I spent some time just sharing my insights on glide bait theory on a fishing trip in early summer. On this trip, I was learning the SPRO KGB Chad Shad [BUY HERE] as it was my first day throwing that new mass produced version of the Chad Shad around boat docks. I am familiar with the original Chad Shad from KGB but hadn’t had a chance until recently to fish the new SPRO KGB Collaboration Chad Shad. So this was just my first full day throwing it and learning what it does well and not so well and then focusing its strengths on catching fish.
A big part of glide bait fishing requires fishing the swimbaits and learning what the baits do well and where they struggle. Things like figuring out if they look good on a slow steady retrieve or a fast burning retrieve. Do they look good when you chop your reel handle? Do they look good when you twitch your rod tip? What does a big pull and throwing the line back at the bait do? Will it turn around like that? Does it want to roll or flip when you come out of a turn? Where is the sweet spot on speed with each bait? As you learn that with your glide baits, then you can be more efficient with not only how you fish that bait, but which bait you might want to pick up for how you think the fish are reacting.
I also shared some insight on one of the rods I use a lot that I helped design with my friends at Jenko. They were very gracious with working with me to design a rod that was built for a specific purpose that I felt was somewhat of a hole in swimbait rods. And that was having a rod that kept big treble hooks in the fish on the fight. SImilar to how a square bill rod keeps a shallow plug in the bass’s mouth and keeps you from tearing the treble hooks out on the fight.
I talked nuances like what it is about glide baits that I think makes fish bite them. And what I learned on several trips like one crazy trip in Oklahoma where we found a big school of largemouth bass roaming suspended offshore and they were following jerkbaits and small swimbaits, but when I asked to throw a glide bait, the fishing got nuts. Those bass were reacting to the bait like they were being challenged by it and the bites were savage. We boated multiple 20-pound limits on the glide bait. And since I’ve learned that a bass feels challenged by a big swimbait, it’s what is always going through my mind when I work a bib swimbait now. Am I challenging a bass to attack my lure?
FISHING GEAR USED IN THIS VIDEO
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