My first swimbait was a 7" ac plug. I had a tournament at Lake Morena up in the mountains of San Diego. I have always heard of guys catching huge bass on swimbaits but new nothing about them. I saw a bunch of fish cruising in the shallow water the week before so I decided I would see if they wanted the swimbait. I only gave it a few tosses in the tournament, but looking back at it now, I should have thrown it all day. I just remember getting followed on almost every cast but at the time it seemed like the bass were just making friends with the bait........

The first hot swimbait action I can remember was with the 9" Eagle at San Vicente. I was with Matt Peters and had just got a brand new Loomis BBR965 and Calcutta 400 and a brand new Eagle. We were in the back of the kimble arm and I had one eat it right at the boat. Scared the crap out of both of us. I cant remember if I got that one or not, but that day we like 9 or 10 bites and caught something like 2 or 3 fish in the 4 to 5 pound range. We continued to miss at least 50-75% of the bites until finally brainstorming a trap hook rig that put the hook-up ratio up to at least 75% in the boat!

My first Slammer fish was in a night tournament at San V. I had just bought a 12" Slammer thinking they might bite it at night since they liked big spooks. Long story short, it was a 1 fish limit for that tourney and we came in 3rd with a solid 7 pounder. But, that night, I caught 15 fish in the 4-6 pound range on the slammer. The word at the weigh in was "someone was in the back of Kimble throwing something that sounded like a bowling ball when it hit the water, 5 seconds later they were on. It happened like 5 times in a row!"....That someone was me and the bowling ball was my Slammer. It didnt take too long before you had to wear a hard hat to fish the night tourneys from all the big baits beibg thrown!!

So then it expanded to Otay. Matt and I were on the same mission with the swimbaits and I would tell him about all the big bass that would eat the 8" bass I was reeling in. I probably had it happen 4 times when I was a little kid. One of them was probably close to 15 pounds my dad said at the time. It just swam off with my little bass and broke the line when I jerked back...It got the wheels turning for the Slammer and it wasnt long at all before we were whacking them. I didnt roll with the Slammer too long at Otay though because a little bait called the Rago Rat came along. I started waking that thing around the tulies and pretty much completely forgot about the Slammer. The Rat was killing it and did so for about 2 years until the masses caught on and everyone was throwing the rat. Since 2006, Otay has been stocked with trout. Thats a good thing for the bass, but it has hurt the swimbait bite because now everyone throws them. Before all the people thought, no trout, no swimbaits..............

I do have to say my swimbait style is very very limited. I can only catch fish on the surface (ecxept when Rob lets me get one at Pedro, thanks Rob :P ) Because of this, I have not had very many shots at a 10 plus and I have failed to land any that might have been that big. My biggest swimbait fish is probably 8-9 pounds.

I am a tournament swimbait fisherman, not a trophy swimbait fishierman.