Hey

I have started fishing alot at night and I was just wondering what you think the best swimbait to fish at night is? I have heard that the slammer is really good at night. What size would be best? I was thinking about getting a black one from tacklewarehouse. I wanted to get the 9" but the 12" is $10 cheaper. Would the 12" be a good choice or would I be better off with the 9"? I will probably need a new rod also because I don't have anything big enough for these big bait. Any suggestions?

Thanks

I would recommend the 9" Slammer to start. Rod wise, check out the Okuma 7'11' Heavy action. I've been throwing my Slammers on that rod lately and it works very nicely. The Slammer obviously only covers the surface to a few feet below the surface. Many times that can be the best deal going and the most fun :) but it certainly makes sense to stock some bottom bouncing stuff as well. The old Optimum swimbaits work well at night and they are priced right. I've done ok on Big Hammers and Castaic Trout as well over the years.

A good way to pick your baits is based on water clarity. If the water is clear, you can get away with most baits that work well during the day time. If the water is off color you want to go with baits that move a lot of water. That means baits with larger padde tails, baits with bills that push water, and baits that wake on the surface. No matter what the water conditions are I usually start with a bait in one of those three categories to offer the fish something that they can hone in on easily. If those type of baits get bit, sweet. If not, then I move to the more finesse presentations.

thanks...would black be the best color for night or would another color be a better choice because I catch all of my fish on dark soft plastics at night? I have used Matt's baby bass at night under lights with good success on fish up to a little over 7lbs.

I don't think color is terribly important at night. I usually use dark rainbow or a hitch pattern. I've caught them on the all black and the purple one as well. The black belly with the white back was/is popular in So-Cal, the idea being that you can see the white back of the lure but the fish gets a black silhouette from underneath.

Regardless of color, with the amount of noise the lure puts out, I don't believe the fish have any difficulty lining up and on it to eat. I've caught fish at night reeling the bait subsurface quite fast on several occasions. They track it down no problem.

I think what is most important is to get confidence in your lure, whether you catch fish on it during the day or at night. Get to know what retrieve speed works best for your particular baits and just put in your time at night. If you're in doubt about what to do, just make a nice long cast near a likely spot and wind it back slow and steady on top so you get a long V wake behind the lure. It's quite fun when they blow up on it :)

will a round reel be better than a low profile for getting distance? All I have is low profiles, what would be a good round one to get? I think that I will catch some fish on it atleast I hope I will...I have some really good places in mind to fish it where I caught alot of big ones last summer at night. I am just waiting for the water to warm up. It won't be long. Will fish come to the top in deep water (15+ feet) and hit the slammer or should I focus more on shallow water? One other question, what kind of hookset to you use on the slammer? I would think more of a sweeping hookset like on a crankbait, but I may be wrong. I am about to order my slammer now.

Thanks

would that rod be a good choice for the mattlures baby bass and bluegill also?

How far a fish will move on a bait depends on a lot of things, but I've never felt like fishing on the surface over 15' of water at night has been a hot producer for me. More realistically you get bit in 8 feet or less most of the time. Maybe if it was really clear you'd get them over 15, like in the summer ... when the fish were hot and ready to chase.

Hookset, pretty basic... Wait until you feel the fish in your reel. As soon as you feel that resistance in the reel, start winding and sweep back hard and to the side. Never set straight up on the fish, you just knock their mouth open. Sometimes on a long cast you'll hear the bite. Don't jerk it when that happens, just start reeling faster and wait for the pressure in your reel. That way if the fish misses, you can stand a chance for a re-bite. They will come back for it sometimes. The most important thing is to just keep winding to get the slack out of the line. If the fish are on the bait, you won't miss many bites.

The Okuma 7'11" MH is a nice Mattlures rod. I believe it was designed with those baits specifically in mind. There are several other rods in the rod review pages that are nice for those type of smaller lures. You've probably looked at the reviews, but if not here is the link:

http://www.calfishing.com/reviews/rods.html

The St. Croix in particular comes to mind. I just find that the $100 price tag on the Okumas is hard to beat. There's nicer rods out there for sure but they get the job done very nicely, and the actions are true swimbait actions, not some modified flipping stick BS.

Hope that helps some. Do me a favor and toss some pics in the gallery if you whack some big toads this summer at night :)

thanx for all of the great info...ive got a few pics on this computer..i will add them right now...i have alot more I can add later

Very cool, thanks for the pics :) It's been a slugfest lately in the photo gallery, seems like every time I turn around there's another double digit or monster limit posted :o