Gary Dobyns
Fall Is Prime Time To Fish Swimbaits

"They're really at their best once the water turns over in the fall," said California's Gary Dobyns, the WON Bass all-time leading money winner. "When you have fish scattered all over the place and they're coming up shallow, and the trout are up chasing bait, it just seems like everything comes alive.

"I'll always have a rod rigged up with one on the deck of my boat, and foul weather makes them even more effective. If you've got wind and rain or any kind of low-pressure system, that makes the bigger fish even more active."

Most western lakes are also home to trout, and the vast majority of the swimbaits he throws are salmonid imitations.

"I'll even use them in the (California) Delta, and there aren't any trout in there except for a few steelhead occasionally. But those bass still eat trout-colored baits the best."

Four Favorites

Swimbaits can be expensive, and nobody wants to cough up a thick wad of hard-earned money for one that won't catch fish. Following is a brief rundown of Dobyns' favorites.

• Huddleston Deluxe: "That's one that about ought to be illegal: it looks like a fish, feels like a fish and swims like a fish. It's got good weight in it, so it's easy to fish in deeper water."

• Osprey: "I throw the Osprey most of the time in water that's 3 feet deep or less. It's got just enough weight to keep it swimming, and it swims totally different than the Huddleston."

• Spro BBZ1: "It's a new hard bait (the Huddleston and Osprey are soft-plastic) that's taken off like a rocket. They've got three kinds – floating, slow sink and fast sink. The fast is a foot per second, so you can count that one down. They've got great action and just beautiful paint jobs."

• River2Sea Live Eye Bottom Walker: "This is another soft-plastic one I like, and I keep it touching the bottom at all times. It's heavier in the nose and that stirs up sediment, and I think it attracts fish. It's THE bait at Clear Lake in the springtime."

Losses are Inevitable

Dobyns said that if you're fishing swimbaits properly, you're going to get them hung up occasionally. And there are times when you aren't going to get them back.

"It's really just a big crankbait and it should be fished that way. It should be fished around some structure and you should be bumping the bottom sometimes. If you fish it right, you're going to lose some baits."

Soft-plastic baits might begin to tear after just a few fish, so he repairs them with Pro's Soft-Bait Glue.

"It can save you some money and get you a few more fish out of that bait."

Swimbaits as Locators

There are times when bass won't bite swimbaits, but they'll rarely ignore them. Dobyns often uses them to locate fish that he can later attempt to catch with other baits.

"You can go down a bank catching nothing but small fish, and you might think there's not a big fish anywhere near there," he said. "But even if the big ones won't eat it, they'll probably follow it.

"I'll use them as a locating bait, especially on a calm, flat day with good light penetration, when the fish can see you and you can see them. They just can't stand it and they have to come out and look at it.

"Even if you have to go back and catch them on something else, at least you'll find out where some of them are."

Notable

> Dobyns fishes most swimbaits on 20- to 25-pound P-Line CXX copolymer. "But if I'm around grass, like in the Delta, and there's no reason for them to be line-shy, then I always use 50- to 65-pound Power Pro braid."

> He often throws swimbaits first thing in the morning, and will spend a significant amount of time tossing them if he's got a solid limit and he's in pursuit of a big kicker.