Swim baits have become very popular over the past several years. I believe the craze started a number of years ago at some of the larger, clear, California lakes. Bass fisherman started throwing huge swim bait down deep for Florida strain largemouths. As time went on, more and more bass fisherman started using them all over the country. Right now they are the hot ticket everywhere because they are so versatile and they really catch both large and smallmouth bass.

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In 2016 I had an opportunity to fish with Bassmaster Elite tournament pro, Paul Mueller. We fished deep flats in early October. We were fishing between 18 and 24 feet deep for the most part and that day I became a swim bait believer. If fact, that day, we never threw another bait the entire time. Didn’t need to as the smallmouth bass at Candlewood Lake in CT were eating them up.

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Swim baits come in all sizes from small 2 inch baits up to huge hunks of plastic that are 8 or 10 inches long and over and inch thick. For most of us, fishing baits in the 3 to 5 inch size is going to be the ticket.

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They can be fished very shallow with just a wide gap hook or a very light weighted hook. They can be fished using a heavier weighted hook or a swim bait head with anywhere from 3/16 oz all the way to one ounce or more. Probably for most applications a four inch swim bait would be set up with either a weighted hook or swim bait head of about 1/4 to 1 ounce.

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Swim baits come in a number of colors and shapes and are provided by many manufacturers. They are made in the form of pre-rigged hard baits with both standard tails or paddle tails. They come as soft plastic baits that need to be rigged with a hook and weight.

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I usually fish the soft plastic paddle tails with either a swim bait jig head or a weighted hook. I use the former when searching for bass along the bottom, usually with a slow steady retrieve and the weighted hook set-up shallow, with twitches of the rod tip and letting it slowly fall toward the bottom. It’s a very versatile bait and can be fished throughout the water column in many different ways.

 

They can be fished with either spinning or bait casting gear and I would let the weight I want to use determine which. I like to throw the lighter swim jigs on spinning tackle and the heavier rigs with a baitcaster.