mcaetano2905

I've listened/watched a few Butch Brown interviews and this one is my favorite so far: a few tips about things most people don't notice or don't care about...

Butch Brown talked about swimbaits last sunday on Rod and Reel Radio. Starts at 1:01:30. http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/www.rodandreelradio.com/Archives/2021/01/01-24-20-2hr.mp3

My favorite bait maker is Caetano Swimbaits (myself) because I like making baits and catching bass on them and I caught my second largest bass ever on a wake bait made by me. ahah Not counting myself, and based on the bait makers that made the baits I used to catch the biggest bass or numbers of larger than average fish I would select: 1- River2Sea 2- Savage Gear 3- Optimum If I had to select a top 3 based on numbers of giant fish caught and popularity of baits I would select: 1- Huddleston 2- Deps 3- MS Slammer If I had to select 3 individual persons for their talent, creativity and new ideas for great baits I would select: 1- Ken Huddleston 2- Matt Servant 3- Mike Shaw Allan Cole and Kazumasa Okumura would be in a top 5. Also, Bill Murphy deserves a mention because I think he created the first big jointed wood trout imitating swimbaits, by cutting Rapalas in half, painting them like a trout and putting a soft plastic tail on them. I'm not sure if he made some of those trout plugs from scratch like Allan Cole, but he was fishing wood jointed trout swimbaits maybe a decade before Allan Cole invented the AC Plug. Murphy caught his 72lb 5 bass limit trolling those swimbaits at San Vicente Lake.

Big Game 20lb

Owner hooks have been my favorites for a long time now. Back when I fished texas rigs a lot I started using Gamakatsu hooks. When I tried Owner EWG worm hooks I never bought Gamakatsu again. Owners are more sharp and stronger. Same with treble hooks. I like both the ST-36 and ST-41. The ST-41 is 2x, so, it's stronger than the 36, but it has the hook points turned in, so, if bass are just slapping the bait and not fully commiting I feel the hook up rate will not be as high as with the 36. If they are really commiting and engulfing the bait then the 41 might be better because your hook up to land ratio will be higher, since it will be harder for a bass to throw those hooks because of the turned in hook points. I think the ST-41 is an hybrid between a round bend and an EWG hook. With that said, I still have a good hook up ration with the ST-41, but I'm starting to use the ST-36 more and more because I prefer a stealthier approach and prefer light wire hooks and I still feel I'll catch more bass on a round bend treble. I wish they made a bronze colored ST-36, but I think I'll start painting my hooks (except the hook points) white or yellow/orange, depending on the color on the swimbait belly. As long as you use a good quality sharp hook and have confidence in it I think you'll do great. Don't know if the hook size and color makes a big difference but I guess it can, specially on pressured lakes. I know people who fish in saltwater for sea bream with a bobber and the anglers who catch the largest breams are the ones who use the smallest possible hooks and cover all of the hook with the bait...

Congratulations! That's a giant!

Bass can't see UV light. They don't have UV wave lenghts receptors in their eyes. They don't even have blue light receptors. So, probably they don't see blue and purple (or don't see it very well). Blue and purple are probably the same as grey to them. The colors they see the best are red/orange and green/yellow. Carp can see blue and UV.

You can watch the cast to catch video of this fish in the SUTV section.

Really nice! Congratulations!

Thanks for everything! So many times I talked to you just whining and saying I couldn't catch a big fish... Lol And you had the patience to keep giving me tips and supporting me. About the bigger version of your bait: yes, I really want to make an 8.5 or 9" bait even for myself, because I now have more confidence on 8 and 9" swimbaits than I have on a jig.lol Yesterday I got a massive strike om the 8" Glide Swimmer on the same spot where I caught my PB! Just wasn't able to hook it up. As soon as I have a stable source of the right diameter wood dowels I'll start making the larger baits.

These are some of the first baits I made. These were test baits, but I'm very happy with them and caught a few bass on them including my 2nd largest bass ever. This month I'll make a new batch and they will be a little better, with a thicker bill and maybe a shorter silicone tail because I think the bait will kick even better at slower speeds that way.

You can see while I retrieved the bait I twitched while at the same time I did a quick half turn of the reel handle two times during the retrieve. You can see the fish hit right after the second time I did that. Most of my wake bait and glide bait fish are caught right after I twitch the bait. With glide baits it's usually on the pause right after the twitches.

As promised here's the cast to catch video of my second largest bass ever, caught yesterday on one of my own wake baits. You can see some of my baits and pictures of fish caught on them on Instagram @caetanoswimbaits . The baits look a lot like a slammer, because I make them out of a wood dowel, but I make the tail by cutting it out of a silicone sheet. Because of that it's a little stiffer, but more durable. In my next batch I'll try to make the nose a little bit more pointed. I'm trying not to make a slammer copy, but it's not easy. I'm thinking about making some rats too...

Last month I caught my new PB, here in Portugal, at 6.24lb and 22.2" long. Today I caught my second largest bass ever! 5.64lb and 20" long! And I caught it on one of the wakebaits I make: a Caetano Swimbaits Wake. It's 6.9" long. I'll post some pictures now and maybe tomorrow I'll post the cast to catch video. Just have to edit the video first.

Thanks! And thanks everyone who helped me with tips! Today I caught another big fish. Actually I caught my second largest bass ever at 5.64lbs, on one of the swimbaits I make. I'll post pictures of it now and maybe tomorrow I'll post the cast to catch video!

Ahah. They're northern strain, not very big and there's not as many big fish as in most USA lakes, but with hard work we can still catch a few. And I think it's a good country to retire to.

I have Doug Hannon's "Big Bass Magic", Bill Siemantel's "Big Bass Zone" and Bill Murphy's "In Pursuit of Giant Bass". You will learn a lot of things from all these books that will help you catch big bass on swimbaits. If you fish in Florida or a lot of shallow weedy lakes then Big Bass Magic will be really nice for you. For all other types of lakes Bill Murphy's book is the better choice and is by far my favorite fishing book. It's the one that has helped me the most. Bill Siemantel's book is a close second and most of the information there is focused on swimbaits. Bill Murphy's book, in my opinion is the book that makes a better job at teaching you big bass locations. Bill Siemantel's book teaches you a lot of specifics about swimbait fishing. I caught my PB la week ago (after 18 years of trying) and I found the fish location by applying what I learned from Bill Murphy's book, about subliminal features next to obvious spots on a good looking structure... In Pursuit of Giant Bass is a must read if you want to catch big bass, regardless of technique. You can fish a hudd on the bottom slowly and apply most of the tactics he uses for stitching a worm or fishing a jig on the bottom with that hudd... You can fish a swimbait at a medium speed or fast using his tactics for fishing crankbaits, spinnerbaits and big rapalas... You can even learn something from the sections about live bait fishing...

The first picture has terrible quality because I used the picture from instagram. I'm trying to edit and use a better quality picture but I don't see the edit button anymore, so here's the picture.

Caught my new PB today! My previous PB was 5.07lb caught on January 2002. The fish I caught today was 6.24lb and 22.2" long! This is a northern strain fish and a giant in my country (Portugal). Caught it on a Savage Gear Glide Swimmer 205 in the place on the lake that I thought was the best for big fish: a secondary point (but with deeper water near the bank than any main lake points in this lake) with huge boulders on it, some sparse weeds and it has deep water access. Classical spot. Ahah My first fish on this bait. I want to thank Jesse Hall (mossypumpkin) for all the tips and for telling me to buy a Glide Swimmer 205!

No perch! I always try to match the hatch, but this is the only 68 hudd I have. I bought it to match pumpkinseed sunfish color (orange belly...), But I don't think this lake has many of them. Main bait fish is bleak, which is similar to a silver shiner, reaching a little over 8" but most are around 4 to 6" long. I have 2 regular 6" hudds in colors similar to bleak, but I wanted to use a 68 special... It worked!

Today I caught my first bass on a 6" Hudd. Only 2.68lb. Hope next one will be bigger. Still a nice northern strain bass here in Portugal.

Shell Cracker G2. I've seen a good number lot of northern strain bass o ver 6lbs caught on that bait. Here's one of them: https://youtu.be/5ad6LjBUU08

I would use just a swivel and a blade. The Gantarel Jr. is one of my favorite swimbaits, but I've never used a tail hook on it and the bait is only 5". I don't think it needs a tail hook. I catch even 10" bass on it with no problems...

If you don't have a lot of money it's better to buy a couple s-wavers than buy a Deps 250 and then not be able to buy another bait for a few months and then lose the Deps 250 and be without any swimbait for some months... Also, some people do better with s-wavers than the Deps 250. Matt Allen and Tim Little from the Tactical Bassin YouTube channel say they prefer the S-Waver over the Deps 250 and they catch a ton of giants on the S-Waver. I'd say if you can afford it buy a Deps 250 and buy a S-Waver and fish both to find out which one you prefer. What works for a person may not work for another person. I really don't have much money and will never buy a Deps 250. The price of it is ridiculous! The s-waver works great for me too... Many baits are overpriced and they get that price (and baits are getting more and more expensive) because there are people willing to buy them. If less people bought those expensive baits the companies would lower the prices. People like me are the ones who suffer with this because we simply can't afford those baits. Fortunately there are baits like the S-Waver: baits that work great and are not that expensive.

I started in 2003 or 2004 because I got my PB (still my PB today) in 2002 on a spinnerbait and I wanted to catch more bass like that and bigger. I started to read articles from Bill Siemantel, Mike Long, Fish Chris Wolfgram (he had a great website about trophy bass fishing), Chuck Bauer ( http://www.worldrecordbassfishing.com/ ), Rob Belloni ( http://www.calfishing.com/ ), and watched the Bodacious Bass video from Bob Crupi and Dan Kadota, read the Big Bass Magic book by Doug Hannon (and much later in Pursuit of Giant Bass by Bill Murphy and Big Bass Zone by Bill Siemantel). The Tactical Bassin blog and youtube channel helped a lot too! I follow it since the beginning. The first swimbaits I think I bought were an Optimum 6" "suspending" boot tail swimbait and a Bass Pro Shops 4.5" swimbait. Today, I can say I caught more bass over 2 lbs on those 2 baits than any other swimbait I've ever had, and all just in one year. But although I've caught less bass on it, I caught bigger bass on a S-Waver 168 than on those baits including the bass I have in my picture which was really close to my PB.