Hey, guys, Bryan New here. I'm here with BassResource, and, you know, we're talking today about hard swim baits in the fall, and to me, you know, I live in the Carolina so that means blueback herring. This is probably going to lean more towards that but we're going to talk a little bit about other types of lakes, you know, that doesn't have blueback herring. But, for me, blueback herring lakes, the fall, late summer-fall even that is these fish, obviously, they're eating blueback herring, but they get on these long tapering points, and they set just off the break. They may sit on a cane pile that's just off the break. They may sit in timber that's out in the middle of nowhere, but its setting is up high, and they like to sit there, sit high in the water column suspend, and ambush blueback herring.
One of my favorite ways to do that is a hard swim bait. I designed this bait, my favorite bait, for that situation is from SPRO is called the Sashimmy Swimmer, and, you know, it's a multi-jointed bait. You know, it's got three joints. It's a four-piece bait. The deal with these jointed baits, the more joints you put in it the tighter the action. You know, say, it's a double-jointed three-piece bait is going to swim more of an S. You know, a single-jointed glide bait is going to be wide. So one joint really wide, two joints a little tighter. Three joints, pretty tight. So that mimics a blueback very, very well. So these points that these blueback fish like to sit on typically the bottom, you know, out there at the break, the bottom will be anywhere from 16 to 20-foot-of-water, obviously, depending on your lake. But the lakes that I fish here in South Carolina, Georgia, that's pretty much where it's at.
So the bottom is, you know, 16 to 20-foot deep from the surface, but most of the time those fish are suspended, and they may be suspended 5-foot down. They may be suspended 15-foot down. You know, a couple of feet off the bottom. But they're always looking up. And blueback herring are very fast moving, you know, bait fish. They're not slow. They're fast. And, yeah, when those bass are sitting there, and they see a herring run across, you know, over top of their head, here they come, the whole school is going to come.
You know, nowadays we have the Livescope. So I don't necessarily love Livescope, but it has taught me a lot about blueback herring fishing. And, you know, most time it's not one fish sitting out there, it's a group of fish, you know, with 5 to 30. You know, it's a school of fish sitting there floating over these points under the surface.
What I like to do, you know, a topwater, a fluke-style bait. There's many different things that work for these fish and have their places absolutely, and it's always tools that I have on the deck when I'm targeting this fish. Excuse me. So the Sashimmy Swimmer, that style of bait, multi-jointed swim baits, I have found is truly the best bait for those fall time herring fish, you know, that are suspended. Because it's fast. It's got the profile, it's got the action, and it's got the speed that a blueback herring has.
You know, I'll pull up on the point with or without Livescope, and I'll start casting. You know I'll start casting, and with the Livescope, now you can see the school of fish there. So I see the fish, I throw over them, and it's a simple bait. I mean, anyone can use it. You know, from expert to you know beginner. You throw it and you wind it, and you wind it quick.
You know, I use that 8 to 1 gear ratio reel. Obviously, you can use, you know, a seven or even a six. But the faster, the better, you know, because you're not going to have to really overwork that reel to get the speed that you need. But, yeah, you see the fish, you throw past them, and bring it over them fast, and here they come, the whole school comes. And a lot of times, you know, they'll swipe, they'll swipe, they'll swipe, and then one will get it. And, you know, obviously, sometimes, they'll just follow it, and you don't get them, but, you know, you're going to have that with anything. When they do start swiping at it a lot, you know, I'm going to look at okay why did that fish not completely...? Obviously, I got his attention. Obviously, he wanted it, but something just wasn't right. So is it a color, is it it's too high in the water column, or is it too low in the water? What's the deal here?
So typically the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to look at colors. You know, I may make a color change, and, you know, I've got a ton of different colors here. I've got a lot of custom-painted colors. I've got a lot of colors, you know, that we've played with when we were designing this bait to bring it to the market. Colors that we were going to bring to the market that they're just not on the market yet, and they're great colors, but at the end of the day, I keep them pretty simple. You know, there's three or four colors that I really focus on, and my three base colors is going to be a solid, more of a white-based bait. You know, this is the natural herring color. You know, it's not a true-white bait, but it's got that white base, and it's solid. It's not translucent at all. It looks a lot like a herring, and when I'm reaching for this bait, there's a few times. Whether it's going to be a cloudy day or it's first thing in the morning, and it's still somewhat dark, maybe it's a little bit, just a little bit of stained water, not dirty but stained, not as clear, that's when I'm going to reach for, you know, the white solid-based colors.
And also on top of that, maybe it's a windy day, maybe that water is so broke up, those waves have the surface so broke up, they can't key in on this translucent color, that we're going to talk about in a second, as well as they can a solid-based color. They can just see it better from a longer distance. So that's going to be one color that I'm never going fishing without. Moving on to a translucent color, you know, they're called blueback herring, but they're not blueback herring. They're brownback herring. That's not their name, but they actually have a brown back. So this is a translucent color, and it's got a brownish back. It's more kind of...I don't know, what you would call it, but this is closer to the actual look of a blueback herring. And when I'm reaching for those translucent style colors, it's going to be really clear water. It's going to be a really bright day, maybe a slick day, you know, something where you don't need as much visual drawing power. That's when you reach for the translucent colors.
Another one that kind of ties into that as well is a chrome. You know, blueback herring, there's no secret, chrome is king. So many situations chrome is king. Like, I like to have all these colors, but if I can have one, it's going to be chrome. Chrome is obviously very bright, very shiny. It puts a lot of flash out, so in return, it has a lot of drawing power. You know, fish can see that from a long way away. Chrome is on a sunny day. We got the sun, it's breaking out here today. It's been cloudy this morning. In my mind, this morning, I'm going to be throwing this natural herring. Now, the sun's busting out, let's reach for the chrome. You know, I'll always have two. At least two of these colors tied on when I'm doing this deal, but the chrome is on sunny days, and that's number one. Chrome is king, always remember that.
But here is a crazy color. This color is elegy bone. You know, it's got a purplish back. It's translucent. It's got a little bit of silver on the side, you know, scale look. But look at that bottom, it's bright, just really bright chartreuse. This is a spotted bass and a smallmouth bass killer. You know, we don't have blueback herring lakes that have smallmouth, so that's kind of a whole different deal in itself. But, you know, it's not just a blueback herring. But kind of getting back to this color on the blueback lakes, spotted bass love chartreuse. Chartreuse, you can see from a long way. A solid white, you can see from a long way, but it's not the same as a chartreuse. You know, that chartreuse is like waving that red flag in front of that bull, where you're just like, "Hey, look at me. You want to mess with me?" And they come and get it. That's a sleeper. You know, not a lot of guys are throwing this color. It's one of my favorites, especially on the spotted bass lakes.
But, you know, if we want to talk this color, I can't talk this color without smallmouth. And, of course, this bait was not designed for smallmouth bass fishing, but it is a bait that I've caught a lot of smallmouth on. And smallmouth are the same way. They love bright colors. They love chartreuse, and, you know, we've thrown a chartreuse spinnerbait, a chartreuse, a fluke-style bait for years for smallmouth, and we've caught so many fish. Well, this is a different bait. It's a style of bait that they haven't seen, and it's got that chartreuse on it. If you're fishing up north this fall, you know, before it gets too cold going after the smallmouth on those flats, reach for this color, you know, the elegy bone chartreuse belly Sashimmy Swimmer. And we've got two sizes. So I haven't dove into that.
So we've got the number one size is the 125. You know, it's 125 millimeters, which is right around 4-and-1/2 inches, I believe. But we also have the smaller 105 size, which you can see here it's 20 millimeters smaller. But it's not as tall either. So a lake...well, let's say, highly pressure, you know, a lake that's getting a ton of pressure, you know, we're all fishing the same places, those fish are beat up. You know, they know pretty quick when you're there, and they're a lot harder to trigger and fool and to get the bite, so that's the time where I'm going to reach for the 105 size. Maybe it's a lake that doesn't have as big a fish, that's the time I'm going to reach for the 105. Maybe, you know, it's the fall, the bait fish are a lot smaller in the fall, 105, and super highly pressured clear water, 105. It's definitely a tool that you need in your tackle box.
Like I said, the 125 is my bread and butter. That's the number one that I'm reaching for, but I never ever, ever, in history ever, go without the 105. Because there are those times where it is a tougher bite. There are those times where I beat these three places. These are only three places that I found fish all week long for this tournament, and I beat them to death, well, I need to give them a different look, 105. A few tweaks. Like, I'm a tackle tinker. I love...you know, even though I know this is great, how can I make it better, how can I make it better for this situation or that situation or...? You know, I haven't been in this situation ever, but, now, I am, and it's working, but it's not great. How can I make that better? A few things that I've been playing with is adding a feather treble hook. You know, that does a handful of different things. It gives it a bigger profile, the feather treble. And these are some that I hand-tied myself on a Gamakatsu G-finesse hook, which is...you know, if you haven't used them, it's the sharpest treble hook I've ever seen in my life.
And they've got that tournament-grade wire, so they're strong. You know, their smaller diameter is actually stronger than the same diameter in a standard hook but getting off subject there. The feather treble, it does a handful of things. It's a bigger, longer profile. It tightens because you can almost act like that's another joint to the bait, so it's going to tighten the bait up, the action up, slightly more. It's also going to slow the fall, and it's going to slow the forward movement, so there's definitely situations where, you know, that can be beneficial. And one situation that I really look at this being beneficial is just like I was saying for the 105. You know, I've only got a couple of places, and I'm just circling those three places, four places all day long. And I need to give them something different to look at. That's the time that I'm going to do this as well. And, plus, in the fall, you know, the temperatures are starting to drop, not everything's moving quite as fast, try the treble feather in those situations.
Another thing that I do a good bit is, you know, I put a weight on my bait sometimes. You know, as of right now, we only have the one sink rate, and it sinks very, very slow. It's not a topwater bait. You can wake it on the surface. But it's right there at the surface bait, is what this bait's been designed for. But sometimes I want to get it a little deeper, sometimes I want to reel it faster. And to reel it super, super fast and keep it from blowing out, you might need to add a little weight. So I've got a little tungsten drop shot weight here. It's got a little open eye there. I just put it on the split ring right there with my treble hook, and this style, if you're going to weight it this way, and there's other ways that I do weight them, but if you're going to do it this way, it's very important to use that style of a weight. Because it's long, it's slender, and it's tungsten. So tungsten is a much smaller than lead and other material weights.
So long, slender, smaller, in the way I'm placing that, I want to do as little as possible to get in the way of those hooks. I don't want to take away any of that hook bite. That's one way that I'm weighting these baits. But I, also, you know, I carry this little box, and, you know, this is my line through box, my bait tuning box. You know, I've got lead wire of different sizes that, you know, sometimes I'll put on the treble hooks. You know, I'll wrap around the treble hook. That's not my favorite way but it does work, and I do that. I've got soft tungsten tape. You know, it's just got adhesive. I'll trim it to the size I need. And here's one bait that I've done weighted that way, and you can put the weight different placements with that. And then I've got lead tape as well. You know, this is just a golf tape. I don't play golf, but a buddy of mine that does gave this to me. I guess you can go to a golf shop and get it, I think.
But there's several different ways of weighting your bait, and those are the two that I use, obviously, the tungsten tape or it is going to allow you to put more weight in a smaller place. But it's just according to what you're trying to accomplish. Do you want to get it really deep? Do you need a lot of weight? Reach for the tungsten. Do you want to get it just slightly deeper to reel it slightly faster? Probably get away with the lead. But once again to be able to get the most weight the best way, use that tungsten drop shot weight.
The line here, I'm throwing 16 on the 125 size. I'm going to use 16-pound Sunline FC Sniper. It's my favorite fluorocarbon line for treble hook baits and pretty much almost anything other than a jig or something I'm setting the hook on really, really heavy. But that 16-pound Sunline FC Sniper, I'm using either a 7 or 8 to 1. I really prefer a 8 to 1 gear ratio reel.
You know, I like the Ark G7, Gravity 7 Reels. The rod I'm reaching for is a Ark Invoker Tour 7-foot-2-inch regular-action medium-power rod. And, you know, that's able... I still got the accuracy. I'm not too long to lose my accuracy, but I'm long enough to get that extra length of cast. So with the 125, that is my exact setup. The only difference on the 105 is my line size. I'm using the same reel in the same rod but I'm going down to 14-pound Sunline FC Sniper, and the reason being, you know, it's a lighter bait, it's easier... The lighter the bait, the farther you can throw it on the lighter line, so that's my main reason. I can get a little bit more casting distance with the 14 pound on the 105 versus the 125 on 16. And, yeah, that's my setup fall-time, hard-swim baits, you know, that's mostly blueback herring lakes that we just spoke of but you can apply it to other situations, other types of lakes.
The Ozark Lakes, I've done this as well closer to the bank a lot of times, but those fish, somewhat, they're not eating the same bait, but they do act the same way a lot of ways. The smallmouth on the flats, I love it, I love it. Fishing is so much fun, and when you can throw a fast-moving swim bait, it's just amplified, and I love it. So try out these tips. This fall, go out to your home lake. Come down to the Carolinas, come up to the Carolinas wherever you're from, and experience this blueback herring deal. Make sure you get the SPRO Sashimmy Swimmer, the 105, the 125, rig them up, use them the way I told you here, and you're going to catch a lot of fish. You're going to have a lot of fun and have a lot of memories for years to last.
