The Yin and Yang of Yamamoto Swimbaits
September 15, 2008
In the Beginning
Around the late 1970's to early 80's, I first became aware of soft plastic swimbaits. They were simply called shad bodies back then There was no such word as 'swimbait' yet.
The swimbaits you see nowadays with the internal jig heads were not out in the early eighties. Separate swimbait bodies (like Yamamoto makes now) were the first types of shads to appear almost thirty years ago.
They immediately proved deadly for light tackle inshore saltwater angling, and it wasn't too long before an advance guard of walleye anglers started slinging shads. In both these applications - light tackle saltwater (meaning 10 to 20 pound test outfits) and walleye fishing, use of shads revolved around heavy jig heads, say 1/2 to 1 ounce, moving water and deep water (in the case of walleye). The heavier weight heads and/or moving water were needed to activate the stiff tails of shads to paddle enticingly.
On the other hand, early shads did not work well in bass fishing situations. Shallow water, relatively lighter jig heads and placid pond or lake conditions rendered early shads ineffective in most freshwater bass anglers' opinions. The problem was the plastic was way too stiff, and the action tails on many of these early shads just refused to paddle without a tide or current or a pretty heavy jig head. The tails of early shad bodies tended to be too stiff to activate enticingly under typical bass fishing circumstances.
There is no second chance to make a good first impression, and bass anglers turned a cold shoulder toward soft plastic shads at first, and for the better part of the past thirty years (except in California), practically speaking.
It took three decades for swimbaits (in general) to become nationally popular bass lures.
Fast Forward to Today
Fast forward to today, and the big, bad spiel across the country is all about swimbaits the past couple seasons. What did it, what turboshot the swimbait to the top was Kinami pro Steve Kennedy winning a single major event with swimbaits on Clear Lake, California in spring 2007. Now, Steve's win was only one of dozens of top events where swimbaits were used, seen on TV and written about in the fishing press. However, the seasonal timing (early spring) or something about Kennedy's swimbait success clicked with every angler across the country. Kennedy's victory at Clear Lake with swimbaits in spring 2007 can be considered the single most decisive event that triggered many thousands of anglers nationwide to conclude that they too need to use swimbaits now.
So what took bass anglers about thirty years to warm up to swimbaits? At first (and for the longest time), the action tails were too stiff, and unable to be activated properly except only in flowing water or on heavier jigs than normal for bass. Where swimbaits did take root early on was in California, but they tended to make swimbaits too big for use anywhere else. So swimbaits were too stiff at first, then too big, and it's not until recently that swimbaits are being made just right for bass fishing across most of the nation. The 5-6" shad (the size popularized by Steve Kennedy) with a soft, fluttering tail has commanded attention.
Yamamoto swimbaits appeal to a little larger fish than average.
Four Generations of Swimbaits
The swimbait market today is like a big stewpot. Luremakers, many in California, keep a low fire burning under it, and they keep chucking baits into it. Swimbaits tossed into the stewpot may be injection-molded soft plastic, hand-pours, the more modern and durable swimbait-type plastics with holographic foils, super-stretch plastic, hard plastic, wood, or hybrid hard/soft swimbaits, double-, triple- or quadruple-jointed lures with or without body fins, soft tail fins or metal blade tail fins, and with or without frontal diving lips. It seems luremakers may throw most any big bass lure they like into the swimbait pot. If it's big, chuck it in. Stir the cauldron, let it steep, and it all becomes swimbait stew. What we call 'swimbaits' constitutes the most polymorphous category of any lure type.
But for what we're writing and reading today, let's limit our discussion to soft plastic swimbaits only, and let's try to categorize them loosely into four different generations of soft plastic swimbaits that have evolved over time. Each generation has different characteristic features.
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First Generation Swimbaits. Soft plastic swimbaits have been around for almost thirty years. Originally (let's call them first generation), there were hand-pours and injection-molded soft swimbaits that first became available around the late seventies or early eighties. They were not that radically different (except in body shape and action tail shape) from other kinds of injected and hand-poured soft baits. They weren't made that different from worms, grubs, lizards, etc. First generation swimbaits were/are pretty plain, didn't really have elaborate color schemes nor elaborate body details. Most were designed to thread behind plain jig heads. The Mister Twister Sassy Shad is a good example and one of the forerunners of this generation swimbait.
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Second Generation Swimbaits. In the early nineties, the huge, beautifully-painted trout swimbaits and other huge hand-poured swimbaits began to become popular in California for monster bass. This time period begins the heyday of the monster bait boom. It isn't incorrect to say Castaic Soft Baits first helped popularize it to the rest of the nation (outside California) by nationally advertising and marketing Castaic's monster trout baits, going back to 1995.
Second generation is characterized by glamorous, ultra-realistic trout imitations, such as the latest by Allen Cole, the father of swimbaits.
The trend in manufacturing monster baits has gotten quite prolific since then, but was mostly contained within California and more recently Japan also. Along the way, monster soft swimbaits have morphed into hybrid half soft/half hard swimbaits, monster wooden swimbaits, more recently surface-struggling wakebaits and jointed clackbaits. For sake of discussion, let's call all of these second generation, and let's say wood and hard plastic and hybrid hard/soft monster swimbaits are part of that second generation. The most distinguishing feature of them all is a propensity toward hugeness and toward what anglers regard as "realism" in decorative color schemes.
The second generation or wave of swimbaits includes hybrid soft/hard and jointed models, such as this 's ji kei' concept lure from Japan.
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Third Generation Swimbaits. Best exemplified by more durable plastic, holographic foil finishes, fin, scale and head details, a lot of third generation models have pre-rigged insider jigheads and internally-molded body weight systems and hookhangers factory-molded into the soft swimbaits. The Storm brand is an overall good example and so are Tsunami brand swimbaits. This does not mean the early 2000 timeframe is when features like insider jigheads first got started, but certainly the 2000's are when insider jigheads began to appear on increasingly more and more models of swimbaits. Actually, Optimum Baits was the first to popularize an insider jighead on their hand-poured swimbaits. Since the early 2000's, many other brands/models of soft swimbaits feature insider jigheads, and that's probably the most definitive feature of the third generation of soft swimbaits.
Established in 1996, Optimum Baits is one of the original California swimbait companies, and first to offer insider jig heads.
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Fourth Generation Swimbaits. This swimbait generation is happening today. The fourth generation is characterized by more modest-sized swimbaits suitable for use outside of California. For some good reason I don't know, California produces the largest bass in North America if not the world. Somewhere around 20 of the 25 largest bass ever recorded worldwide have come from California, and swimbaits have (until recently) been made in sizes big enough to appeal to those California giant bass - but that's too big for bass elsewhere. So the most significant advancement of fourth generation swimbaits is simply reducing the size of swimbaits to somewhere within the 5 to 6 inch size range. That makes the latest fourth generation swimbaits "just right" for bass fishing worldwide outside California. Of course, the Basstrix Fat Minnow (Paddle Tail) is the one made popular by Steve Kennedy, and the best example of this current fourth generation.
Basstrix (top) and Kamakazee swimbaits represent the most recent fourth generation or wave of swimbaits.
All Four Generations Under One Roof
Usually, you expect a newer generation of a lure type to replace, phase out or make an older generation obsolete. That hasn't happened in swimbaits. All four generations are co-existing in the marketplace today, along with all their offshoots and permutations the past thirty years. Swimbaits are more a trend today than ever before - and still really undiscovered (or on the verge of being discovered) by many bass anglers. So there is huge potential to see more stewed up on swimbaits in the future. As bass anglers discover and incorporate more and more swimbaits into their "go to" bag of tricks, we'll see more and more models manufactured, possibly leading us into a fifth future generation of swimbaits. Who knows?
The Yin and Yang of Yamamoto Swimbaits
Many swimbaits today have the jig head or weight and hook pre-molded inside the swimbait body. Yet, after thirty years and a long line of swimbaits made since then, there's still something to be said for a separate body and independent jig head.
Especially for the entry level angler, it is the least expensive and easiest way to get started using swimbaits. Just get a couple of GYB swimbait bodies, rig them on a couple of jig heads, and you're fishing with a relatively low-cost swimbait. You'll save a lot of bucks, and still enjoy the potential to bag a lot of big bass on premium GYB swimbaits.
Yamamoto swimbait bodies are ideally designed for use with separate jig heads.
But even for the experienced angler, the problem with other swimbaits which have an internal jighead pre-molded inside, you give up much flexibility on choosing the weight head you want to use. You have no choice of the weight and hook - and the action, depth and speed - you want in your swimbait.
That's why an independent, external jig head has an advantage. It lets you decide and control the variables. Action, depth, speed, movement are all up to your choice of which external jig head you use.
With any external jig head lure - a swimbait, darter jig, hula jig, jig 'n pig, swimming jig, wacky jig, hair jig, float 'n fly or any jig head lure (whatever it may be) - there's a yin and yang relationship between the two parts:
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The jig head imparts the action.
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The jig dressing accepts the action.
With that dual nature of a jig foremost in mind, the fact is that a Yamamoto 5" swimbait's swimming action is substantially different on each different jig head which you may use with it.
No two jig heads cause the same swimming movement in the dressing. The dressing (5" swimbait) does not change, the dressing is exactly the same every time. Yet the jig heads change them and their action every time. The jig head imparts the action. The dressing accepts it.
Some jig heads cause a tighter movement with less body roll and more tail twisting (yes, the tails do twist like a wine connoisseur's corkscrew on the proper style head). Some heads cause a very wide rolling body movement. No two weights or styles of heads impart the same to the dressing.
Some cause a more staccato flutter. Some heads cause a more sinuous S-shaped action. Some jig heads cause a careening roll. Some heads cause both body and tail action, or one or the other. No two jig heads impart the same action.
Action is only one imparted attribute. The weight and shape of head also determines how deep or shallow the swimbait works best, what speed it swims best. Some heads are better for cutting current. Some head shapes are better coming through weedy areas. Of course, some heads have weedguards. Some do not. Some heads are better for bouncing in a flow or across rubble. Some heads float better. Some sink better.
Sometimes one head will work exceptionally (or fail miserably) on any given day, week or time frame, and you may never know why except that one head 'feels right' and imparts what fish want in the swimbait more than others at any given moment. No two jig heads impart the same action, and some may look good or not so good to you or to the fish. Keep in mind to let the fish decide what jig heads work good or not. A jig head that may not look that tough to you, may be a favorite of the fish. So don't let your likes or dislikes cloud the water. Let the fish decide the yin and yang of it all.
The picture below shows just a few of the used shads I quickly pulled off my boat today. I had fished with these the other day, catching large numbers of freshwater stripers, largemouth, smallmouth and walleye, which destroyed about a dozen more of these. These were the "last baits standing" so to say.
Prepare Beforehand
No I was not in the boy scouts but I do like their motto. The reason to prepare shads beforehand is they can get torn up quickly, and you can go through lots of them on a good day.
The next photo shows how I prepare for a shad-fishing trip. I pre-glue, pre-sharpen and pre-anoint a large number of troops. I quickly counted 19 in the bags in this photo. I probably went through a dozen of them that got demolished during the day. It is better to do all the prep ahead of time (but not too far ahead). Really, do not make up more than you expect to use. Reason to do this ahead of time is it is impractical (and it is even dangerous to handle superglue) to be gluing and rigging shads in between fish. It is far better to have an already pre-made supply and tie them on as needed, and it is far better to use glue under safe and cautious conditions you can prepare for beforehand, not in the height and excitement of catching fish from a hungry school.
With that being said, I also have many unrigged shads and spare jig heads for them. I have the option of about a dozen or more different jig heads to rig these shads - and each specific jig head will achieve different results under different circumstances.
The Restorative Power and Visual Attraction of Scent Products
As you see, the pre-rigged swimbaits in the bags are pretty greasy. They're slathered in fish attractant. There are several reasons why I apply fish attractant products to swimbaits. Those reasons have nothing to do with scent.
First and foremost I use fish attractant products as a way to straighten out bent or twisted soft baits. This has zilch, zippo to do with scent. What I do is the day before or at the start of a fishing trip, I drip a few drops in a bag of soft baits I intend to use. In this way, the baits get a sparkly sheen coating, get a life-like luster to them, and, if there are ten to twenty baits in the bag, you do not need to stop fishing to re-apply fish attractant ten or twenty times during the day. What is most important to me, however, is that the lubricated baits tend to relax and unwind any kinks or bends they may have gotten during storage. Soft baits do catch more fish when they are straight, less fish when bent or twisted badly. Especially exposed to the warmth of some sun or heat (not too much), the baits in the bag will want to return back to the perfect shape they were originally molded in, thanks to the restorative effect that an attractant can have on some soft baits.
Another reason why I apply fish attractant products to lures also has nada to do with scent. A lure lightly coated in attractant gets a glistening life-like sheen to it. This is especially true on translucent colors, and the sheen coat heightens light hitting the bait and it helps heighten the reflective sparkle flakes if any.
One more reason is in order to create a powerful visual attractant on the surface. That is, a bait marinated in an oily attractant, it can create a very visible circular slick on the water's surface.
In deep water, the slick can often mushroom in seconds to the length of a bass boat in diameter. On days with lots of wind-caused surface smear, rippling water and active, roaming fish greedily eyeballing the surface for wind-blown baitfish pods scooting past a main lake point, I’ve seen these slicks seemingly bring fish running over to the vicinity of a drenched bait.
I use this slick on the surface as a visual attractant that pulls fish from a distance to investigate it. The slick reminds me of the calm water patch that a baitfish school makes while nervously swimming together just below the surface. Or maybe it is a false signal suggestive of body oils being released by baitfish schools getting crunched by predators in a feeding frenzy down below?
Who knows? But one thing is sure, the slick is actively spreading, moving across and changing the surface. It is something instant and unexpected happening in the fish’s environment. It is an active visual attractant. Whether fish can scent a slick is immaterial – they see it suddenly happening and come over to investigate it.
In only a few feet of water depth, the slick tends to appear only a few feet wide. Even in shallow water, I do feel fish can see this slick on the surface from a distance. I've seen dead calm dog days when these slicks seemed to make all the difference between hero versus zero status with otherwise uncooperative, inactive shallow fish.
If You Haven't Fished a Yamamoto Swimbait Yet
You owe it to yourself to try one. They appeal to many 4, 5 and 6 pounders on any lake or pond. They have more appeal to nice bass in that hefty size range than most other lures in your tacklebox. Just match the swimbait with a suitable jig head for the environment and conditions at hand. It really is that easy to enhance your chances for relatively bigger bass than usual.
The Father of SwimbaitsAbout Allen Cole. He's the one who discovered in the late 1980s that trophy largemouth targeted stocked trout as a food source. Armed with that knowledge, Cole set about matching the coloration and deadly snake-like swimming of his huge wooden A.C. Plugs to duplicate the hues and mimic the movements of small trout that are preyed upon by trophy bass. For four years, Cole secretly perfected his idea. By the early 1990s, Cole was ready to unleash his A.C. Plugs on California's trophy largemouth bass and the angling world, catching a 15 pound largemouth on his first trip. It sounds incredible, but most Californians believed at that time, that big bass (over 10 pounds) could only be caught consistently with live bait. On that history-making day, Cole single-handedly began the big swimbait craze in California, which has now become a worldwide phenomena, and swimbaits have proven to be the best method to catch truly trophy bass. Thanks to Allen Cole, we have many giant lures of all kinds today, called 'swimbaits' that have become the way to catch trophy bass. Some are wood, hard plastic, soft plastic or combinations thereof. Many still incorporate some feature or another of Cole's, from his original to his latest designs.
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