Nico

I definitely wonder where that harness went.... the next few years / months will be interesting, especially of anything shows up. Not right at all. Pretty sickening.... How would you know? This isn't an ironclad piece of investigative journalism by the Wall Street Journal. This is people who already didn't like Mark using the accusation as an opportunity to bash him on the internet. You aren't going to find much substance here, definitely not enough for you to start jacking up people you don't know. The internet is the worst place to hash out these types of disputes, for the reasons I just stated. At least the mods over at SwmbaitNation had the common sense to shut things down before their forum turned into a cesspool. Enough of the bashing. Fishing was good today! Swimbait fix is taken care of, but going back for more tomorrow anyway

Refer to my first sentence regarding pissing contests. It's late march. A nice storm is approaching. I'm loading up the boat with gear and heading out for a weekend of fishing. Have a great weekend everyone!

I have no interest in joining this pissing contest. But what I will say is that I've known Mark for a long time, and he's always been a great person who cares about his friends and the fishing industry. He has my respect.

Bandwagons are circling.

Chris is awesome. Fast shipping and bait is in perfect condition.

NorCal. Water temps are in the mid-upper 40s here right now, but at least it's still water Early afternoon really is consistent across lakes and times of year, though. Either the coldest part of the year (first few weeks of January) or the warmest (August?), in deep clear lakes or shallow muddy ones, that time of day is awesome. The worst time of day to be fishing? 9am-noon in my experience. Also, Don's just being humble again. I wish I knew half as much as he does about swimbait fishing the big NorCal lakes every time we're getting our asses kicked in tournaments up here

Top 5 swimbait fish all bit around 2-3 pm. Different lakes, different months, but same time of day. Right after the sun hits the water and right before it dips below the horizon is generally a good time as well. But the donkeys like to bite in the random afternoon hours for some reason.

+1 ++1 Sometimes, ok lots of times, the biggest fish in the lake would rather eat the normal gear than a swimbait. At times like those you have to decide what's more fun. Catching big fish or catching nothing on swimbaits. I personally love catching giant fish on regular gear, but it's up to you. That being said, you may also have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time with the swimbaits, and would have caught a 6lb spot had you been on his fish. If they're aggressive enough to hit a rip bait, there's probably a big fish around that would want to take a crack at a fast moving swimbait. And if they're going to take a crack at something, it's the perfect opportunity to run and gun as much big fish water as humanly possible. Watch a Butch Brown video, then do the exact opposite

And who REALLY cares what image some people have that 3:16 baits are popular for reasons that don't involve fish??? That is truely a hater comment. It is %$#@en made in america by Americans bait and company. Don't the wine bag cry baby's have anything else to snivel about? Your gonna split hairs over who fishes the baits vs who collects the baits? You should be ashamed of your self ! It's not hard enough to make a living in times like these as a swimbait company? Who's side are you on dude? Amazing! To the point. I can respect that. I should have known better than to contribute to a thread such as this.

Build quality and customer service are great, but since the fish don't care they don't factor much into my swimbait purchases. Maybe I'm alone on that one. Everyone has a different opinion about what makes a good or a bad swimbait. There's no right answer of course, other than whatever makes the buyer happy when they're out on the water. But my original point was that the comments in this thread are simply re-enforcing the image some people have that 316 baits are popular for reasons that don't involve fish. Also. I've fished Don's water. It ain't "easy" anymore

I posted a few photos with teener swimbait fish in the 2011 year in photos thread on not allowed. Too much fun with stripers, tournaments and regular fishing to make it a very productive swimbait year, though

Threads like these don't do much to improve the reputation of 3:16 swimbaits. The few haters (your label, not mine) out there say they are quality baits, but don't produce numbers or quality of fish as other swimbaits. When you read through this thread, stuff like the paint job, built quality and customer service are promoted above the catch rate, much to the bemused disbelief of the haters. Build quality and all is nice to have, but it shouldn't be the reason you're paying for a lure. You should buy it because it gets bit. Period. Just an observation, from someone who enjoys fishing 3:16 lures and has caught several DD fish on them.

NorCal. I don't have the right kind of time on the water to test hard baits, so count me out there. But soft baits... yes.

Easy... 10 inch triple trout. Readily available and a fish catching machine.

Finding new reasons to love this rod almost every month

Just use a power inverter attached to your trolling motor battery. This assumes your camera can record while plugged in (some can't!). I picked up this one from Bass Pro earlier this year. Works fine. http://www.basspro.com/ProMariner-ProSp ... 3849/83038 Also requires one of these http://www.basspro.com/Bass-Pro-Shops%C ... 864/108029

You can walk the dog ok with 30lb mono. It doesn't stretch much. Works for me with the 14" plugs. Braided line sucks with baitcasting gear. Especially if you take all the brakes out of your reels and push distance limits of a 10 foot rod on each cast You could go all old school and use spinning gear. 10 ft spinning rods + braided line + big topwater is awesome for striper. I've caught a lot of my largest striper on this gear. Just never tried it in freshwater.

I've been using a custom wrapped 10 ft lamiglas surf rod for freshwater swimbait fishing (stripers) and it works great. As I've previously stated, you're nuts if you use braid with it, though 15-20 lb mono on the beach, 25 lb mono throwing swimbaits in freshwater. The 25 lb doesn't get the same casting distance you get with light line, but it's still an improvement over an 8 ft rod.

Wow, a loomis for $138! anybody else have any experience with this rod? Thats a hard price to beat for a loomis! The BBR966 is a good rod for huddlestons, you won't regret it. I wouldn't spend any more money than that unless you're really seriously into huddleston fishing and love spending money on stuff that doesn't matter (I fall into that category, which is why I prefer the Loomis 956 swimbait series)

The Okuma GS-C-761H is a great swimbait rod for $109. It has been my workhorse rod back through the glory years of swimbait fishing. The Heavy version has enough tip action that you could probably throw a few more baits on the lighter end of the spectrum. The Crucial XH is a very heavy duty rod. It will probably be too much for the freestyle or baby wake. I haven't thrown the H version. I mostly just don't like the very short handle on that rod. The Loomis BBR966C GL2 is used by a lot of hard-core huddleston guys. It's for sale on Tacklewarehouse right now for $138. A really nice rod, but like the Crucial XH it's going to be too much rod for the baby wake. If you can find the BBR965C for a good deal that might work for you as well (the $290 price on TW is lunacy), though it's going to be just a touch light for 8" soft baits.

Thanks for the additional reviews. I really, really like this rod and I don't think my experience conflicts with anything said so far. I've never paid a whole lot of attention to my drag when swimbait fishing. I just lock it down. If you are this kind of person, you probably *will* lose more fish with a rod like the LDC XXH, or any other rod which doesn't bend. For the record, locking your drag down is a terrible idea. There's no bass alive that can break 25lb in open water, but other stuff tends to fail, most often the fish's mouth. It's a bad habit, which hasn't hurt me (much) so far. Just lucky I guess...

I've intentionally waited quite a while before posting this review, since it can take a very long time to start getting bites from big fish on a new lure. And after almost six months, I'm still not quite sure what to make of this lure, but I'll share my first thoughts all the same before too much time goes by. This is the 10 inch version, slow sink, dark trout. The bait lives up to its reputation when it comes to top notch build quality. Mine swims perfectly straight at any speed, appears completely immune to crushing 100 yard casts and still fishes like new. The 10 inch Freestyle is a bit of a hybrid swimbait. It's a mixture between the subtle realism of a soft bait and the ugly explosiveness of a hard bait. The big question out there, which I have not come close to answering, is if it's a hybrid of the good parts or the bad parts of these two sides. Hard swimbaits are inherently unrealistic. No matter how pretty the paint job, and how fluid the swimming motion, all the hard angles and noisy rattling cannot go unnoticed by a big bass. I think for this reason the most successful hard baits for really big fish have been those where the warning signs have been minimized and the action is aggressive enough to obscure what's left. By aggressive action I mean either surface disturbance or just by fishing the bait really fast and crazy. I find the 10 inch Freestyle difficult to fish fast and crazy. This is mostly just due to the large bulk of the lure. The bait is so large it would wear you down in no time at all if you tried burning it. Nor does the bait look amazing when fished in a fast, erratic manner. It looks a little too snake-like and mechanical at high speeds. The lure does look really great at slow speeds. Definitely the most visually appealing hard bait I can ever remember throwing. I've been sticking to a slower retrieve on this bait for a couple trips, with no love so far. It see bassindon was getting bit on the slow grind, so hopefully I'm on the right track. However for this bait to become a permanent member of my swimbait box it will have to beat out all the soft baits in the "slow sub-surface" category. And that's going to be a hell of a challenge, which so far it's losing. The lure test will continue... (Feel free to post comments if you have any. But please restrict them to the 10 inch bait only.)

This is a best rod I've ever used for very large swimbaits, but it's extreme stiffness can be a liability if you are not careful. As I understand it, this rod comes in both 8' and 8'6" versions. I'm happy with the 8'6". I think it allows slightly longer casts when lobbing very heavy lures. I had mine made with a hypalon (sp?) handle and no foregrip. No complaints there. The handle is quite comfortable. It came with spiral wrapped guides. I was frankly disappointed when I saw this coming out of the package, but after the first trip I changed my mind. I'm not sure if it's a huge improvement over the normal wrap, but the spiral wrap fishes very well and I'm no longer a spiral wrap hater. For reference, I've been fishing this rod exclusively with a Calcutta 400TE and 30 pound Big Game. I've had the rod for about five months now and have tested it with a handful of different baits. It is the first swimbait rod I've owned (and I've owned lots of swimbait rods in 10+ yrs) which really feels built for 8-10 ounce baits in mind. It casts heavy lures such as the 10 inch freestyle beautifully, allowing you to throw your whole weight behind a long overhand cast then turn around and do a wrist cast under a tree. That's just not possible with a 10 ounce bait on other rods. The only problems I've run into so far is when landing fish. This rod really doesn't bend much, and you loose that extra bit of cushioning other rods provide when the fish does a violent headshake. First fish I hooked on it I lost at the side of the boat. An hour later I got just crushed with about 40 feet of line out and just ripped the bait out of its mouth on the hookset. I finally got a small one in, but it took a few tries. A while later I tried taking it striper fishing throwing some big pencil poppers. It's a *great* rod for handling the really big poppers. Love it. But first 20+ lb striper came half way to the boat, woke up, instantly straightened out a heavy wire split ring, and swam away. Anyway, I hope this review has been helpful. It's a really fun rod to fish with and will open up some possibilities as far as which lures you can throw. Just don't be an idiot like me, and loosen your drag first

Winning.

First impressions of the rod and bait. Bait: TBD. The water's cold, the fish are deep, and I haven't really had the chance to see their reaction. Rod: Love the rod. I've owned a lot of swimbait rods over the last 10+ years, but none that can handle the really big baits as well as this one. There probably won't be many days this spring where it's not on my deck. I've been using as my 30lb rod. Fishing the free style a little but mostly big heavy soft plastics. The only thing that worries me about it is landing fish. I've torn the bait out of the mouth of a few fish with this rod already, so there may be a learning curve to deal with there.