Just got back from a 4 week trip to an un-named lake. I had about every swimbait known to man and I will let you know how they produced. 7" Stocker Trout was very good at getting follows. Keep in mind these evaluations of lures could be distorted because I couldnt fish all the baits all the time. First of all the lake is extremely clear so this might help yall who fish clear lakes. Tap water clear and the fish are very big and smart. Stocker Trout got alot of follows. Optimums went ignored. Castaic Trout got follows and 1 5 lber. Rago Live Trout hardbait got some monster follows up to 14 lbs. Rago Rat was the most impressive as far as monster follows, including one that would go 16+. Only 3 commited bites to the rat, one was 10, one was 7 and the other got off. 9" slammer was excellent at getting large follows. Only one committed strike and she weighed 8 lbs. Stocker trout got a couple 8 lb commited strikes. With all this said, out of the 4 weeks the best swimbait vote went to the Huddleston. She won the competition in my mind with the most commited strikes where the fish inhaled the lure whole. I will not comment on how many got off or how many made it to the boat mainly due to rigging problems that I had to sort out. A sammy produced many follows a 9 lber blow up on it, and some 4 lb spotted bass. Does not count but just for the heck of it I will mention that the biggest fish that I hooked during the 4 weeks, looked 15+, give or take a few lbs I suppose although over time I have gotten pretty good at estimating when I see them in the water. She bit a huddleston.

Does anybody know why Tackle Warehouse does not carry Huddleston trout's and if they plan to in the near future? I don't really want to send a check in directly and I don't wanna use paypal unless I have to....Thanks..

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the huddelstons are on the castaic site and ebay

Sounds like you guys did ok out there :) Sorry to hear that the 15 got off. Did you find any hook setups on the huddleston that did work well for you? I don't understand why, but I have heard similar things as you're describing where fish are eating the 8" Huddleston bait completely and not getting hooked somehow. It doesn't make sense logically because the bait is not all that big and it's pretty soft. I 'missed' some bed fish on it but that's totally normal when fish just nip at it or don't eat it all the way. The one fish that did eat it I caught, but I haven't been bit on it casting and retrieving.

Tackle Warehouse is trying to get Huddlestons just like they are trying hard to get all of the different hard to get big baits. If and when Tackle Warehouse gets the baits, they'll typically go on the site that day. They work really hard over there to make sure that their inventory is accurate online so that you know whether or not they have the baits in stock when you order. It's the best they can do when supply on most of these baits is very limited and demand is high.

www.huddlestondeluxe.com says they have the baits so now would be a good time to order one from him direct if you need one right now.

Rob, Thanks for the info.

As for the hook set up. This is the best way I can try to describe what was happening. First, i was fishing the bait in a kind of odd way, I was fishing the bait like a senko. Not a normal trout bait where its a constant retrieve end. So that is the first problem, they were inhaling and I had slack in my line. So what was happening is I was pretty much sight fishing obsessively. And no, not for bedding bass, just for cruisers. Once the bait got too deep to see, I would just slowly reel it in. I saw every one of the fish that I lost actually come up to the bait and flare the gills. The 15 made the huddleston look like a baby fluke. :( I rigged a stinger hook after I lost her running back behind the first hook and imbedded the second treble near the rear fins on the huddleston. Never had a bite after I added the stinger. But when I was losing all those fish when I would see them eat the bait, I would try and set the hook as soon as possible, and there were two results that would happen each time a fish ate it. First, I would react a second too late, and they would inhale and exhale the bait before I could get the hook in them, OR, I would react quickly enough and barely stick her in the side of the mouth in which she very easily throw the bait on her first jump. Needless to say I was sick to my stomach and it hurt, but I was too excited about the fact that they were eating it. I am taking a break from the fishing saving up some more money and going back out there for another 4 weeks ( Im on the water 4 weeks straight literally, I just sleep in the boat) for another trip, and I think ill go back with a super sharp stinger hook, thats not too big because of the super clear water.

Another thing worth noting. There were many fish that would come up to the bait as it was sinking and they would just watch it from like 2 inches away if that inspecting it. And many times they would turn and run. Well, I got some megastrike fish attractant afterwards and just absolutely soaked the bait in that. This worked wonders, I had twice as many fish actually inhale and hold on to the bait long enough to hook them after this. It made a world of a difference. I had never used fish attractant before this, but now im a firm believe in it. Mainly with baits that they inspect before inhaling. I think its extremely important.

If TW doesn't carry them soon, I guess ill have to order directly.

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Sounds like you learned a lot :) Too bad some learning experiences are really painful, but we have all been there. The bigger the bass are, the better they are at getting away. And when it's really hard to get a fish to bite your bait, sometimes you wind up making stupid mistakes because you are trying to push the envelope to get bit and you're doing things that might not be the best idea when it comes to landing the fish.

I'm big on the megastrike scent also. It is by far the best scent for putting on a big bait because it actually lasts and stays on the lure for a long time. Hot sauce is good, but megastrike lasts longer. And one tube lasts forever. I use it every trip and am still on my first tube.

When you get a really big fish on, sometimes it's uncontrollable and you just have to cross your fingers and hope it stays on. There are some fish that no matter how hard you might pull or how far you stick your rod under the water, the fish will jump completely out of the water anyway. There are a few things you can try though that might help.

If you see the fish eat your bait, you can try to set the hook across the fish's face so that you get a hook in the corner of the mouth. Setting straight up and down and getting a hook in the roof of the mouth only works if you get the hook completely through the roof of the mouth. It's easy to get roof of the mouth shots on 3lbers. The odds of that happening on a 10lb fish are pretty slim. It's not something you always have control over, but it's something you can try if you are quick enough to see what's happening.

The other thing is to just be aware of hook angles, especially when the fish is close to the boat. I totally try to lead fish around in a way that keeps tension on the line and on the hook so that the hook is always holding tight and not pointing in some weird direction. In my float tube or kickboat, if I can get a fish in pretty close to me, I'll catch it almost every single time because I'll start paddling in a circle really fast, leading the fish around and around and around until it's tired. I call that move the death spiral, lol. I started doing that for halibut fishing in the ocean and it worked really good for bass as well. Can't exactly do that in a boat though ;) That's when you need the 6' net handle and a huge net on the end.

Thanks for the tips...It was like the twilight zone after the 9th fish came unbuttoned. I have never had a problem losing fish like that. I am pretty good at playing fish and landing them, but I was no match for their headshakes and jumps and quick turns. I was fishing by myself some of the time and I have a pretty darn good net but its in the rod locker most of the time just because it usually gets in the way. Several came off close enough to net and it got me thinking. Alot of them got off before they got that close. I guess I will just do like I said next time, have a super sharp stinger hook soak it in megastrike and hope for the best. I can't think of any other way of doing it. It would have been a trip of a lifetime if I had landed them, but like you said, it was a big learning process. THe first week I couldn't get bit on a swimbait, and I got more bites and the last two days were my best days, so obviously I was pretty much tuning in to how to get bit by the fish I was after.

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