Northwest Fishing Reports

Hey all,
So my dad, bro, and I were all down at the columbia river this weekend fishing for some smallmouth and we had a bit of a tough time. We actually only ended up landing one dink but we had several hits on a 4" swimbait. All the fish that hit the swimbaits were really respectable fish... Every single one of these the smallie would come up and slam the swimbait's tail and not hook itself. We had the swimbait rigged with offset weighted hooks that were fairly large.
Is there any way to fix these short hits? I thought about putting a trailer hook on but I didn't want to effect the action of the bait and I wasn't really sure how.
Thanks everyone!
Clark

Hey Clark,
You might look into the stinger treble hooks http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Owner_St ... -OSHR.html

Attach the loop of the stinger to your main hook then stick one of the hooks of the treble into the back of the swim bait.

clarkhess122 wrote: Every single one of these the smallie would come up and slam the swimbait's tail and not hook itself.

The most common reason for missing a fish with swimbaits is setting the hook to soon. If you wait for the fish to turn with the bait and start back down, your hookup % will go way up. It's like fishing some baits top water, to fast of a hook set most of the time means bye bye fishy.

I think that may have been the main reason we were missing fish. It doesn't seem like a 4" swimmer should need a trailer...this was my first time fishing swimbaits and I've been interested fishing bigger ones. I would think a trailer hook would be essential for the bigger ones. So i'll prolly end up buying some of those stingers. Thanks for the responses! hopefully I'll get these bass figured out soon :D

Just because the 'experts' say bass attack and eat minnows from the head, doesn't mean that bass do that all the time. PLENTY of videos on Youtube, and such, showing bass eating from the tail, and only grabbing the tail first, THEN 'taking another bite' and grabbing the body and head.

Amx wrote:Just because the 'experts' say bass attack and eat minnows from the head, doesn't mean that bass do that all the time. PLENTY of videos on Youtube, and such, showing bass eating from the tail, and only grabbing the tail first, THEN 'taking another bite' and grabbing the body and head.

Bass are not the only ones. Yes, swimbaits can be a nightmare at times.

Last week I had issues with the fish hitting the swimmers so hard that they would take drag, but they did not get the hook. You can't really hold off on the strike on these, they did it for you so you had no choice.

What I can tell you is that my Swimbaits are best fished on a softer rod (crankbait rod or a medium action rod) using nice old stretchy MONO. It often gives the fish that extra few inches or feet to seal the deal.

Thats gotta be frustrating. :P
I usually fish mine with mono and for the smaller swimbaits I actually like to use a spinning rod. I'd like to use my casting but I've got braid on that right now.

Have you tryed the new umbralla lure so you have 5 swim baits insted fo one ? It works very good you just might get two or three fish at a time.

The umbrella lure has been around for many years, and used in saltwater as I understand it. The new lure is the Alabama rig, which is just an umbrella lure/rig downsized for bass. There is even an article about it in the new issue of B.A.S.S. Times. I need to read it some day.

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Got it: [youtube] Lk0suXi7Vtc [/youtube] just remove the two spaces from what's written here... cool!

Yeah I have seen that video before. I think its a really great idea, especially in lakes where the main foodsource is smaller baitfish. I can totally see a large bass ignoring a single 2-4in. swimbait but going after a school of 5. The only problem I've seen with it is (besides being ridiculously heavy and needing a really big rod to use it) the 3 hook law in WA. I will probably buy one and substitute spinnerblades for a couple of swimbaits.

I looked on the internet last week or so. The one place I checked one cost $25 without the jigs or plastics. I might have bookmarked that web site.