I recently took my box of swimbaits out to the pool to play with them considering I have never used most of them. I had one small 3.5" optimum swimbait that the tail right before it gets wide had a memory off to one side, and in the water would not swim perfect. I hit it with the hair dryer, which did help. I plan on trying to put it back in an origional package and sitting it on the dash of my truck to see if it will return to normal. All the other large 5-8" swimbaits were ok. Does anyone store swimbaits in orgional wrappers for this reason.

I also tried out my 11 or 12" basstrix, and how dissapointing. It hardly swims, the tail barely moves and it plows right. It not even worth fishing.

I also tried out a 9" Osprey, not what I expected. It had good head and tail action but does not go very deep at all. I slipped a nail shapped piece of lead in the belly to keep it straighter and get it deeper. Nice bait. It is not one of the pro rigged ones, but I don't know the differance.

I figured it is time to start thinning out the baits that don't have good action and don't work well to make room for the ones that do.

I went out fishing to a small lake yesterday at 1pm but it was windy as hell and cold, my 10 year old nephew was hiding under the rear deck of my boat as I fished. As I got to the good spot I had followers in the waves for 5 casts in a row then a 4-5 on the Castaic trout. The bass ate the main hook and did not even get the stinger.
We fished for about another 15min until our boat got blown off the lake. My nephew did do a great job netting the bass(not that she needed to be netted) but he was my net man. I told hin I'd pay him $2 per pound that he netted, so he made $9. To bad it wasn't a biggun. Nice fat little fish. By the way when we got back to shore I asked for the trophy munchies(apple newtons), there were non left but i'm shure there are plenty of crumbs under my rear deck, little sucker.

A side note about the osprey is, if it gets mauled by either big fish, or BIG STUPID BIRDS, you can remelt it back together. Mine was totally toast, but i melted it back together and it looks pretty decent. Not quite as smooth, but atleast i dont have to buy another $$ lure after one fish! Good luck, and nice job on the 4! I like the pay to net idea! mwhahahah.


Joel

Yeah, the osprey isn't a deepwater bait like the basstrix or optimum, it's more of an upper level bait. It does sink though, so you can work it however deep you want. Pro rigged means that the bait has an added treble hook toward the tail, connected to the original hook with a length of braided line, and a piece of tubing where the metal wire harness is in the stock bait. That prevents the bait from ripping. I highly suggest rerigging your ospreys, or you will catch a fish or two and it will rip apart. As for getting swimbaits to swim, the only real way you can mess with them is to cut the underside of the tail. If you're looking at the bait from the side, you want to cut the underside of the tail section at the narrowest point. A swimbait looks something like this: |____/---\ (head on the left, tail on the right). You're going to want to cut the underside of the --- portion. That will help a bit but it won't make it perfect. If a bait is running crooked the only real thing you can do is add weight to the bottom, or try tweaking the line tie, that might work, but I've never tried. I don't think it would work the same as a crankbait.
-Brian

Thanks for the replies. The optimum 3.5" swimbait doesn't need the bottem side of the tail notched, it some how got hot and retained a memory of a new shape. Instead of the flat side of the tail facing directly back, it it has a bend in the tail and the flat spot points left or right or what ever. This is as if you were to bend the tail in the swimming motion with your finger only thats where the tail wants to stay. Heating with the dryer did help alot but it is not quite hot enough. At work I have a hot air pencil for soldering that I can use to heat her up. I aslo have 5-8" optimum swimbaits that I have not really given a fair shake and will use as follow up to my castaic trout the next time I go out. I will have to buy one of thos rerigged Opsreys from a shop and work on mine. Does Umaxco have the rerigged versions? So this is my second 4# bass on the Castaic, this bait definately works, I just need to buy a second rod now. I have that new Corsair 400 sitting on the counter wispering "just one more rod, just one". I'm already comming down with a wed. or thurs. cold, I can feel it now.

Bass World West is the only shop that sells re-rigged ospreys. Chris also told me how to fix bent tails like that. Just dip it in some boiling water and it should straighten out. I think BWW needs to open an Osprey Service Center on the side of the shop, LMAO.
-Brian

Boiling works well on all swimbaits. I found that a 30-40 second dunk is plenty. Most kinks relax on their own, some complex ones need to be hand tuned while soft from heat and may need a few dips in the water.

The Osprey Pro Rig is just an idea we had to lengthen the life of the Osprey baits. The stinger hook was always an addition, but in September 2001 we came up with the tube, inline system. Uma-x and Osprey now offer a bait with a tube, they call it the Inline Series. We'll still continue to offer our customized version of the bait at BWW.

We recently got a Pro Rig Osprey returned by a customer, that caught 24 bass, and still was in one piece(barely). It looked like it got ran over by a Mack truck. I was more than happy to replace it for him just to have that beat-up bait to show customers.

Dunking plastic swimbaits in boiling water will not only help straighten the tails, but also works to soften the plastic so the bait swims better all round. Be careful though, getting the plastic too soft will make it tear really easily.

The most important swimbait repairing tool you can have on the boat is fishing glue. Most tears, rips, and gashes can be mended in a matter of minutes with this glue.

where is bass world west located or the phone # would help i want to order the pro rigged osprey .

Thanks ,James

We're in Santa Ana. Give me a call at (714) 667-6006. I can ship to you if you are out of the immediate area. Chris.

Chris whats fishing glue
regular super glue

fishtrax_65

Fishing glue is like super glue, but marketed to fix and mend lures and soft plastics. While making the couple of thousand Pro Rig Ospreys, we found that not all super, crazy glues work well on plastic. Fishing Glue is the name of an actual product. Lunker City makes Lure Glue which is also good. Castaic Soft Bait Glue is a pain in the ass to work with, but it also does a good job.

I bought some fishin glue a while back and I did not think it did as good of a job as the regular super glue I use.