Check out the huddleston website and click on Butch Brown. It's a very cool video.

Wow that is a toad he sure got it in quick.

Love how long he was retrieving the Huddleston before it got hit.

Sick fish! I'll bet that fish followed for some time. Awsome!:D

Now that's what I call inspirational. I think I need to order my new reel and get my Huddleston stinger hooks all rigged up...

in april of "04" i had bought my first huddleston. $20 at the time hehe, now about $35. i was fishing castaic lake in CA with my partner who is a tourny fisherman. i had caught many nice bass over the 5 years we had fished together, but a 6 1/2 was my p/b to this point. wich i happened to catch that morning dropshotting. my buddy tells me he can see some nice fish cruising close by the shore we are fishing, he tells me to throw the trout bait, 2nd cast with my new huddleston i feel the slam of a lifetime ! i set the hook like my life depended on it. fish on ! i couldnt even remember my name let alone imagine how big it is, she jumps about 10ft from the boat and my bud says i might finally have my 10lb bass. i freak out at that moment lol. i played her pretty well, with 20lb test line it was not too hard lol. my buddy nets her and i scream like a little girl. boats around us cheering and laughing. i wiegh her on my digital and she is 10 1/4 lbs. i finally had done it, after 2 years of followers, and missed hits, i had a trout bait fish, we kept her in the livewell to have her wieghed at the marina, 10 1/4 was the official wieght. i take her down to the docks and spend alot of time making sure she was ready to go, and she swam off strong as ever. still a day i will never forget. ive caught more trout bait fish since, but she still is my p/b. man what a day. will take it too my grave

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/4394-10lmb.jpg

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That's a sick video. If you don't watch that at least 5 times in a row, there's something wrong with you :)

I liked Butch's net selection too. Promar grande halibut/salmon release net if I am not mistaken.

Watch it again and see if you call tell me what i'm seeing....I do not see a belly hook on the bait or a stinger, nor does it look like it was caught on the hook thru the back. It looks like it a hook run thru the bait....it this a modified bait?

Wow, that's a trip. What hook setup IS Bruce using? Awesome fish and I'd like to know more about his stinger setup....

There was a clip on Basscenter 12/17. May still be broadcast on cable this week. The fish looked like it was caught on the RFO 12 in the toplip without a traphook.

Looks like it was running fairly shallow when the bass hit, didn't take long for the fish to come up.

Watching the video over and over it seems to me that the bait is an ROF 5 or 0...I cannot see a top hook and the bait is swinging around way easier than it would if it was hooked on the top hook. Also, there is definitely not a hook on the hook harness on the bottom of the bait. The only thing I can think of that makes any sense is that the bait is rigged like a stocker trout (wire/line ran from the top eyelet down to the throat of the bait). Maybe he wanted the hook to be in the throat of the bait rather than in the chest/belly?

Anyone else have any other ideas? The bait is swinging around waaay too freely for the hook to be attached with just a split ring, so I think the Stocker Trout rigging makes sense.

Im really curious about this. Any other input would be greatly appreciated.

--nate

>Watching the video over and over it seems to me that the bait
>is an ROF 5 or 0...I cannot see a top hook and the bait is
>swinging around way easier than it would if it was hooked on
>the top hook. Also, there is definitely not a hook on the
>hook harness on the bottom of the bait. The only thing I can
>think of that makes any sense is that the bait is rigged like
>a stocker trout (wire/line ran from the top eyelet down to the
>throat of the bait). Maybe he wanted the hook to be in the
>throat of the bait rather than in the chest/belly?
>
>Anyone else have any other ideas? The bait is swinging around
>waaay too freely for the hook to be attached with just a split
>ring, so I think the Stocker Trout rigging makes sense.
>
>Im really curious about this. Any other input would be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>--nate
Nate, I watched the clip on Bassmaster again. It is very clear that the hook is coming out of the back of the Hud. It is about the mid section so it is "swinging around easy". The fish was barely caught on the edge of the toplip.

Maybe we are talking about a different video. I can say with 99% certainty that the fish is not hooked with the top hook. I'll get some software that can capture still from video and post exactly what I am seeing. There is a part of the video where he turns the fish horizontally and the nose of the bait is resting on the fishes bottom lip and the rest of the bait is hanging out to the right of the fishes mouth. The area where the top hook would be is nowhere near the fishes top lip...in fact is is nowhere near his bottom lip either. I'll post some pics when i can. (It is 1 minute 29 secs into the vid)

--nate

From this first image, i think it is 100% clear that the fish is not hooked on a belly hook.

From the second image, you can see the back of the bait with the nose of the bait resting on the fishes bottom lip. This image shows for sure that the fish is not hooked in the top lip. Further, if a top hook is present, there is no way it could be in the fish b/c it is facing the wrong way and is too far away from the fish to be touching it.

Here is a blown up version of the bottom pic.

it has hook on the eye downn underneath the chin one of my hudds are rigged like that

Im not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean it is rigged like you rig a stocker trout?

>Maybe we are talking about a different video. I can say with
>99% certainty that the fish is not hooked with the top hook.
>I'll get some software that can capture still from video and
>post exactly what I am seeing. There is a part of the video
>where he turns the fish horizontally and the nose of the bait
>is resting on the fishes bottom lip and the rest of the bait
>is hanging out to the right of the fishes mouth. The area
>where the top hook would be is nowhere near the fishes top
>lip...in fact is is nowhere near his bottom lip either. I'll
>post some pics when i can. (It is 1 minute 29 secs into the
>vid)
>
>--nate

Nate, again on the Bassmasters video it is very clear as I stated before, but here is Ken Huddleston's reply to my inquiry:

"dear jeff,yes it was the rof-12 but its a little
confusing for me aswell because butch sent espn three
different mid-teen fish to choose from. two were on
the rof-12 the other on a rof-5 and throughout the show
they used parts from at least two of the three.but the
main footage was the rof-12.God Bless,ken"

Well then they must be two different videos that we are talking about. Seriously look at the blown up picture. The top hook would be nowhere near the fishes upper lip. Is my addition to the photo below innacurate?

Sorry to push the issue, but I am very curious about the rigging.

-- nate

Nate, you are right those are two different videos. The Bassmaster video is clearly the RFO 12. The one on the website is not the same and as Ken stated there apparently are different versions/fish.

I understand you guys are very interested in the bait rigging, and that's fine, but the content on huddlestondeluxe.com or elsewhere is their copyrighted content and should not be reproduced here. As such, I've edited the posts with images to remove them. I am doing this because I would expect the same treatment if that were a video of me somewhere else.
thx for understanding.
-Rob

Sorry about that, Rob.

--nate

no problem Nate, let's forget about it and keep the discussion going.

I haven't watched the video as carefully as you guys have but I have been to the lagoon once or twice and perhaps can shed some light on why people would rig hooks on top of the hudd or in the tail for fishing that lake... The lagoon is basically carpeted in grass out to a surprising depth, like 30+ feet. A lot of the grass, at least some times during the year, is very short out deep. So it probably makes a lot of sense to put a hook on the top of your lure, because if your bait hits the bottom with hooks on the belly, you'll be likely to get weeds on your bait.

I see everyone talking about hudd hook rigging online and it seems like many people are looking for the one perfect rig for the bait. I don't think it's that simple though, I think with any bait you should rig it to match the situation at your lake. Maybe at your lake the fish bite the baits in the head, maybe at my lake they bite the baits in the tail. Maybe there's weeds or trees or rocks to consider in the equation. The best way to rig any bait IMO is to see how you are getting bit either visually or based on teeth marks, then consider the cover and structure you're fishing around. Somewhere there will be a good mix that gives you fishability around cover and a high hookup ratio.

Yeah, I think too many people are trying to duplicate what others are doing, and such duplication may not be applicable in a particular lake. I read everything I could about rigging swimbaits, and as time went on I modified what I had learned to fit my particular situations. And the modification process seems to be a continuum, Im not sure any of us will ever find the perfect stinger setup. I know I havent, but I think Im close, at least for one particular lake during a particular time of year:P Know what I mean?