Swimbaits and Bass
Byron Velvick

I’ve had an interest in swimbaits for many years, really since I started bass fishing on a serious level. Most of that in the early years was in the ocean. My first freshwater experience with them came when I decided to try big, heavy saltwater swimbaits in California’s trophy bass lakes. I was immediately rewarded with a good number of tournament winning bags.

The big baits seemed to attract bigger bass. Now, don’t get me wrong; I still caught some small bass on big baits but not nearly as many as I caught on small baits. Culling out small bites in the tournaments I fished was a big deal. Everybody caught bass. The trick was to catch big ones. It wasn’t like some places where five keepers got you a check.

In California and throughout much of the West you don’t win with little bass. The fish are just too big out there. Someone always gets on a couple of big ones. If you expect to win in that environment you’d better be able to do the same thing.

As the years went by I made any number of baits myself. They were garage versions, not as polished as professional models. But, they did catch bass. Several of my homemade models are closely held professional secrets. A couple of them helped me qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series and for my first Bassmaster Classic this year on the Red River.

Still, they need improving. In fact, the entire swimbait industry needs some improvement. It’s in its infancy. In my opinion they have a long ways to go before they reach their full potential.

That’s why I’m so excited about my new sponsorship deal with Fish Harder Companies, LLC. With their help I think we – both of us working together – can bring swimbaits up to where they should be.

One thing that I think we need to spend some time on is their hook design. Now, by that statement I don’t mean the hooks are bad. I mean that the hook-up percentage with swimbaits is way too low. It’s no secret that we all lose a lot of bass with them, especially the hard-bodied models. For whatever reason the bass seem to be able to shake them loose. And, in my opinion, it’s not all our – anglers – fault. It’s a design issue that needs to be addressed.

We’re going to work on that at Fish Harder and Tru-Tungsten. I have some ideas and, with the help of their engineers and other professional staffers, we’ll be able to test those ideas.

Another issue I hope to address is deep water swimbait fishing.

When I say that I’m not denying that lots of bass live shallow or that they’ll bite swimbaits in skinny water; they certainly will. In fact, several of the top bass anglers in the nation catch them that way. That’s their specialty and they’ve made extraordinary careers out of doing just that.

Nevertheless, there are huge concentrations of bass in deep water that anglers never think about, much less try to catch. Schools of trophy size bass die of old age every year because anglers pass them by, never giving them so much as a thought.

When I use the word deep I mean deep, not sort of deep or somewhat deep. That word means at least 20-30 feet and sometimes as far as 70 feet or more. Huge bass inhabit these depths and, in many cases, never see an angler’s lure.

I know this to be true because I catch them that deep on a regular basis. At Amistad the most reliable bite is often below 50 feet. And, in some of the reservoirs out West it’s common to catch bass at 70 feet.

I think these bass are a great untapped swimbait potential, for anglers and manufacturers alike. If you’re not fishing that deep you should change your way of thinking. It’s not nearly as hard as you might think.

The biggest obstacle is getting your bait down that deep, finding something that’s heavy enough to get down there and engineered well enough to work at that depth.

Tru-Tungsten’s Tru-Life Series will do it. Add tungsten balls to this lure. They come with the bait and can be inserted or removed in a matter of seconds with a pair of needle-nose pliers. After that, fish them much like you would slow-roll a spinnerbait.

Good as they are today – and that’s real good – they’ll be even better in the future. They’ll drop faster and farther while maintaining a killer action during the slowest of crawls.

The other thing we’re going to work on is matching the hatch. There is nothing you can do with a swimbait that’ll help you catch more bass than duplicating the local forage. And, when I say matching I mean doing it right. I don’t mean coming close. Close might count in horseshoes or horse racing but it doesn’t amount to anything when you’re trying to catch trophy size bass.

Your bait must match the local forage exactly. A 6-inch shad isn’t an 8-inch shad and it for sure isn’t an 8-inch shad. It’s a 6-inch shad, pure and simple.

At the same time it needs to look like the local shad. Its color needs to match the forage as closely as possible. Body shape matters, too. A gizzard shad isn’t long and lean. And, a trout isn’t short and fat. Believe me, bass know the difference.

Now, you might be thinking: OK, Velvick, that sounds good but how do I get that much local information and how can I carry – and afford to buy – that many swimbaits?

The answer to those questions isn’t a difficult as it sounds. First, start getting local forage information by watching what’s going on in the water and by dropping by the local tackle shop. There’s no shortcut for checking out the water. It can be tough. You have to keep your eyes open and absorb every bit of information you can. The more you do it the better you’ll get at it.

The tackle shop thing is a little easier. Look in their bait tanks. Ask what local live bait anglers are using. Then find out if they get their bait from a local supplier. If so, find the guy (or gal) and ask what’s going on in the lake, what are the bass eating? He or she most likely knows. After that, it’s a matter of tying on the right lure to match the hatch.

There is an issue with all this, however. Cost. I know that high-quality swimbaits aren’t cheap. To match the hatch around the country requires a huge inventory of lures. That translates into money.

We’re going to try to help with that by designing and making baits that are versatile. It’s a big job but one that needs to be addressed. If we’re are going to carry a dozen or more swimbaits in our tackle boxes we need to develop a system that’ll cover a lot of bases. Like I said, that’ll be a big job. But, I’m a can-do angler and Fish Harder’s a can-do company. We’ll get it done.

(To be fair this is not so much of a problem if you fish the same half-dozen lakes near your home. Your swimbait inventory won’t need to be nearly as big.)

In all this discussion I don’t want to neglect smaller swimbaits. They catch a lot of bass and in some lakes, rivers and streams they’ll match the hatch perfectly. Again, Fish Harder (Tru-Tungsten) is the company to look at. Their smaller hard swimbaits – 4-inch models – are real fish catchers.

They’re great confidence builders, too. If you’re just getting started with swimbaits start with them. You’ll catch a ton of bass and then feel confident when you move up to the bigger models, the ones that target giants.

After all is said and done keep these things in mind when you fish swimbaits: Fish deep, match the hatch and keep a careful eye on Fish Harder lures.