Hey guys, been reading this site for about a year now mostly to see those monster bass you catch, but also to keep an eye on the latest swimbaits that you are using. I'm from Indiana and used to fish for trophy bass (some of you may remember me from Fish Chris's site as micropterus salmoides rex....if not the posts, maybe the name at least. After his forum went away it took me a while to find this one.) Well, I finally switched my game to pursue those toothy muskies when I realized how good the waters are in this state and have been doing fairly well for a couple of years. Not quite as well as SWMB8R (How do you get two fifties in one year!) but decent for Indiana waters where big trophy fish are a little harder to find. Anyway, the past few months I've been fishing the 16 ROF huddleston from time to time and finally figured out how to catch muskies on it. I've caught three fish in the last few weeks on the hudd with many many follows as well. This is one great bait and I figure that even if it gets chewed up from one fish, it is well worth it. Another funny thing is that since I've started fishing for muskies I've noticed that I still catch about the same numbers of lunker bass on muskie lures as I did when I targeted bass only. (Most of the big bass my brother and I catch are on a big six inch crankbait called the ss shad.) In one day we caught three bass that went 5.5, 6.5, and 7.5 pounds on that bait. (Weird spread on the weights, I know, but it's the truth.) The ss shad is a flat bodied balsa crankbait that dives to one foot and moves a ton of water and is a superb muskie bait as well. Anyway, just thought you might want to know of a muskie bait that seems to be pretty good at catching big bass. There are a couple others that do well too from time to time. It's funny to see a five pound bass hit a lure that is 12" long, but it happens quite a bit. Anyway, thought I would share the pic of my biggest hudd fish (42") and finally post something on here.

Best wishes and big fishes,

Toad

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/5386-IMG_00118.jpg

Awesome! I've wondered for a while why more of the musky guys hadn't started throwing swimbaits. Sure, you're going to destroy them but it seems worth it to me! }(

It is worth it considering how many expensive muskie lures I have bought that haven't boated a fish yet. I'll gladly pay 30+ dollars if it gets me a muskie in the boat. But actually, I caught those three muskies on the same huddleston and it still works fine. Took a little work with a heatgun after the first fish to get it back together, but it seems that the placement of the single treble hook keeps the body of the bait away from the teeth during the fight. And the fish in the picture never got a tooth in it because it inhaled the bait completely. I removed the top hook from the bait before I ever threw it because I worry about being able to remove it just in case something like that happens. But the treble was easy enough to cut and remove from the fish so that it could swim away to fight another day. Rather replace the hooks then mess around keeping the fish out of water.

Todd...

Nice fish. What most guys are doing with the Hudds back there are using them as follow up baits. Rather than throwing them and having the chance at a pike or walleye tearing them up, when they get a follower that doesn't eat on the figure 8 they pick up that rod. They throw it out in front of the fish and a lot of the time, they get the fish back to the boat. A few guys that I talked to that are throwing them told me that if they get the fish to come back to the boat, it's almost a no-brainer.

Yeah, I can see how you wouldn't want to throw it with pike around. It's funny, but pike seem to demolish baits much worse than muskies do, even though muskies fight a lot harder. I know when pike get my rubber bulldawgs in canada I can pretty much kiss them goodbye. But the good thing about the waters in Indiana that are stocked with muskie is that they don't have a lot of pike in them just a lot of muskies. Definitely not as many big fish as up North in heaven (Minnesota) but it's fun to go for numbers too. So if I get a taker on the hudd, then it's most likely gonna be a muskie or possibly a bass, although that hasn't happened yet for some reason. I have gotten more muskie follows on the hudd than any other bait so far and now that I've keyed in on the right retrieve I think I've got it dialed in pretty well. I use the 16 rof and tried to count it down and do the slow retrieve like the videos I watched on here of the guy who caught those basketball bass, but that didn't seem to be effective. What did end up working is letting it countdown maybe five feet or so and then retrieving it in super fast like a bucktail. During the retrieve I then rip it hard from time to time which makes the bait turn on its side briefly. The follows are always hot and heavy and the last two fish I caught by doing a big L turn and going into a figure eight at boatside as fast as I could. Both fish followed the bait around for multiple turns (at least 5) and then finally WHAM!!! Boy they sure are fun. Hey SWMB8R, did you use or see anyone with an SS shad when you went muskie fishing? Those things may be good to use out there for those monster bass, maybe. They work good on the big northern strain up here. Here's a pic of the 7.5 I got on an SS shad. Oh, and congratulations on those big muskies by the way. The transition from trophy bass fishing to muskie fishing was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Sure there are different lures and techniques involved, but it still is more akin to trophy hunting than fishing for lots of smaller fish. It's also interesting how chasing big bass is so similar to chasing muskies and I think there are a lot of techniques in both sports than can be applied to the other that will help to make those fishing trips more successful. Bass or muskie, I still get excited no matter which fish decides to hit the bait. Sorry about the length of the post here, I have a hard time getting to a point, lol. It's just that it's easy to drone on and on about fishing. :D

Toad

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/5401-bass3.jpg

Everyone was chucking Mag Dawgs and "Pounder" Dawgs at Mille Lacs. The Bite at Vermilion when I was there this summer was super shallow so most were throwing Double Cowgirls, M&G spinnerbaits and a variety of dive & rise wood jerkbaits.