Swimbaits are the current rage among trophy largemouth bass hunters, especially in California, where bass in excess of 20 pounds have been caught on them. But the swimbait phenomenon originated among landlocked striper fishermen. In the 1980s, a handful of West Coast reservoir striper anglers were trolling big wooden plugs they handcrafted to mimic the stocker-sized rainbow trout that were routinely put in their small lakes. Stripers pretty much regard an 8- to 12-inch rainbow the same way you or I might regard a medium-rare, bacon-wrapped fillet.

Early swimbaits like the A. C. Plug and Z-Plug were mostly jointed and had a highly erratic action when trolled or retrieved. The majority lacked a diving lip, so they stayed shallow when cast or flatline-trolled. Many striper hunters fished them on downriggers or wire line.

Then a funny thing happened. The Golden State striper crowd began catching giant largemouth bass on their homemade swimbaits. This created an explosion of seismic proportions among California’s big-bass anglers. Once word got out that those behemoth bass wanted a swimbait for supper, demand for the big lures became phenomenal. A cottage industry of swimbait artisans was born. A bassin’ buddy of mine from Los Angeles recalls, “All at once there were so many guys out here making big wooden trout plugs in their basements, it’s a wonder there were any table legs left in the state.”

From the moment I got my hands on some of those early California swimbaits, I new they’d work on stripers. But they were so expensive I didn’t dare use them, especially in the snaggy Cumberland River near my Nashville home, where 40-pounders are common and broken lines routine. It wasn’t until luremakers like Storm began producing them out of soft plastic that these lures became a viable option for me and for thousands of other striper nuts nationwide.

Livebait Alternative

Landlocked striper anglers have been notoriously slow to accept new lures and fishing methods, and the swimbait phenomenon has been no exception. Topwater lures like Red Fins and livebait remain the mainstays of the freshwater crowd, and swimbaits have yet to catch on. One of the few inland striper experts I know who relies on them is veteran Celina, Tennessee, guide Fred McClintock, a hardcore striper hunter familiar to In-Fisherman readers and TV viewers. Fred has caught some real whoppers on swimbaits, and here, for the first time, he relates his experiences with these lures.

“I’d been fooling around with both hard and soft swimbaits ever since they first came on the scene and had caught some decent stripers on them; but like Wirth says, they were real expensive, and I worried about big fish busting ’em off,” McClintock told In-Fisherman. “The advent of the less costly molded soft-plastic swimbaits allowed me to fish these lures more often and more aggressively. The results have been awesome. To date my customers and I have caught stripers up to 43 pounds on them, and I’ve had much bigger fish follow or roll on ’em.”

McClintock feels swimbaits may be one of the few viable lure alternatives to livebait for trophy-class stripers. “This was driven home to me during a 2005 In-Fisherman TV trip, taping on the Cumberland with In-Fisherman Editor In Chief Doug Stange,” Fred recalls. “We started out using live skipjack herring, but as most striper fishermen know, skippies can be difficult to catch and maintain in a baitwell.

“At taping time, there was no bait anywhere close to where I’d located the stripers. We had a few baits but ran out by midmorning. What happened next made for a great In-Fisherman TV segment and turned me into a true swimbait aficionado.

“Stange dug through his gear and came up with a few 9-inch Storm WildEye Swim Shads that he’d used on a recent muskie expedition and had also used for stripers in saltwater. ‘Too small?’ he asked. Should be just right, I said.

“Honest to goodness, it was only a few minutes before Doug’s lure got hammered by a 30-pounder. He’d cast the big bait right to a shoreline spot filled with timber. The fish struck in a giant explosion of a strike, not more than seconds after the lure touched down. The striper’s really the only fish in freshwater that can take a lure like that, and it’s one of the most exciting things you’ll ever see.

“Well, I also had with me a few 8-inch Shimmy Shads, another swimbait style, so I started to cast those. Soon enough I had a 30 plaster one at the end of a long cast. We ended up catching four good stripers on those big swimbaits in a couple hours—and this was out of clear, shallow water in the middle of the day, conditions where stripers turn down anything that doesn’t look totally realistic. It was some of the most exciting fishing I’d done in a long time. ”

Lure & Tackle Options

In-Fisherman defines a swimbait as a lure having two distinct actions: a side-to-side roll, and a tail-flap or thump. This two-part action is evident in Storm swimbaits, including the WildEye Swim Shad and the Kickin’ Minnow. McClintock also mentions the Shimmy Shad made by Trophy Technologies. Other soft swimbaits targeted primarily to trophy bass hunters, like the Mission Fish or Huddleston Deluxe Trout, do a job on stripers, too. These pricey lures are impossible to find in tackle shops outside of the West Coast but are available online at swimbaitnation.com.

Match the length of the swimbaits you use to the size potential of the stripers that swim in your local waters, McClintock advises. “A 30-pounder has no trouble eating a 2-pound skipjack, or a foot-long swimbait,” he says. “If your stripers reach a maximum size of, say, 10 pounds, you should downsize to about a 4- to 6-inch lure. For most situations, you can’t go wrong with natural shad or rainbow trout patterns. If the water’s murky after a hard rain, chartreuse is deadly, and black works great at night.”

McClintock uses 7- or 7.5-foot medium-heavy power and medium-fast action rods. “Several manufacturers make specialty swimbait rods up to 8 feet,” he says. “Muskie rods are another option. Don’t get something with a pole-cue action. Some of the baits are heavy, but basically, the rod needs some tip action for castability and shock absorption, but the butt has to be powerful enough to horse big, powerful fish away from cover.

“The reel should have a smooth drag and never, ever lock it down perfectly tight on these bruisers. I use a 5.2:1 Pflueger Trion 66 and spool up with 40-pound Berkley Big Game line, which is very abrasion-resistant—big river stripers are forever running into submerged timber when hooked. A high-speed reel is unacceptable for lure-casting since it hasn’t enough winching power for stripers. A slower-speed reel also gives the lure a more lifelike swimming action upon retrieve.”

Where & How to Fish ’Em

McClintock recommends casting swimbaits anywhere you’d fish livebait or more traditional striper lures: Around submerged wood cover, current eddies, shoals, gravel bars and mid-depth holes in rivers, and around points, tributary pockets and submerged humps in slackwater reservoirs.

Many artificial lures require a great deal of rod manipulation on the angler’s part to achieve the right action, but usually not swimbaits. “I’ve had good luck just casting ’em out and reeling ’em back to the boat at a fairly fast, steady clip,” Fred says. “This mimics a fleeing baitfish to a T. Just hold the rod steady and the lure’s realistic swimming action and thumping tail do the work for you.”

Then again, two years in a row he’s watched Stange work the WildEye Swim Shad in a unique way that definitely does work for big fish. “Basically, he works the bait very aggressively,” McClintock offers. “It’s a heavy bait for its size, and it’s made differently from some of the other baits that are more like plastic crankbaits than straight swimbaits. The lead’s molded into the head of the bait and the bait’s beveled, with the bottom wider than the top.

“First of all, Stange’s always in position to strike with the rod tip up. A striper hits so hard that if you aren’t totally prepared, they just pick your pocket and get loose right away. As soon as the bait touches down, rod tip up high, he cranks the reel handle quickly about 10 cranks, pauses momentarily, then cranks quickly another 10 or 12 cranks. This creates a sort of walk-the-doggy swimbait action that makes this bait flash and swim in a way that stripers really like. He keeps the rod butt tucked into his stomach with the rod tip up pretty much through the entire retrieve. It works.”

For a real adrenaline rush, cast a swimbait at surfacing stripers, McClintock suggests. “I’ve had schooling fish just about rip the rod out of my hands, they attack these lures so savagely. If you spot schoolies, cast close to the surface boil and either burn the lure back toward you by reeling it very quickly, or let it sink a foot or so on a tight line, then use a constant medium retrieve. Surfacing fish usually hit it right away but sometimes they follow, in which case you can often trigger a strike by sweeping the rod tip to one side or switching to a stop-and-go retrieve.”

*Don Wirth, Nashville, Tennessee, is a long-time In-Fisherman contributor and an admitted striper junkie. Fred McClintock (931/243-2142; trophyguideservice.com) guides for stripers on the Cumberland River system in Tennessee and Kentucky.