7 Proven Swimbait Hacks in 7 Minutes

It looks like a narwhal. Anyway, now I'm not going to perform mouth to mouth on this. Seen, eyes. You can paint the belly. You just stick to the toothpick down in the front of the weight. What is happening fish and friends? Welcome to another episode. My name is Devon from DeBo's Fishing, coming to you today on behalf of KastKing and BassResource.com. I'm coming to you today to talk about soft body swimbaits. Now I've got seven hacks that I know will make you a better soft swimbait fisherman because when it comes to fishing, the little things that you can do to be different than the next guy will allow you to catch more fish. So, I've got seven hacks that I'll share with you here in seven minutes. So, let’s go. 

Tip number one is reviving your soft plastics. Now I'm not going to perform mouth to mouth on this, but what I mean is you bring it out of the bag after it's been sitting awhile, it's all kinked like this, you see it with your flukes a lot. Don't throw the bag away. People do that. Instead, put this in a pot of simmering water, let it sit for a few seconds, bring it out and let it sit somewhere straight and cool. After it cools you will have a good, straight, soft plastic again. So that will save you money. You're not just taking baits and throwing them out.

Tip number two, adding eyes to your soft plastic swimbaits. And this is not something that lot of anglers have seen. Seen, eyes. Anyway, adding eyes to your soft plastic swimbaits gives them a more realistic look. Now this is imperative for clear water because bass want something that's natural looking. They also key in on the head of bait fish. They don't want to grab it by the tail and have to fight it where it can still wiggle. They attack the head that way the fish only has one way to go which is down the throat. Now these are pretty cheap on Amazon, you can pick up a hundred pack for not a lot of money. Put a little super glue on there, put it on, you're ready to go.

Tip number three is adding dye to your soft plastics. Now most everybody that you know takes the tail and dips it in there and they throw it out and get after it. Well that's good for stain and muddier waters, but when I'm fishing slightly stained to clear water, I like to go more natural. So, instead I always carry a toothpick, and that's for a few reasons for fishing stuff. But one of them is this. You can dip your toothpick in there and paint it on. You can paint lateral lines, you can paint the belly. This dye even comes in a red or an orange, so you can paint that on like gills. Use your imagination, just think outside the standard dip the tail and go. You'll be glad you did. 

Number four is to add the underspin your arsenal. Now, a lot of people have heard of just the standard fish head underspin, but they also make a belly-weighted underspin as well. Now this is one that I broke, but it would normally have the underspin on it just like so. Now these are great to give your soft body swimbait a little bit of flash and vibration. You can fish 'em just like you would a chatterbait or a spinnerbait, but they're a little less intrusive. So if the water's, again, a little less stained, a little bit more clear where they can see it a little bit better, I tend to go to something like this over a big bulky spinnerbait, especially if they're keying in on forage bait like this. I love the underspin, it was one of my big producers this year, especially when the bass are feeding up spawn. At at the fall transition, these things are killer.

Tip number five, when you fish the soft body swimbait on a belly-weighted hook, the hook-up ratio is not always the best. Now, first off whenever you rig them on these you want to make sure you rig 'em completely straight. The hook needs to come out the back straight, otherwise your swimming action is going to be off. Now, normally when you rig these up, that's all the hook that's gonna be available. The soft plastic is gonna stop it. That's all you've got to actually hook your fish. So what I do, I'd take...turn it over, use my handy-dandy knife and cut a channel straight down the middle of the belly. What that's gonna do, is allow you to rig your soft body swimbait good and straight. But, it's also going to give you an increased channel. So when the fish does hit it, this hook can come all the way up through, pushing into that channel that you just cut. That will significantly increase your hook-up ratio.

Tip number six I call the narwhal line through method. So if you're using the belly-weighted hooks and you're still having hook-up issues, I go to a line through. Now I keep mine simple, I don't carry a bunch of rivets with me and do all that. I just go straight line through. Now, all you need to do is tie a simple overhand knot in your line that you going to be running through, and use the toothpick that you should be keeping with you. Again, here's another reason I use it. And I put that toothpick right in that overhand knot. I run this through my bait, making sure I keep it 100% straight, I come through at a 45 degree angle, like so, and it comes out on the other end. Now I call this the narwhal line through because once you get to this point, it looks like a narwhal. Anyway, run that through and your bait is now line through-ready. So all you will need to do is tie your treble hook of choice to it. Always make sure that you set the treble hook inside like so, and then the end of the hook I just run in through the hole. Now you've got a much better hook-up ratio with a line through.

As an added extra bonus tip, you probably wonder, well, after you get the line through done on this, what do you do for a weight? Well, I usually run three-sixteenth ounce tungsten on the front of there, but I peg it. Now you don't always have to peg but, generally, I'm, you know, fishing around grass or cover. So you could kind of give this a natural presentation, you know, without the peg, but I personally always fish mine with a peg. But what happens if you run out of pegs for your bullet weight? Well, again, the toothpick comes in handy. This is an old trick. You just stick the toothpick down in the front of the weight, break off the nose of the toothpick, and viola. You now have a pegged weight. Not even gonna charge you for that tip. 

Do not throw away your damaged swimbaits. Now, with the line through or with the screw in the front it can kind of tear up the head of the bait, but if that gets all tore up and it's not staying on, don't throw these away. Simply take your cutting tool of choice, remove the head that's damaged, and these make killer swim jig or chatterbait trailers. So it's one way to make your bait go a little bit further and it's going to give a nice secondary action to your swim jig or chatterbait. That's what you end up with.

Last but not least, what do I throw these on? Well I'm glad you asked. I have two main setups that I throw these on now. It's really personal preference, but if I'm throwing a four, five, six inch swimbait, I like to go to the medium-heavy setup. This is my seven foot three medium-heavy fast action Royal Legend rod. I pair that up with the Assassin, it's a six three to one gear ratio. I tend to reel fast. So I like using the six three to one on any of my moving bait rods. I always throw it with fluorocarbon. With the bigger, heavier baits, I like to go with a little bit stiffer rod. Now, if I'm throwing something smaller, a little three inch bait, I go to a medium power rod. This is a medium power fast action. This is the Assassin. This currently just has the white max on it, but you can switch your reels out. I like that six three to one, I'd probably switch these out if I was going to fish that smaller bait all day, but those are the two that I go with. I switch to the medium when I go to the smaller, lighter baits because with more of a bend in that medium rod, you can cast that bait farther. Now additionally, in my video I said my three-sixteenth is my go-to. That was for that larger five inch soft plastic swimbait. If you're fishing something smaller or you want to cast just a little bit farther, you can always go with the heavier weight. Can play around with that, there's no right or wrong way to do it. Up to you.

I hope this helped you all. If you're not already subscribed to KastKing channel, please do that for more informative videos just like this one. And until next time, keep fishing fun.