I bought a couple of the Charlie Sr. swimbaits a while ago and have had a chance to try them out a little bit over the last few weeks.

Summary
Overall these are very, very nice baits. They look great, swim great, seem durable, and catch fish. For the price I think they're one of the best buys out there. Since this bait has to be fished very slow below the surface (more on this later) I probably won't be using them a whole lot as a general swimbait for throwing at targets, but it does have some great specialized qualities that has already earned it a niche in my swimbait arsenal.

Aesthetics
Like the older Charlie swimbaits they have an awesome trout-like silhouette with realistic fins and eyes. The bait has soft plastic from head to tail allowing for a perfect profile uninterrupted by joints or hard parts. The colors are mostly good as well. I tend to think the greens they use are a little too "bullfrog" green instead of trout green, but they're not bad. I did get one of the white colored baits and it looks great! I don't know why I like it so much, but the translucent white color they use just looks perfect. One thing that does baffle me is how they constructed the eyes at the nose and belly of the bait for the split rings. They're huge, ugly, and look totally out of place on an otherwise carefully detailed subtle finish.

Durability
So far so good. The bait has the same kind of internal chamber as the older Charlies. Both of the hooks firmly attached to the internal chamber by a piece of metal coming out the bottom. If you line drive the bait at a rock I guess you could probably crack the plastic chamber, but otherwise it looks indestructible.

Action
I was initially disappointed when I first saw these baits. I was hoping that they'd make a larger (like 10 inch) version of the Charlies with the plastic lip. But I'm disappointed no longer. The action on these baits is great! They are very limp and fluid underwater, giving off good tail action at slow or fast retrieves. Probably the most surprising thing to me though was how slow they sink. The first time I tried throwing them it was a fairly windy day. On a normal retrieve just the pressure of the wind against my line was enough to pull the bait up on the surface. Even on a calm day the bait will "wake" on the surface on a normal retrieve. This is definitely not a bad thing. They have great waking action. If anyone likes burning a bait on the surface or slowly bulging it this bait will be great. With the tail kicking it actually sounds like a buzzbait churning across the surface. The bait will also fish very well below the surface if you let it sink. You have to let it sink for a while, and retrieve it slowly to ensure it doesn't plane back up, but it has a great slow rolling action under water if you let it. At slow speeds this will be a good bait to retrieve over shallow weeds or other shallow cover.

Fishing
I've fished the bait a total of about 3 hours so far and have caught one 5 pounder on the white color at night. I switched out the hooks with Gammies (2/0 in front 1/0 in back) and the fish came back solidly hooked by both trebles. About 5 minutes later I lost the bait on a rockpile. The bait does snag quite a bit if you fish it on the bottom stop and go, it took me a while to adjust my retrieve so it wasn't dragging on the bottom or on the surface.

When I'll Use This Bait
Again, this bait will be great for fishing on the surface and fishing slowly and methodically under water. It's super slow sink rate, realistic look, and durable construction will put it near the top of the class for those situations, however for covering water chucking and winding at trees, points etc (90+ percent of my swimbait fishing) it probably won't be the best bait. It might be a good bait for trolling as well.

Pics/Info
http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/descpageSWMMEGABAIT-MBCSSB.html?from=calfish