Hello all,

I am first time poster but have been lurking for some time now. I always try to 'educate" myself by reading first to ensure that my questions or responses haven't been already mentioned. The site is great and has been truly informative and for that I extend my appreciation.

As an avid tournament angler in Canada I am intrigued by the apparent versatility of swimbaits and their big fish potential. I am looking for some input as to which baits to include in the experimentation process.

To provide some necessary context, the lakes in Southern Canada (Ontario and Quebec) are generally quite weedy (milfoil, cabbage, coontail, pads) with an abundance of forage including many species of minnows, ciscoes/herring, crayfish, sunfish, bullheads but no shad and rarely will our lakes support both trout and largemouth. The opportunistic behaviour of the largemouth is evidenced by the usage of the prolific weeds as their primary cover. Subsequently weedless presentations are employed more frequently and unfortunately very few of us have had the chance nor the reason(?) to become adept at fishing crankbaits. This does not by any means suggest that all of our fish inhabit the weeds exclusively. Many of our big fish are caught "off" the edges and thus the reason for my curiosity with swimbaits. Over the last few years as our local tournament anglers have become much more proficient at dunking the weedbeds (avg depth 7-10 feet) I to a degree am convinced that many of the larger bass have sought the refuge of the deeper water away from the weed edges. This is supported by the number of 3-4 pound fish we have caught away from the weeds in up to 25' of water. Lastly the average big bass award is almost always between 5 and 6 pounds. For any amongst you that have fished in the Eastern part of the US, our lakes are virtually identical to the lakes found in Minnesota (Minnetonka) or Lake Champlain in Vermont.

Given our environment, forage and the relative size of our fish I thought that a combination of the Big Hammer 5"-6" jighead style baits and some of the Mattlures baby-bass and sunfish would be a reasonably good start. But I have no experience to base my theories on and would love to hear your thoughts.

Following your advise I have purchased a SABBR 963C (the new Loomis Backbounce/Swimbait rod) and I have both Calcutta 250's and 400's in my arsenal already.

Lastly I noticed many of you continue to recommend 20-25lb mono would this still apply to these "smaller" swimbaits and does braided line often get used?


Thanking you all very much in advance,


Regards,

Flippin

I would also look into some Mission Fish. They are good for weedy lakes and they are prooven fish catchers. Some of the new Castaic platniums that they have coming out look good as well. I would not go under 20 lb test but that is just me. If you are worried about the fish being able to see your line you could try using Florocarbon or a Floro leader

Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have-yous

I would also go with the mission fish or the RIver 2 sea baits as well. I would look at staying with the 20lb line because your going to get hooked up wiht some big pike and you do not want to be losing you $5-$20 bait do to a large Pike. Even the the waking baits would work great. I fish in Wisc. a lot and if it is any thing like that the wake baits back in the river in-lets this time of year was deadly around fallon trees.