|
Jesse's Hunting > Fishing Articles > Fishing Gear > Fishing the Swimming Senko
Fishing the Swimming Senko
Brad Swadley - JHO ProStaff
- Dallas, TX
June 19, 2008
It was one of those sleepless, restless nights… The home security system is not a good substitute for an alarm clock. I attempted to go back to sleep but to no avail. The rest of the morning would find me tired, but moving forward. But the outlook was bright: my buddy Dale and I were headed out to chase black bass with Gary Yamamoto’s new bait, the Swimming Senko.
When the Senkos first came out on the market, I was not that impressed with the looks. Impregnated with a coarse salt, the little chunk of plastic just hung limp in my fingers. Still, I went on to fish with this lure and was pleasantly surprised at just how good it enticed the fish to bite. In fact, next to top-water baits, it has become one of my favorite lures to throw, particularly version with the lime-green and white body. Fish of all sizes attack it.
Swimming Senko
Gary Yamamoto's upgrade to the original came through for the author in Texas. |
My buddy Dale belongs to the North American Fishing and Hunting club. They have several locations in Texas and Georgia where they enter into an agreement with landowners to allow them and their club members to fish their ponds, and this is where we’d be fishing. These ponds range anywhere from one acre up to one hundred acres, black bass are plentiful, but several have good concentrations of crappie and hybrid bluegill. Some landowners even allow you to keep some of the fish, in order to maintain a good balance and quantity that encourage the large lunkers to grow.
The 100 acre lake we would be fishing on Sunday was called Oak Wood. Located near the town of Palestine in east Texas, the property also has a high fence hunting opportunity if you so happen to be in the mood. In fact, we saw several nice healthy deer on the property. There was thick brush throughout the area and the landowner had been working on clearing some out. A cabin on the front of the property looked to be maintained in good shape.
Somehow, I had been able to talk my wife into letting me go fishing on Mother’s Day, but we had taken Saturday and used that as her special day. A chicken dinner was the last piece for me to do to complete the day with her, then I wrapped that up, loaded up the truck, and headed over to Dale’s. We had to meet the landowner at 6:30am at the gate and only had a fifteen minute window. Since I lived another hour away, we had decided the best thing for me to do was stay the night at Dale’s and we would get up and head out from there.
I arrived at Dale’s and learned that we had to be up at 3:30am to be able to make it on time. For those that know me, I am not a morning person. But on days like this, I try my best to get up and leave out on time. So I finally made it to bed around 10:00pm that evening. I was tired and fell quickly to sleep. A dark morning greeted me as I slowly rose out of bed. Dale was already up and skirting about the house, getting everything ready. I went in and splashed some water on my face and maneuvered my contacts in. I gathered up what few things I had brought and headed out for the truck. Dale finished loading and off we headed down the highway.
Talk quickly turned to the lake we would be fishing and the various reports that had been posted on the website over the past few months. Black bass in the nine to eleven pound range had been documented, so that further added to the oncoming excitement. We continued to discuss that and the new bait. Boats were located at Oak Wood, so we didn’t have to take a boat. We did, however, bring along Dale’s trolling motor and battery. This would prove to be a good move later that morning.
We arrived and met the owner on time at 6:30am after a quick doughnut and kolache breakfast in Palestine. The wind had picked up and we headed down to the lake. We spotted several young deer in good health on the way down. We arrived at the lake and loaded up one of the boats that was there, resting on the gravel ramp. I took a look around and noticed that the lake was lined in lily pads and there were several spots of stickups located throughout. The lake was laid out with a dogleg about half way down.
We mounted the trolling motor onto the boat and then piled everything else in. There was a small wooden dock that stretched about twenty feet out into the water. We cruised out with the trolling motor on high. We had already primed the rods with lures and I had the Swimming Senko in green pumpkin located on the end of my rod. I utilized it pretty much the whole morning. The first cove we came to I had a few nibbles. Same for Dale, but the cove looked quite inviting. It was small and in the back was the small spillway. Brush lined the banks in this cove with sparse lily pads around as well. Looked like black bass heaven, but none seemed to be interested in what we were offering.
We headed up the main part of the lake into the wind. The wind was quite heavy and made navigating the small aluminum boat hard. We finally found our way into a little pocket cove chocked full of lily pads, but with a decent size opening in the middle of them. After the second cast, I landed a nice two pound bass. Things were looking up all of a sudden, and the adrenaline started to kick in. Dale had to work out a tangle in his reel and no more bites came from this area.
We pulled out into the main body of the lake and headed for the far northeast shore which was somewhat protected from the brisk northern wind. We caught a few more small fish before cutting across to the other side of the lake. We wanted to try out the area across from the ramp which looked to be somewhat protected from the northern wind. We pulled up and I started to fish the Swimming Senko. I spotted a small log protruding out past the end of the lily pads and splashed the lure into the water. No sooner had it started to sink than “Wham!”, a nice three and a half pound bass attacked it. We continued to fish down this shore battling the wind a little, and having some pretty good luck. We did notice that we were starting to take on water and that the trolling motor was acting up, so it was decided to head to shore and switch boats and trolling motors.
We headed out from the dock and decided to fish the same shore again. Once again, luck would shine on us and we were able to catch several more bass in this area. We then headed out to some stickups to try our luck there, as the wind had died down some. Dale picked up a nice bass, but that was about it. We gave the shore one more try and then headed for the dam where we picked up a couple more fish before finally heading in.
Overall it was a very productive day with about thirty five bass finding their way into our grip. The Swimming Senko had proven to be a good bait for this and had accounted for about fifteen of those bass.
Once again, Gary Yamamoto comes through with a great bait. If you liked the regular Senko’s, you will love this version. The bait comes in several colors, although I primarily used the green pumpkin color during this trip. Impregnated with salt, the only thing we could find that bothered us was the fact it was somewhat brittle. Users of the original would know this to be true for them as well... probably due to all the salt that has been added to the plastic. Overall,I would recommend this bait for your next outing in search of that lunker black bass.
|
