You brought up some good points man....

First off, I had no idea so many pros fished with swimbaits. I always thought swimbaits were for casual anglers and amateurs pros. Swimbaits take time to get a bite and need to be fished at a slower rate and only catch bigger fish (which isn't easy). Not really appealing to tournaments....

I don't have a clue in the world why they were using flipping sticks. I know Gerald was struggling to keep his hooked; along with EVERYONE throwing swimbaits. Kennedy was the one who really could have used a better rod. That Hudd was just murder on his flippin stick. With so much money on the line and such big fish to be caught, you'd think that SOMEBODY would be throwing them right?

On another note, I can relate with Swimbait. I started off throwing Jerry Rago baits on a regular MH freshwater rod with a cheap Bass pro Shops reel. Ghetto? Well it gets worse. 14 pound braid and the Mh action just ripped it right out of the fishes mouth no prob. After doing some reading I realized what I was doing wrong and quickly changed to an Okuma Big Bait rod, Abu Garcia reel, 20 Berkley Big Game and im still throwing Rago's.

All in all, I was actually excited to see so many big fish caught. More then that, it was interesting to see these pro's struggle with swimbaits.

Great tournament!
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Go big or go home!