The swimbait revival

“If you wait long enough, it will come back into style,” so the saying goes. This can be said for acid-washed jeans or plaid pants, but swimbaits are also coming back stron­ger than ever. Swimbaits are not new to walleye anglers. Many might recall the original Mister Twister Sassy Shad, Normark Vibrotail, or Renosky Super Shad. Each clones the minnow shape and has a pronounced boot or paddle tail. Legions of bass and walleye anglers used them, but these baits fell out of favour with many walleye anglers. Well, swimbaits are a hot tactic again, and with good reason. They catch big walleye. But, they’re not necessar­ily the swimbaits of the past. Having used swimbaits sparingly for years, I never really discovered their effectiveness until my first walleye tournament. Day one of the event found the entire field of anglers frozen to the bone from a wicked windstorm that whipped the lake to a froth. Trying to scratch out a limit, I drifted over a com­munity weedflat with a least a dozen other boats. The majority of anglers were drop­ping jigs in weed openings, hoping for a bite. Even with a large windsock out (a water para­chute used to slow a boat to a crawl), fish­ing was tough, at best. Perched at the front of the boat, my partner and I used three- and four-inch swimbaits on either ⅛- or ¼-ounce jig heads. The heavier baits were needed when the wind really kicked up or the water got deeper. Results were poor, but perse­verance paid off. Even under tough condi­tions, we caught a few walleye and I became a believer. That day proved the power of swimbaits years ago, but like most walleye anglers, I soon forgot about them. Now, the swim­bait craze has taken the fishing industry by storm. Swimbaits had always retained a devoted following, particularly with big-bass hunters in California and Mexico. As more bass tournaments were won using them, media attention grew, and now anglers in the north are again realizing their worth for walleye. OOD’s Lonnie King also realized years ago how important swimbaits were to his walleye tactics, noting a few distinctions that might surprise walleye anglers who are fans of twister-tailed grubs. “When guiding in Quebec, we would fish Twister Tails and Sassy Shads side by side, and the guy throw­ing the twister would catch smallmouths and the guy throwing the shad would