Four things I'd like to speak to:

#1) First time seeing a guy throw the swimbait. Rob Belloni, from his aluminum rig on Santa Margarita lake, 1997 or so??? Rob and I met at Cal Poly, and talked fishing from day 1. He takes me out to Santa Margarita, and is throwing the AC Minnow. He catches a couple solid 3-4 pound fish doing his milk run. I'm blown away. That was for sure the first experience I had seeing a guy get bit on a bigbait.

#2) My first swimbait fish. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe my first true swimbait fish was a 9" MS Slammer fish caught at Laguna Niguel lake. I was fishing with my dad. This would have been December 1999 right after I graduated Cal Poly. I was fishing it on a flippin rod, and 20 pound line. At the time, I was cranking the thing underwater, not even wake bait style. I caught one about 3 pounds on it. It hit it hard. A picture exists, I just don't have a soft copy.

#3) Eagle and San Vicente: Sometime around mid 2001, I got my first boat. My Ranger 518 DVX that I recently sold. Anyway, I got into throwing the Eagle on San Vicente. It was pretty funny how many bites I would get and how few I would land. I could get 5-7 bites per day, and maybe land one of them. I finally figured out a better rig, better equipment, etc and got better, but still, I was pretty rookie. I got one 7 pounds, and you'd thought I caught a whale. I was super pumped, put in the in the WON, etc. My Dad was with me then too.

#4) MS Slammer and Otay: I had a year on Otay back in the day with the 9" Baby Bass Slammer. Nothing special, just wake bait swimbait fishing. Otay bass were killing the bait. I was getting 5-7 fish per day all of them solid. My best fish was an 8 or so pounder that I got when Rob Belloni was on a SD trip. Otay is the epitome in my mind of you don't have to have trout eaters to catch swimbait fish. That was 2002-2003 I'm pretty sure.

Matt