Primus

This one is marketed as an intercoastal saltwater bait. That said I recently bought the 9" Slow Sink in the Bone color . Unfortunately my fishing season ended early due to moving into a different house but I made a few cast from shore at a nearby lake . I must say it swam very well and seems to be a quality bait in terms of it's construction . Very fluid movement and it can burned at a quick pace if desired or twitched . Considering you can get one for about $ 6.00 it might be worth a try . https://fishlabtackle.com/collections/black-friday/products/mack-attack-hard-swimbait

Wake Jr is a fantastic bait , I would definitely add one to your line-up .

I agree for the most part on your take on with the Zaldangerous swimbait and while Berkley is known for ripping off other designs it seems to me that it is different enough for it to be judged on it's own merits . It's obvious in a similar lure category but there seem to be some significant differences especially with the honeycomb tail design . I'm looking forward to trying out the Berkley and seeing it does.

looks a cool bait

I recently acquired the 7'10" XH/Fast S.B. Avenger , that said I don't have a lot of time with it . I lost one fish and landed the other 4 with a couple of 4 lbers being the biggest so far . I have it paired it with a Curado 301 and spooled with 20 lb Floro . I plan on using it for intermediate size baits with jig hooks or Beast hook configurations. Based on my limited experience I've been happy with it so far , it seems to have enough power to get a good hookset . Even though it is a little more stiff than most St. Crioux rods it's not a pool cue , it has a little give in the last quarter of the rod and could probably do a respectable job throwing treble hook baits thuogh I do not intend on using it for that .

Thought you guys might find it interesting ... https://luxxle.com/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired2fish.com%2Ftackle-tips%2Fmegabass-magdraft-vs-berkley-cull-shad-vs-bass-mafia-daingerous-swimbaits

The Gancraft Jointed Claw 230 gets bit and is readily available.

I own 3 Dobyns 795 Champion rods , can't comment from personal experience on the Fury but I assume it would be similar . I usually use it for baits in the 2-4 oz range . I personally think it is too much rod for my most baits under 2 oz like a RTS S Waiver 168 as an example. One of the rods is set up with mono for topwater baits . The second is thrown with 20 lb floro which is the one that gets the most use , primarily with subsurface treble hook lures like glide baits , hardgills , triple trouts etc . Even though it's rated as " fast " , in my opinion it's more of a moderate fast. This is why I have a third set-up which is a braid to leader combo , this is what I use for weedles Hudd 68's or 6" - 7" soft swimbaits with a beast hook .

Thanks for the info as you saved me some coin and I already have an arsenal of swimbait rods and probably don't need another one taking up room on my boat. I totally agree that one of the best attributes of the 867 is keeping fished pinned .

For some reason I catch more Pike with this bait than Bass .

Anyone use a Dobyns 908 for te Deps 250 ? I have the 867 and can throw it with a lob cast, that said it feels a little bit under powered .

link to the Cast baits prodigy https://castfishing.co/collections/freshwater-tackle/products/prodigy-8-swimbait

The good thing about soft baits is most of them are very affordable so it lends itself to experimentation to see what works on your waters. My recommendations are geared toward north country largemouth as I do almost all my fishing in SW Michigan and these are baits that I'm confident in . I will add to the recommendation about the Beast Coast swimbaits which would include the Creep & Miyagi swimbaits , my confidence colors are Dope Gill & Dirty Perch. I usuall fish the Creep on an 8/0 beast hook and favor the 1/2 oz in most situations. The Miyagi I either fish on a jighead for slow rolling or a beast for weedless shallow water fishing. The biggest I 've caught so far on the Creep is a 6lb14ozer which is a very big largemouth for Michigan. I'm another in the long line of fans for the Magdrafts. My favorite is the 8" on most lakes especially pre spawn. The 6" is the one I usually use during the summer both the freestyle on a jighead for slow rolliing and the prerigged for shallow water. I recommend skipping to the 10 minute mark of this video that I posted below where Zaldain has a couple of great modifications to this bait for both 6" & 8" . On the 10" I will add a mustad fast clip to place the hook a little further back . That said the 6" & 8" are what I use the most . Another cool Megabass bait is the 3" Spark Shad on a small ball head jig for a finesse option. One old classic bait that I have not seen mentioed is the weedless Hudd 68 . I stick with the ROF 12 as the over sized tail still makes it a shallow runner and the ROF 5 rises too fast for my liking. The beauty of this bait is it skips like a dream and the weedless bait offers a little extra realsm with no exposed hooks or belly weigths for the fish to look at. Another cool Hudd bait that is killer in some situations is the weedless shad , it's a great option when the conditions are tough and you are looking for a nice finesse bait. I love the Little Creeper trash fish and Bluegill baits. There are a little pricey and are not the most durable , I beast hook these baits. Mend it is your friend . There is something special about these baits that will draw bites even when my other swimbaits get ignored. It has earned a spot as a staple in my line -up. As the name suggest I like to Creep these baits along , very slow seems to be the sweet spot where I fish. Speaking of old school the 3:16 Rising Son is a cool bait , swims kind of wonky but the fish sure do bite it . The theory is it looks like it's struggling trout or Carp , what ever it is the Bass sure do go for it . Also in the 3:16 line-up is a bait that he calls the minnow. Fish it on a heavy wire EWG and fish it like a Zoom Horney Toad. Lunker Hunt makes a bait called the Fetch that is very similar to the minnow with a slightly smaller profile. I agree that the Real Prey baits are a great combination of durability & performance . I've thrown the Bluegill around this spring and it's has caught me some solid fish so far this season. The Alewife & Pond Shiner are baits I need to throw more as it has produced well for me in the past , not sure why I have ignored it the last couple of years but it might be a good time to get reaquainted with these baits. . With Real Prey I treat their medium sink as a slow sink as his slow sink sink models rise too fast for my liking. My last two are in the recently purchased and look promising category. So I will be up front and state I don't have a lot of expierience with these baits but I love the way they swim and expect them to be very productive baits if my instincts are right . The first one is made by Cast baits and is called the prodigy. I've already caught a few on the 3" size and love the way it swims, sems pretty durable if my initial impressions are accurate . So naturally I had to try the 8" as I like to go extreme in my fishing so why not fish their biggest and smallest bait. The 8" has a relatively thin body and a huge tail, great head rock and a lot of thump to appeal to their lateral line, You will need a 12/0 Beast to pair up with the 8" . I have a great feeling abut this bait . Time will tell . The next one I actually purchased a couple of years ago, forgot about it and finally started playing with it . It's made by Skinny Bear and is called the Big Cull . It's a 7" line through and it looks great when swimming with it. After I fish it more I will be happy to follow up . I would love for anyone that has put time in with this bait what their impressions are. Anyways , I apologize for the post being a little long , tight lines .

I like the medium sink and the floater which I use as a topwater rip & wake bait .

20 lb floro on the sinking models , 20 lb mono on the floater

I own 3 of the Champion versions that I bought before they offered it in their Fury line -up. I have one spooled with 20 lb Floro , my wake bait rod with mono and the 3rd is a braid to leader that I use on medium size beast hook baits like a Beast Coast Creep and weedless Hudd 68's and the like . I have used these type of baits with Floro minus the braid but I felt I was not consistent enough getting good hooksets which is why I went braid to leader . In my opinion the rod is not stout enough for fishing soft swimbaits ( minus the braid ) but has performed well with treble hooked baits in the 2 to 3-1/2 oz. range .

one of the swimbait groups on facebook, unfortunetaly I don't remember which one

I'm looking at the Leviathan Alpha SoftSwim Casting Rod 7'11" Extra Hvy How does this rod do on soft baits in the 2-4 oz range and 8/0 beast hooks. That's typically the lane I'm in , currently using a Dobyn's 795 Braid to leader. I want to go to 20 lb straight floro because I'm sick of leader knots . Is it a broomstick or is there a little bend on the tip ? Is it light and comfortable or tip heavy ? I'm also open to other suggestions besides the Leviathan .

I've seen the swim video, it looks like a very nice entry level bait. If nothing else it might be a good one to throw at lakes with a large population of toothy critters.

I like his baits, especially the Wake Jr. Unfortunately the asking price on this one is more than I'm willing to spend. That said if he can get people to spend $ 500 on a swimbait then good for him.

Would appreciate feedback & observations . Thanks .

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For cheap thrills I've been impressed with the Fish Lab 6" Wake Bait , only $ 16.99 https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Fishlab_Bio_Shad_Wakebait/descpage-FLBW.html

The Arashi Glide has already been mentioned , I will add to that the 13 Fishing Glidesdale as another good affordable bait to try . I do like to add a little weight to it by using a little heavier wire hooks or switching out to Decoy Quads .