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Old 01-02-15, 05:17 PM   #1
Fish-N-Fool
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Default A bait that every Bass, Pike and Muskie fisherman should own.

By Rick Lawrence
AKA The Fish-N-Fool


I have been fishing for many years now a Swimbait that I think every Bass, Pike and Muskie fisherman should have tied on a rod at all times. If you have never fished a swimbait before this should be your first one. It has caught every single Muskie I have ever caught, about 50% of all my Pike (THAT'S a lot) and many nice Bass as well. I'm talking about the 168-MM and the new 200-MM S-Waver, a hard swim bait made by River 2 Sea. This is a truly amazing bait with a unique action. It kind of swims through the water in a wide S pattern.

Here is a video of the baits swimming and one of the many fish I have caught on them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqSJtTLy_9w


This is the 200mm or 8" in Mr Magoo color (AKA Firetiger)



It looks very natural in the water like a real fish swimming along. I like to throw the 168MM (6 3/4") on a 8' or 8 1/2' MH bait caster with a Shimano E7 201 reel spooled with 30 lb Suffixs 832 green braid to 2 feet of 80 or 100 pound fluorocarbon leader tied on with my Chinese Fool knot I showed you guys how to tie on u-tube. Tie on a large Dou-lock snap with a 4 turn Uni knot (it's the only one that works well on this heavy of line when I fish for toothy critters)so the bait can swing freely on the line and get good action out of it. I use that same basic set up on the 200MM (8") bait just my 8 1/2 ' Heavy action rod with 65 lb Suffix braid on it. It has the Shimano E 301 and works these heavier baits real well. I Never EVER fish a steel leader when using a lure. You will get a lot more strikes with fluoro and it gives the bait a more natural action as well. If you learn and use the knots I talked about here you will not lose any fish, if you check your leader after a big fish and retie as needed. If you just Bass fishing in water that has no Pike or Muskies in it a 15 lb mono would work fine as well. If the water is super clear use a Fluorocarbon.
I'm going to talk about how, where, and when I fish this amazing bait. First I'm going to cover the when. I don't think there is any time of year the S-Waver will not catch Pike. I have slayed Pike that were sunning themselves fishing shallow soughs in the early spring. Hammered them late spring Large mouth in shallow lakes. Got some nice Muskies in late spring to early summer fishing weedbeds and nailed mid winter Pike fishing deep weedlines. Long story short there is no bad time to fish this bait.
The where is a little harder to convey. Basically I have caught Pike super shallow in less than a foot of water and got some Smallies very deep at 30 feet of so. Generally I like to fish these in about 3 to 10 feet of water. The bait sinks slowly at about 6" per second so you can count them down to almost any depth. If I'm fishing 10 feet of water I will give it a 10 to 12 count before I start my retrieve, if I'm fishing shallow I may start just after it hits the water.
I throw it to lily pads, brush piles ( carefully these are spendy and they sink, so say bye if you get hung), docks, laydown trees, weed beds, but mostly weed lines. Weed lines hold fish whether it's Bass, Pike, or Muskies. Pike love weed lines like the tall cabbage weed that grow out of deeper water. Fish this bait right on the edge of where open water and cabbage weeds meet or any line that then can hide in to ambush their prey. I've had great results just trolling the bait as well over weed flats as well.
There are 5 basic retrieves I like to use. The first one is the slow crawl. Cast it out and retrieve it just fast enough to keep it out of the weeds or off the bottom. I also will pause it in colder water for a few seconds at a time. This is how I catch all my winter time Pike. Crawl 3 or 4 turns of the handle, pause, crawl, pause, Thump = Fish. Winter Pike hit it on the pause 99% of the time.
My second retrieve is my favorite Muskie retrieve. It is what I call the spin stop. I will let it sink to the desired depth and turn the handle 5 of 6 time at a slow pace and without pausing give the rod a hard short jerk. That causes the bait to do a spin in a tight 180 turn and look back where it came from, then just wait a second and start you retrieve again. If you have a Muskie fallowing this will almost always produce a strike. I will do this 2 or 3 times on a retrieve even if I don't see a fish fallowing, but if I do I always use the spin stop technique on them.
Third is the Crawl twitch, cast out the make 3 or 4 turns of the handle then a twitch, twitch so the bait will dart around on the twitches. I will vary the speed and the number of reel handle turns as well as the number of twitches on a retrieve till I find if one combination works best.
Forth retrieve is the Wake. Just cast out and start reeling as soon as the bait touches the water. This is a good mid and late Summer retrieve. Generally I like to reel it just fast enough to keep the bait waking on the surface at it snakes along. If I get a fallower that doesn't bite, I kill the bait and let it sink a foot or so and then do the spin stop. I will very my retrieve some when waking the bait with some small pops and speed changes to see what works.
5th is what I call walk the underwater dog, let the bait sink and work the rod just like you were walking a spook bait . This takes some time to get right as the timing is just a little different than a surface bait, but when done correctly the bait will walk the dog under the water, It will kind of guild back and forth about 1 foot and a half or so. Muskies like this one a lot as well.
I love this bait, I have one whole container in my box with nothing but S-Wavers in it. About 25 of them total. They have some nice colors that I like and use like the Blue Herring, Firetiger (they call it Mr Magoo) Trout, Hitch (looks like a kokanee), Gill, Baby Bass and the party crasher are some of the colors I like. By far and away my favorite color is Perch. I have caught so many fish on this color, more than twice as many as all the other colors put together. They did not make a perch color for years and I was painting my own and sending in pictures of all the fish I was getting on them with a request that they really need to add that color to their lineup. Finally they agreed and used some of my ideas on the paint job, so now I don't have to paint my own anymore. Perch is the # 1 forage fish for most every fish here in the N.W. that eats other fish and I have caught Large and Small Bass, Pike, Walleye, Muskies, Brown trout, Kam's , and regular Rainbow trout on them. So I urge you to try the S-Waver bait. The one bad thing is this is they are hard to find in my area, so they tend to be an Ebay only item pretty much. Start with the 168 mm bait in a perch color or whatever color looks the most like the forage fish in your area and go from there. Hope you liked my rant here and find this info useful in trying out this bait.

Here is a few more fish I have caught on them







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Old 01-04-15, 12:16 AM   #2
bassinbob
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Just got one with my 20% off Tackle Warehouse order. Can't wait to try it out this spring.
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Old 01-04-15, 08:49 AM   #3
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I prefer the four piece jointed swim baits, like the Jerry Rago ones.
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Old 01-04-15, 05:38 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mikechell View Post
I prefer the four piece jointed swim baits, like the Jerry Rago ones.
They have a totally different swimming action than the S-waver and the same as 90% of all the other hard swimbaits. I like these BECAUSE they are different.
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Old 01-05-15, 08:11 AM   #5
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Sorry, not arguing, just noting.
Check out the video of the Egret Baits - New Vudu Mullet 3.5.
This one looks like a live fish.
That S-Waver motion, to me, just looks like a walk-the-dog motion popular with any suspended jointed hard bait. It doesn't look "real".
When you watch the video of the Vudu ... the first view is hard to tell your NOT looking at an actual fish swimming through the water.
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