[Colorado.Mackinaw]

What makes a big swimbait so attractive? Well, when you do get a fish to bite you know it's going to be nice.........hopefully you have the right gear. Hucking big swimbaits takes patience and your not likely to land him unless you planned for this moment........ here comes the age old debate........spin vs. bait casting.......... if you do lay into a truck, bait reels have a great drag system while lasting for years.........spinning reels can and do pull monsters out of the water...... they are much easier to cast if trying to learn yet here is an opportunity to voice your opinion.......

Moreover....... how effective are big swimbaits here in Colorado? Im an advocate of catching a ton of fish with a belief that even big fish will bite smaller gear....... obviously, some big boys just need big baits making for quite the dilemma........ are you the kind of fisherman that primarily uses big baits in search of big fish....... if so........ what's your preference on gear......and when do you say; I think now would be a great opportunity to try this bad boy......

Ultimately, is it better to use a bait casting reel or spinning reel when fishing big swimbaits...... and how big of a swimbait can you get away with here in Colorado?

 

[pistoldog]

Check out some of the posts by FishDoctor and see how large his baits are.


I prefer spin gear because I can cast it farther.

Unless you're after double digit wiper sized fish the drags should be adequate for on spin gear, even though generally baitcasters have really smooth drags.

 

[mrwigglestheworm]

Check out some of the posts by FishDoctor and see how large his baits are.


I prefer spin gear because I can cast it farther.

Unless you're after double digit wiper sized fish the drags should be adequate for on spin gear, even though generally baitcasters have really smooth drags.

I used to think the same way. Took some convincing and me learning and setting aside my pride, but baitcasters are superior in nearly every fishing setting. I still use spinning gear for dropshotting and on occasion for working jerkbaits. Overall though, baitcasters are my main gear...small to large.

Use baitcasters for big baits OP, you'll be much happier.

 

[pistoldog]

I knew there'd be a dissenter in the crowd and I was betting it'd be you lol .

I dunno maybe it's me, but I'm pretty handy with the baitcaster and I still feel I can cast the spin gear further Wiggles, I can't argue on your other points about baitcasters being superior however.

If you want to have a lil contest I'd be happy to eat some crow when the weather gets warmer.

PD

 

[redleader]

A lot of it depends what size of spinning reel and the type of rod you're using I also prefer a spinning reel but I found out a long time ago on the rivers in Alaska that I could cast farther with a baitcaster.

 

[Neal/CO]

I experimented some last year and found for my purposes I caught a lot more fish on 6" and 5" baits. Wipers actually seemed to prefer the 5" baits more. All mine are soft baits though.

 

[redleader]

I was throwing 6ounce 12" poppers a long way in Panama with a Shimano 18,000 spinning reel 65 lb braid and 80pd leader.

 

[koldkut]

If its a spinning swkmbait rod you seek, you need to look at surf casting gear, or custom swimbait rods. I have a custom spinning Hydra in the works for when I want to take a non baitcasting friend out swimbaiting.

 

[mrwigglestheworm]

I knew there'd be a dissenter in the crowd and I was betting it'd be you lol .

I dunno maybe it's me, but I'm pretty handy with the baitcaster and I still feel I can cast the spin gear further Wiggles, I can't argue on your other points about baitcasters being superior however.

If you want to have a lil contest I'd be happy to eat some crow when the weather gets warmer.

PD

I'm sure we can work something out. I said the same thing you said to me to Boondock and Riv about 5 years back.... Funny how things change over time. :biggrin1:

By the way, I wasn't callin' you out. Just stating what works for me from my experiences.

This fish came on a 3.5oz soft bait, 8". Landed on my 7'-11" heavy (2-5oz) Phenix SB rod, paired with an ABU Garcia NaCl 51 (saltwater) baitcaster. I'm glad I had that setup for it too.



40" and it inhaled the entire bait. It took 5 minutes just to get that fish to come up to the surface. It gave all that gear a good workout too.

Not here to hate on spinning gear. I was there not so long ago myself. I'm just saying, for swimbaits, give me a baitcaster all day.

 

[redleader]

Great Picture, Nice Fish and rig thanks for sharing, I like to go with light gear but when your throwing big baits ya gotta go heavy.

 

[pistoldog]

Great fish Wiggles, I didn't perceive it as calling me out and ya I'd love to fish with you sometime!

 

[whompuscat658]

Check out some of the posts by FishDoctor and see how large his baits are.


I prefer spin gear because I can cast it farther.

Unless you're after double digit wiper sized fish the drags should be adequate for on spin gear, even though generally baitcasters have really smooth drags.

You can cast further with spinning gear? That's hard to believe unless you've got some heavy duty surf outfit or something. When he says swimbaits he's referring to 6+ inch, 3+oz lures. And you can bomb something like that with a standard spinning outfit? Part of the reason I'm getting into baitcasting is the fact that when casting my bbz1s and stuff with my spinning outfit, it feels like the lure is in charge, not me. And that's not with an ultralight rod. I was using a medium-heavy rod and 20lb test. Or maybe you have an UL casting outfit? Or maybe you're just a freak spin fisher,an and I'm wrong! Haha those are all possibilities

 

[CadenceKing]

I used to think the same way. Took some convincing and me learning and setting aside my pride, but baitcasters are superior in nearly every fishing setting. I still use spinning gear for dropshotting and on occasion for working jerkbaits. Overall though, baitcasters are my main gear...small to large.

Use baitcasters for big baits OP, you'll be much happier.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on this. Although I still fish spinning a decent amount I plan to fully transition to baitcasters for everything except jerkbaits this season (I don't use many finesse techniques). Once I became comfortable with a baitcaster, I quickly realized how much better it was to fish with one for a whole day rather than a spinning outfit. The only reason I can see someone preferring spinning gear for baits over 1.5-2 ounces is that they have never tried baitcasters. Throwing that on spinning all day will make your finger fall off!

For those of you that are thinking about getting into bigger baits or baitcasters for the first time, my only suggestion is to at least consider lefty retrieves. As I guy that grew up solely with spinning gear, it would have been very frustrating to start fishing with my other hand and choosing the lefty made the transition relatively smooth. Still don't understand why everyone fishes righty and has to switch hands after the cast!

 

[mrwigglestheworm]

For those of you that are thinking about getting into bigger baits or baitcasters for the first time, my only suggestion is to at least consider lefty retrieves. As I guy that grew up solely with spinning gear, it would have been very frustrating to start fishing with my other hand and choosing the lefty made the transition relatively smooth. Still don't understand why everyone fishes righty and has to switch hands after the cast!

Yep ^^

I've never purchased a RH baitcaster. I'm right handed. It's dumb to switch hands, IMO. Nearly every manufacturer makes a LH version of their reels now.

 

[slayerfish]

Hey Kenny, ive caught a couple almost that big on 1/4 oz. Kastys- 6lb mono-

 

[whompuscat658]

Hey Kenny, ive caught a couple almost that big on 1/4 oz. Kastys- 6lb mono-

well I dunnit on five pound!!!

And private don't count!!!

 

[mrwigglestheworm]

Hey Kenny, ive caught a couple almost that big on 1/4 oz. Kastys- 6lb mono-

No doubt it can be done. Not saying they can't be caught on small gear. But I was fishing for big fish with my setup. Deliberately trying to weed out the smaller fish.

One of the biggest pike I've seen recently went over 20# 43" on 6# test fluoro with a tube jig. But how many small fish had to cut that line before he tricked that big fish into biting?

The swimbait game is just another tool in the arsenal, that I use when the conditions warrant such.

 

[FishDr]

You can definitely throw big swimbaits on spinning gear - it's the method of choice for folks in Europe who throw 1 - 4 oz lures at wels catfish, and they have specialized gear for it (typically 8 - 9 ft rods), matched with large SW spinning reels with serious drags, and a capacity of at least 150 yds of 65 - 80# braid.

I throw my swimbaits on casting gear for a couple of reasons.

1. I am very comfortable with casting gear and when I started fishing swimbaits, adding a couple more casting rods/reels to the stable was not a big step.
2. The swimbait-specific rods out there are generally (perhaps exclusively) casting rods.
3. I suspect (though I've not tested this myself) that if you have a casting swimbait outfit and a comparable spinning outfit, the spinning outfit would be heavier, just because the SW spinning reels tend to be fairly heavy.

That being said, I know of people who fish swimbaits on spinning gear and they do fine - to each their own! If you wanna try a spinning rod, look for something around the same length/action as a swimbait casting rod and you should be fine.

 

[whompuscat658]

You can definitely throw big swimbaits on spinning gear - it's the method of choice for folks in Europe who throw 1 - 4 oz lures at wels catfish, and they have specialized gear for it (typically 8 - 9 ft rods), matched with large SW spinning reels with serious drags, and a capacity of at least 150 yds of 65 - 80# braid.

I throw my swimbaits on casting gear for a couple of reasons.

1. I am very comfortable with casting gear and when I started fishing swimbaits, adding a couple more casting rods/reels to the stable was not a big step.
2. The swimbait-specific rods out there are generally (perhaps exclusively) casting rods.
3. I suspect (though I've not tested this myself) that if you have a casting swimbait outfit and a comparable spinning outfit, the spinning outfit would be heavier, just because the SW spinning reels tend to be fairly heavy.

That being said, I know of people who fish swimbaits on spinning gear and they do fine - to each their own! If you wanna try a spinning rod, look for something around the same length/action as a swimbait casting rod and you should be fine.

I have a Fin-nor 8500 with a xh rod that I've used for yellowtail and bluefin. I thought about trying it but decided against it. It would definitely work but it's just so damn big and heavy.

 

[mrwigglestheworm]

You can definitely throw big swimbaits on spinning gear - it's the method of choice for folks in Europe who throw 1 - 4 oz lures at wels catfish, and they have specialized gear for it (typically 8 - 9 ft rods), matched with large SW spinning reels with serious drags, and a capacity of at least 150 yds of 65 - 80# braid.

I throw my swimbaits on casting gear for a couple of reasons.

1. I am very comfortable with casting gear and when I started fishing swimbaits, adding a couple more casting rods/reels to the stable was not a big step.
2. The swimbait-specific rods out there are generally (perhaps exclusively) casting rods.
3. I suspect (though I've not tested this myself) that if you have a casting swimbait outfit and a comparable spinning outfit, the spinning outfit would be heavier, just because the SW spinning reels tend to be fairly heavy.

That being said, I know of people who fish swimbaits on spinning gear and they do fine - to each their own! If you wanna try a spinning rod, look for something around the same length/action as a swimbait casting rod and you should be fine.

Good info. Koldkut eluded to that as well in his post. I guess I was saying, if you're asking for advice, my advice would be to go baitcaster. Mainly for some of the reasons you posted above.

That said, I defer to the SB king....don't listen to me! Listen to the man!