Sunday, July 17, 2016

Bird Swimbaits?

Aaron Martens won the 2015 Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on Lake Havasu by imitating baby blackbirds using a jig. The win has helped make bird swimbaits popular in the fishing world, even leading Savage Gear to make a 3D Duck swimbait with an ultra-realistic appearance. Here's a brief glimpse into how Martens approached the bird bite:

“I do that all the time,” said Martens, who earned the victory on Mother’s Day with his own mother, Carol, in the crowd. “I don’t know why people don’t believe me when I say it. The birds fall out of the nest, and the bass eat them. Birds are definitely part of their diet.”

Martens used a 1/2- or 3/4-ounce weight and a 4/0 Heavy-Cover Gamakatsu hook rigged with a green pumpkin punch skirt and one of two plastic trailers. His choice of trailer was determined by which weight he was using – it was a large Rage Craw for the 1/2-ounce rig and a Speed Craw for the 3/4-ounce setup.

He paid special attention to areas where lots of blackbirds were nesting.

“I probably shouldn’t even be talking about it, because I’ve known about it for 25 years,” said Martens, who said several fish spit up black feathers in his livewell during the tournament. “I’ve caught them in California and had them spit up full-grown blackbirds.

“Maybe it’s such a good pattern because so many people don’t believe it.”



The thickness of the tules that line the riverbanks, combined with the high winds that blew during much of the tournament, caused him lots of problems with tangles and forced him to change baits frequently. Once he hooked a fish deep in the tules, landing it was an adventure.

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