make sure that you're only fishing areas where there's not a whole
lot of weeds and stuff okay now that I showed you how to rig the bait let me
show you what kind of equipment that I'm using in this case I'm using a medium
heavy a 7-foot medium heavy power rod with a fast action tip that's the kind
of rod you want to be using in all sorts of bass fishing in this case I'm using
it for paddle tail rig with it I'm using thirty pound fireline ultra eight line
and that is use that because what I'm doing a lot of
times I'm fan casting I'm covering a lot of water and that ultra 8 is great for
long casting it's designed for that so I can get long long casts on that the line
is no gift to it so it's ultra sensitive so I can feel that bite where the fish
is way out there and hits the bait I can tell that it's a strike in rig with that
I'm using the a burger see or evil SX reel I've got it in the 73 to 1 gear
ratio I like it a little bit fast because I like to bring that baked back
pretty quick this is a reaction kind of bite so I like to move the bait pretty
fast personally I like to cover a lot of water so I'm reeling it rather fast so
7/3 is a pretty good size reel gear ratio I don't need a super high speed
reel so that you don't need to spend the money on that just for fishing these
baits but if I happen to have one of those I'll use that as well but the 7/3
works really well for me the drag on is what I like it's a 24 pound drag on it
super strong super smooth it's great for fishing these baits if they tend to bury
up a little bit in the cover I can wrench them out because again that's
what I throw these in so that's the bait that I'm using that's the setup now that
I have all that let me show you how to fish it
there we go
baseball swimbait
come on
give me your face
boy got rather rough them out it's like that
not a huge fish but you know how can they get big if they're not small first
ate that penalty I'll let you go
okay so the first technique that I want to show you is very simple
straightforward and works surprisingly well and that's just your simple
retrieve all you're doing you're casting it out there in this case it might be
over the tops of weeds over some rocks you might be throwing it next to a weed
line something where the bats are hiding where they can come out ambush fish and
it's just a nice steady retrieve it's nothing real to to crazy I've got my rod
tip down and I've got it to the side that way I can feel the strikes a lot
better and I'm in the Hooksett position you don't want your rod sitting way up
here I've got the line out but you know what
your rod when you're casting this and when you're retrieving it unless your
weight you want it right near the surface you say for example the weeds
are right under the surface you don't want your rod way up here because you're
not in the Hooksett position if a fish bites it you have to remember to bring
your hook down you bring a rod down reel it up really quick that slack line and
then set the hook it's kind of difficult to do so you got to keep your rod tip
down here and just a nice slow steady retrieve works really well sometimes
what I like to do when I'm retrieving I'll give it a pause if I see like a
little hole in the weeds I like to drop it down the weeds I'll pause it let it
kind of fill just flutter down in there and sometimes that'll draw a strike
another way I like to fish it is burning it back and this is great when you have
a just submergent buoys right under the surface you bring it back at a good
clipping speed where it just barely breaks the surface where the paddle tail
just might be bulging the surface just a little bit but you're bringing it back
really fast you're looking for that reaction strike this is great for warmer
months in the spring and all the way through the fall you're going right
along the weed lines you want to get that fish to react to it so you're
bringing it right towards the surface this is great for morning early-morning
bites especially if they don't want to hit buzzbaits this is a more subtle
approach and you can usually get that bite especially if that Sun starts to
come up starts hitting the surface and they've been hitting surface water
surface lures that's a real good lure to switch to so you can get to that that
can keep that top water bike going so the next retrieve is almost the opposite
of that actually it really is and it's great for when fish are feeding off of
bottom fish for example gobies and sculpin and even crawdads but what I
like to do is let it cast it out let it sit on the bottom bring the rod tip down
low and here I'm just crawling it on the bottom I want to mimic that bait meat
fish that's it feeds off the bottom this works especially well in the winter time
when the crawfish are hibernating you'll get scoping them in and gobies
and whatnot that are sitting on the bottom of the bait on the bottom of the
lake feeding and that's what the bass are feeding off I'm sitting right on the
bottom so you just drag along the bottom now one way to do is with the reel which
works in the warmer months because you're moving it pretty fast but in the
colder months what I like to do is I like to reel up bring my rod tip here
and just drag along with my rod tip and here it's a lot easier to feel the bite
rather than do it with you reel and then you get all the way to here reel all the
way back over and then do it again just drag it with your rod tip and that way
you're getting a little pause in the action too you're not doing it too fast
you can really pay attention to how fast you're moving that bait because as fast
as you're moving the rod tip is how fast you're moving the bait if you're doing
with you reel it's a little hard to visualize that plus you get a lot more
sensitivity when you have it on the side like that that works exceptionally well
and those fish are just hugging the bottom feeding off the bottom feeding
off those little bait fish sitting on the bottom does a really good job a lot
of people don't fish it that way so try it that way when the bites off now
another way I like to fish this bait is a little bit unorthodox but I like to
use it as a pitching and flipping lure again I got the same setup but you know
I come across some cover or something that looks appealing to me I'll actually
pitch it right out there to it and and let it drop straight down like I would a
jig or a worm it's I fish it exactly like that and it can work really really
well and if you don't think it does watch
this clip here's the best of the best right there
there you go you can catch him ooh got tail got feel good feel good feel yeah
yeah go look at that whack they might be a little bit fun yeah all that big butt
see that's a lot of fun sight fishing is fun but you saw that fish react to it I
pitched it out there and it was a straight drop and that fish hit it
before it even hit the bottom so pitching works really well now
one last one is a lot of people like to fish it weightless I don't have it
rigged up that way right now but if you fish it without any weight on that on
that keel weighted hook like I've shown you that works exceptionally well you
throw it out there and just reel it very very slowly and let that paddle tail
just slowly wiggle along and that works really well too so that's another great
way to fish these baits all right if you watch the video this long now I want to
give you some really good tips for maximizing how many fish you can catch
with these paddle tails I'm telling you what there's a lot of guys who've
stopped watching at this point so you guys are the ones that are gonna have it
over on them when you're fishing these baits so here's the great tips first of
all you want to match the hatch the first thing you want to do is if the
fish are feeding on rainbow trout or sculpin or if it's gobies or you know
whatever is the main forage base in your leg perch bluegill what-have-you you
want that bait to match that color and match the action of that of the bait
fish so pay attention to that very closely and see what the fish are
feeding on and that will up your odds there's another quick tip if the active
paddle tail is just a little too slow and you want to bring it back faster
especially say for example you're fishing it weightless and you want to
bring it back quick but that little tail isn't gonna let you
you can grab a pocketknife and carve out some of the plastic around that tail
make it a smaller tail haven't done it on this one
but I'm just telling you where to do it carve around that and get some of that
plastic off of it now that tells gonna wiggle a lot faster it's gonna allow you
to bring that weightless bait back quicker or if you just want a faster
action on the tail you can do it that we just carve it off another thing you can
do with this tail is just dip it in some chartreuse dye in my neck of the woods
the fish are feeding on bluegill all the time especially in the summertime and
actually this is throughout the United States fish feed on bluegill in the
summertime way more than they're doing in the crawfish so what you want to do
is dip that tie that this this tail and some chartreuse dye and make it look a
little bit more like a bluegill something else that you want to do with
these paddle tails a lot of guys don't take the time to do this but you want
that bait to mimic the prey and I'm not talking about the color or size I'm
talking about how it moves in the water study it watch youtube videos watch
other videos study how these fish move naturally in the water they don't just
come in a straight line all the time they don't just stop and go but they go
one way they slow down a pause they move a little bit more it's a little erratic
so pay attention to how they swim then go to a swimming pool hopefully you've
got one or maybe you know a buddy that does but go toss it in a swimming pool
and practice mimicking that fish you want to mimic the way it moves in the
water and the swimming pool is a great way to do it or if you have a lake
that's super clear where you can practice that but that's what you want
to learn is that technique another thing you want to do when you're fishing these
baits is make sure your hooks are really sharp carry a hook sharpener with you
and always check your hooks especially when you're fishing it in out in rocks
where you're hitting it all the time you want to make it doesn't take more than
just bumping it a few more times then your hook is dull so always check your
hooks and make sure they're super super sharp one other tip this is a fun one
but this is great in the fall and in the colder months a lot of guys you're used
to fishing you used to position your boat out and throwing it against the
shoreline that's what we always do because the fish are in the cover but in
the wintertime a lot of times the fish are moved out and the fall the fish will
move out so what you want to do is take your boat position it shallow and cast
out into deeper water in this instance you just cast it out
and you and you're dragging along the bottom you want it to move along the
bottom nice and slowly bumping it along erratically bringing it up shallow and a
lot of times the fish are positioned down there and boom you'll you'll get
nailed so that's a great technique that a lot of people don't do and so a lot of
fish don't see that presentation so be sure to do that when the water
temperatures are cold there we go
good fish here we go
stay down
here we go come on aboard look at that how do you like that guys Wow
again just right in the roof of the mouth that's where you want him that's a
good fish right there
nice four pounder
all right ready
and that's how you fish those paddle tails I hope those tips help for more
tips and tricks visit bassresource.com