Lures

Soft Swimbaits – These aren’t your dad’s Sassy Shads anymore!

Brett

As I started expanding my Pike fishing knowledge one of the things I found strange was all the talk about soft swimbaits.  To my rather native knowledge, I flash back to the old Sassy Shads.  A generation of baits which followed the iconic Mister Twister.  They had been around forever and although I had some luck catching Crappies and Walleyes using paddle tail shads I just didn’t get the link to Pike.  Sure I had caught a lot Pike while jigging for Walleyes but it didn’t seem like soft plastics were the way to go.

WOW!  I was wrong!.  First thing I decided to try was buy some larger paddle tails and take them with me to throw for Pike.  While fishing an outpost West of Red Lake Ontario I found that yes these larger swimbaits worked and did catch larger fish.

Basic Swimbaits

This is a sample of one of my early swimbaits:  This is a simple 1/2oz jighead with a 5/0 hook and a 6 1/2 Big Hammer tail.  These worked great.  They could be fished through weeds.  They came in multiple colors.  They are fairly inexpensive at just a buck or so each and heck I caught a lot of nice Pike.

 Big Hammer Jig Head and Basic 6in Big Hammer tail

 

 

More Advanced Options

As I realized this basic option worked quite well I started wondering if I could find more advanced options.  WOW!  The list is almost endless so let me show you a couple more choices that have worked for me.

Here is the Water Wolf 8 inch Swimbait that started off as a Muskie bait but soon found its way into my Pike Arsenal.  Larger and Heavier these really aren’t for fishing shallow in weeds but I have had great success casting, jigging, trolling mid-lake structure.

The Sebile 6 and 7 inch Magic Swimmers are weighted but I have had a lot of success fishing them in shallow, slowly, in cold water situations.  Cold water / Shallow / Slow…AKA Spring Pike right when the weeds are emerging!  These are amazing in May and June.  For me the key is the pause.  Cast / Reel / Pause / Reel / Pause / Reel Faster or Slower.  Really Triggers the strikes.   Here is the lure and the fish that took the bait on the pause of course!

Soft Siebel Swimbait and the pike that it caught

When you need to slow down to a near dead stop these weedless unweighted Savage Gear Swimbaits are awesome!  The biggest downside with these fun baits is they only seem to be sold in Europe.  Give yourself a bit of time for these fun baits to arrive.  When they do arrive head out in the Spring cast and watch the pike attack this thing hovering a few inches underwater.

These are really just the tip of the iceberg, but next time you head out for some pike action take a few different swimbaits along.  Give them a throw or two and see if your dad’s swimbaits have come full circle to be a major producer in the 21st century.