ive been throwing a bunch of 4.5" and 5.5" shadalicous swimbaits and im wondering if maybe my setup isnt right. I fish alan henry, lake greenbelt, and lakes ute and conchas in new mexico. ute and conchas are as clear as alan henry, greenbelt not as clear.

as of now ive got basically a big ole flippin stick paired with a quantum accurist 6.3:1 reel loaded with 50 pound power pro. lots of fish follow but never bite, which i know is just a swimbait thing, but is it the braid? should i be using a mono or flouro leader on it? or should i maybe just be using mono or flouro rather than even spooling up the braid?

Flourocarbon would work well with a bait that size. Anything bigger go with mono if cover allows it.

i was hoping you would see this Carl, are you saying flouro leader or the whole spool?

Don't have to do the whole spool. Too expensive. LOL. I back mine with old used line, then tie a blood knot and connect around 75 yards or so of the flouro. I guess you could call it a leader. A 75 yard one. LOL.

I am no expert but learning, some guys do use braid with a 3 foot flouro leader. With those type of baits I have been using 15-17# flourocarbon line 7' med heavy rod without any problems. For me the mono has had to much stretch to get a good hook set. I have learned you need to set the hook hard, If not you will miss a bunch of fish. Good luck, there is no turning back now. Once you have confidence in the swim bait its hard to put it down.

it seems theres a new swimbait topic on here atleast once a day, and i try to read them all to get a feel for things. in fact im about to start another thread about a specific swimbait.

its hard to throw the swimbait when you know you may only get 1 or 2 bites a day, and then not be on the water for another month.

Those smaller tube types stick with the flouro. You will figure out fairly quick whether or not they are going to eat the swimbaits. Look for followers, etc. If they are not going to eat it put it down or you will cost yourself a lot of time throwing it.

You need to be very careful about using braid or flourocarbon line with swimbaits. A swimbait guru gave me some good advice about only using mono. There are many times when bigger fish will follow your bait up to the boat and grab the bait as you start lifting it out of the water, at which time, you do not have a lot of line out between your rod tip and the bait. If a fish grabs your bait that close to the boat, something has to give. He told me if you want to land those fish when that happens, you want to have mono so the give is your mono stretching and not your line or rod snapping. Just something to think about when choosing a line to use with your swimbaits.

20 pound fluoro on the tube style baits, mono stretches too much. You need a hard hook set with these baits and mono doesn't do it for me. If you were using larger baits with treble hooks, mono would be a better choice.

They were following it on me at Amistad this weekend. What I did was continue to bring it in and then 1/2 way from the boat I would just stop reeling and when the bait nosedived and started to fall, the fish would hit it. Had a 4, 5 1/2, and a 6 1/2. I was fishing braid there but usually use 20# mono for the plastic type swim baits on a 7'H with a Abu Garcia C5 with 5:1 gear ratio. They work better to me if you slow roll them. Too fast and they roll on their side.

I have been using the xcite baits 5" with a 1/8oz weighted hook on low wind days and 1/4oz on windy days with great results. Also, the xcite baits dont roll with the weighted hook even reeling in a wake bait speed. I would still recommend the flouro on the tube types to help with hooksets if you make long casts with them like I do.
JR

Here is the best set up, Loumis rod Med heavy, 65 power pro, here is the key, 5-1 reel. 5-0--6,0 weighted hook add split ring to hook ,Bass Magic baits

Chad, the first trick is to have the followers be bigger than the Shadaliciuos!

you know i only stick dinks Barry!

take a look at basswest magaines,they always have great articles written on swimbaits. since california guys a studs at throwing these (matt newman,shawn bailey, mike long and justin kerr) read what they say.

best advice I can give you