Mattlures

Tpayneful Thanks for the kind words and thanks for sharring. I am glad you like the bait. Yeah I hate the tail biters. Not much you can do about it. You feel a bite and swing and some little 3lber is swimming away with your tail. Its ok though, I'll make more

We have a unique situation out here. A picture says a ton. If he posted backgrounds with even a peice of a bait showing or the rod he was using there would be 20 other very capable guys who would know where and how he caught those fish. You have to understand these arent 3lbers that are all over the lake. When you get into fish like Bizz did the bite is usualy very specific. So if you share it, its prety much over for you. I am so Cal and he is in Nor cal but Its the same. If you dont protect your bite you loose it. If you post your spots on the net they will be ruined. Most of us learn this the hard way. I have posted some big fish from a lake and the lake gets beat to death for 2-3 weeks straight. I learned my leson. 4Bizz likes to white out the back ground. I preferr to pull up to some thick brush or reeds and show only a very small amout of unrecognizable background. It serves the sam purpose. All of us at one time or another have been called out for doing this but its something you have to do. Again crongrats Jay, I havent put a big bag together in a long time. I get singles. I am jealous!

The dude definatly abides!!!!!!!!! congrats Bizz You done good

Biz is funny. I am prety sure he is meesin with you guys. Swimbaits, jigs, and then there is a big gap inbetween those 2 and creatures big worms and buzzers at night

Did it jump? I caught a 31lber once and it went completly airborn 8 times. It was awsome

RW you look cold. It seems every pic of you, your all bundeled up. What dont you fish in the summer time? You need to take a trip out here and I will show you what its like to fish in shots and tee shirt.

Nice Job Jay! I hate you! I have been dying for the last week with the flue and you aint helping! I am actualy contemplating getting out on the water with a 102 temp.

No rubber bands. It makes a funky dent in the bait. They should stored hanging in a Markey type box. You can pin the fins forward with a little pin whila you store them and they will stick out good when its time to fish them Hope you get a pig!

Very Nice FC, its about time to put down your swimbait and throw your custom jigs!

Brock I dont think its the same bait your thinking of. This one is a big wakebait prototype. I made sure to only show the head section of the bait. Cant tip my hand

cool

Thanks guys. Krzkev that rod is standard eqiupment for big baits. I was only using 25lb test Yahoo I love sightfishing. If you dont want to catch 12inchers then dont throw at them. I only throw at big spawners. Unless there is nothing up or I have been around the lake twice I might throw at a 5-8lber but I usualy just keep looking.

Ha Ha 6--7lbs. I will go out and get another one and then we can play the guessing game!

Go get a snorkel and then tell me they dont spawn deep. I see bass spawning in 20+ft. Of corse the water is clear.

Its only fun when the fish is "normal" sized. When you have a giant on its terrifing to watch them jump. If you have the gear you can controll them. When I feel them coming up I swing hard to the side and turn their head just before they break the surface. They stll splash some but I usualy keep them from getting a good head shake. BTW dont try this on regular gear. the fish will break you off.

That bait in its mouth is almost 9 inches. In the second pic you can actualy see 4inches of the bait. I dont ever have a tape in my boat but I think I will start. Its cool to know how long they are to. I have my opinion on what she weighed but I like seeing your guesses Of course I have been wrong before but not by much. The next big one I catch. I will weight it on my working salter scale and make a game out of it. If its ok with Glenn.

Yeah the scale is completly dead now. I left my Salter in my truck and that was my cheapo Berkley scale that I left in my boat. I was definatly not preparred. It was kinda last minute. Hey Biz notice how I only showed the head of the bait, he he. I will get a real big one this year. All I need is 20 trips and I will get a high teen. I can feel it. Funny thing is, its just about time for the spawn and I am excitted and all but I have this strange urge to go catch a big blue cat. My pb is only 25lbs and I think I can beat that easy. I am sure I'll snap out of it.

Ok so I finaly got out and went fishing. It was my first time freshwater bass fishing in 08. It was cold windy and rainy. At one piont it go so bad we decided to hide in a secludded cove in the trees for a little protection from the weather. I had been getting follows on every other cast, no monsters but decent fish. I was testing prototypes and a few of my normal baits. While we were hiding from the weather a made a long cast along some sunken trees in about 20ft. I let the bait set for a minute and twitched it a couple timesthen let it set som more. Then I started a very slow steady waking retrieve. as my bait went by one of the bush/trees it got eaten. Not a huge bite but not a slurp either, kinda inbetween. I swung hard and started cranking. The fish never came up and was coming towards me untill she got close to the boat. Then she turned and and decided to fight. I realized I didnt bring the net (idiot!) and I was in the back of the boat at the time. My budy was getting ready to grab her and then we saw her and she started heading for the trees. I told him I would grab the fish and he neede to get on the trolling motor and get us out deep. The fish made 3 attempts to get into the trees and each time I stopper her as and we got father away from them. Finaly she gave up and I lipped her. My scale was wet and had water in it so the screen was messed up. It said 4 lbs 4oz. here are a couple pics. what do you think was my scale off or has it just been too long since I caught a 4lb+ fish

Oh man I litteraly could write a book trying to answer your questiuon. Its just not that simple. There are so many many variables. I honestly beleive that the soft baits account for most of the good swimbait fish, probably 80%. However that doesnt mean they are better or even more effective. For starters there are a lot more soft baits to choose from. You can find a soft bait for almost every situation but it is more difficult to do with the hard baits. Hard baits tend to cost A LOT more so guys tend to preffere the soft baits. At any given time on any lake there is more than 1 pattern going There could be a topwater bite in 12 ft along the tree lines where a Slammer or Punker or 2x4 would get bit but at the same time there might be be fish stacked up in 20ft just outside a prime spawning flat where you could slay them on a Hudd or one of mine. There are just so many baits to choose from now. Most are inferior but there are still a lot of good baits. Bassicaly it comes down to experience and confidence and personal preference. There are very few easy answers. What makes it even more complicated is that just about every bait is called a swimbait now a days and there are a ton of guys that want to sound like experts passing out bad advise. I'll atempt to give you a few very basic giudlines. For the bottom you want a bait that sits upright and sinks fairly fast. Not like a rock thoughTop hook preferred). For the top you want a floater, for deadsticking and or waking(generaly hard baits). A slow sinker can also make a great wake baits(see osprey, baby E). the middle of the water is the toughest one. There are realy good choices from hard and soft. For bed fishing I dont think its even close the soft baits reign. Man I am just rambling now. You prety much have to think about what situation your going to be fishing and then determine what your best choice will be.

Here is what you are looking for http://www.doalures.com/pinch_weights.htm you can also just buy rubber core sinkers and pull the rubber out http://www.watergremlin.com/Rubbercor/rubbercorindex.htm

Jay I just noticed this thread. Those are very nice looking. I am honored that you mentioned me as an insperation. That is a huge compliment. My only advise to you is if your going to make a buisiness out of it you will NEED to be efficiant. When I started, It was soo dificult to make my baits I almost quit. I was litteraly making minnimum wage selling my baits at $15 each. When you do get something dialed in the most important thing you can do is create an efficiant system to producing your baits. What your doing right now is fun and exciting. I remeber those days

I realy like your paint job! I see a lot of nice painted baits but there is something very natural about that bait.

Its smart. There are thousands of soft plastic baits out there. for every good design there are a thousand knockoffs. He chose differnt names and it works. If he aint getting big pros(which he is) its not because of image or reputation. Its because he is competing with Berkley, Zoom, Yum, Robo etc. It would be hard for a newer soft plastic CO. to get any of the big names unless they through a lot of money at them. NOBODY is going to think bad of an angler because he uses a worm called penetration or any other racy name. Nobody cares. Now I can see a few people not using the product because of the names but if sombody has a problem with a pro using one of those baits then they have issues. If they are bitting a dirty sanchez colored worm then Thats the color I'm using.

Oh yeah if you dont like the canyon plastic bait you should try the original. The 3:16 mission fish. They look similar but you will see the diference as soon as you fish them. Just goes to show that knock offs rarley are as good as the originals.

Ryan the money minnows are suposed to have the split belly. They can take a falcon hook instead of a screw in type hooks. The advantage to that is the bait looks more realistic without hardly any hook showing. I personaly prefer the Falcon type hooks for that reason. The Baby E is not realy a sinking type bait. It is designed to wake. You slow rollit just under the surface and it makes a nice wake. All of the unrigged paddle tail baits will fall nose down if you rig them with the weight in the first half of the bait. They make weights that can be possitioned on diferent spots of the hook shank. If you slide the weight towards the back you can make the baits fall more level. Also prety much all plastisol baits can be aired out to loos their "new bait smell" all fresh plastisol has an oder, some are stronger then others but let you baits sit out for a week or two and the smell should be gone. Dont set them out in direct sunlight or the colors will bleach out. I like your comparrisons. Might I make a suggestion? You should break them down into catagories. A Castaic is nothing like a Basstrix and the swimming senko and that Gambler thing well they would just be MISC. I would start with Unrigged or riggable paddletails. That seemed to be the majority of your subjects. Keep up the good work I cant wait to see all your videos. I will send you a few baits to play with too.