SP Forum is winding down.

Been a while, but I managed a solid 5lb-5oz NJ largemouth, enticed by slow waking a rat, in and around standing timber. With the shallow vegetation being non existent this season, I am targeting the next best option available to me for bass cover: standing timber, stumps and lay downs. Sometimes it's a risky move, especially bank fishing. But you have to put your offering where the bass may be holding up. I follow a simple strategy: find and hook the fish first, then figure out how to land it.

Great work; way to adjust your approach with the changed conditions!

My new PB chanel cat. I caught it night fishing a rat on the surface. 32" and 17½lbs!

Wow! That is a fatty

That’s giant catfish, taken with a surface rat swimbait no less. Congratulations Vic.

This was an interesting breakdown: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1LcSY7Thgs/?mibextid=wwXIfr Basically, what size bass in your state would be the equivalent to a 10lb bass in one of the elite trophy lake states. It’s always amazing how some anglers in one region do not understand that bass in other regions simply do not grow to 10lb class. Honestly, in NJ, where I fish, to me anything over 5lbs is a quality catch. I think this is even more important now especially since Florida strain bass and Northern strain bass are two separate species, and recognized by the IGFA as two separate records. What’s your thoughts ?

Nice graph, and great point! Down in texas some guys thing a 5 pounder is just a warm up. Here in IL where I do most of my fishing anything over 5 is big. My PB is a little over 6 and I only know of 2 people who have ever caught one over 7.

Nice! Elite Trophy Lakes 11-12lbers ...damn, sign me up!

Sometimes in our pursuit of giant bass, the angler, the bass and its prey, all loose. Such as the loss this quality 6lb-12oz, 22.5" largemouth bass due to its own gluttony, causing it to choke to its ultimate demise. Wish I could say I caught this one, but the reality is, l did not. This was truly a unique sight to see and puts things into perspective to learn from: This bass already appeared to have a full stomach and still tried to swallow a 12"+ catfish. We all know bass are opportunistic feeders, but this illustrates the point they will try to overtake prey of sizable proportions. I always say a bass doesn't have a mirror, and truly has no idea how big or small they really are. They just know they want to eat. An 8", 10" or larger bait is nothing to a hungry predator like the bass. - Another key point is how it swallowed this catfish, headfirst. This is valuable information for the angler looking to rig larger soft plastic baits. I'm not a big fan of back stinger hooks, and this is a great point on why they are not necessary, if one is truly looking for a giant bass. Giant bass will try and eat their prey the easiest way they can swallow it: headfirst. Backstory: On June 6th, 2026, I went for an early morning quick bank fishing session and saw this bass explode on the water. It was insane. Then it disappeared. Only to surface a short time later revealing it was struggling and choking. I tried to snag it for almost 30 minutes to see if I could, extract what it was choking on and save it. Unfortunately it quickly expired before I could do anything. Upon extracting the catfish, it was noticed besides its dorsal spines pinned in the roof of the bass mouth, its whisker barbs were already down the gullet making it impossible for the bass to spit the catfish back up and avoid its ultimate fate. I hope someone finds value in my sharing of this unique experience. I know I did, and it's not a total loss to the angler.

mossyback.angler wrote: Sometimes in our pursuit of giant bass, the angler, the bass and its prey, all loose. Such as the loss this quality 6lb-12oz, 22.5" largemouth bass due to its own gluttony, causing it to choke to its ultimate demise. Wish I could say I caught this one, but the reality is, l did not.This was truly a unique sight to see and puts things into perspective to learn from: This bass already appeared to have a full stomach and still tried to swallow a 12"+ catfish. We all know bass are opportunistic feeders, but this illustrates the point they will try to overtake prey of sizable proportions. I always say a bass doesn't have a mirror, and truly has no idea how big or small they really are. They just know they want to eat. An 8", 10" or larger bait is nothing to a hungry predator like the bass.- Another key point is how it swallowed this catfish, headfirst. This is valuable information for the angler looking to rig larger soft plastic baits. I'm not a big fan of back stinger hooks, and this is a great point on why they are not necessary, if one is truly looking for a giant bass. Giant bass will try and eat their prey the easiest way they can swallow it: headfirst.Backstory: On June 6th, 2026, I went for an early morning quick bank fishing session and saw this bass explode on the water. It was insane.Then it disappeared. Only to surface a short time later revealing it was struggling and choking. I tried to snag it for almost 30 minutes to see if I could, extract what it was choking on and save it.Unfortunately it quickly expired before I could do anything. Upon extracting the catfish, it was noticed besides its dorsal spines pinned in the roof of the bass mouth, its whisker barbs were already down the gullet making it impossible for the bass to spit the catfish back up and avoid its ultimate fate.I hope someone finds value in my sharing of this unique experience. I know I did, and it's not a total loss to the angler. Very cool experience to have! Validates the butch brown method of rigging for sure

This is pretty awesome. Crazy you saw that, and great lessons learned. My uncle had the same thing happen this summer when he caught a 24" pile and an even larger one came and ate it. I saw the same thing happen with a 9" (approx) rockbass. All instances were head first. I will say, the rockbass was t-boned and the northern then adjusted it.

Testing and troubleshooting here!

What's up fellas! Big Epp from Swimbait Underground here. I'm looking forward to figuring out this platform and getting connected.

What’s good brother. Great to see you on the forum.

yellowpineplugs wrote: What's up fellas! Big Epp from Swimbait Underground here. I'm looking forward to figuring out this platform and getting connected. We are still actively building and adding features to it, thank you for joining and we promise to take care of ya!

sacpigbaitco wrote: yellowpineplugs wrote:What's up fellas! Big Epp from Swimbait Underground here. I'm looking forward to figuring out this platform and getting connected.We are still actively building and adding features to it, thank you for joining and we promise to take care of ya! Sounds good. And, thanks for the invite, @mossyback!

Wakebaits to me, is some of the most fun and exciting baits to fish. The anticipation of a big blow up or the subtle slurp off the top of the water, leading to a big bass is always something special. It’s such a visual experience that is to be remembered . Rats, bluegills, even multi jointed trout wakebaits all produce. A couple tactics I employ are pretty straight forward. Most seasoned wakebait anglers will probably be familiar with them. But maybe there is something that might help others as the community here grows. That’s the goal of starting this topic. Let’s talk tactics and tips: I like to look for shallow flats that have submerged vegetation. I tend to favor baits that “knock” to draw fish up and out of the vegetation. These baits also work well when there is a little disturbance on the water. Another technique I started doing last season, was adding weight to almost make a wakebait suspend (or super slow rise) as I cranked it down. This particularly works well with bluegill style baits. Cast it out, crank it down, and slow retrieve. Throw in a couple of pauses or even a deadwalk and you can absolutely get bit. I found this to be effective over deeper vegetation, or favorably running it parallel along a weed line. My final tip is for fishing extremely calm, glass like water conditions, especially at night or low light. Use a 1pc rat with cord assist hooks. This is something I was clued in on when I purchased a 1pc that had cord assist hooks. Think about it: a rat really is silent when it swims. So eliminating a lot of the unnatural noise traditional split rings and hooks make, and replacing them with cord assist hooks really silences a bait. Not to mention it’s a 1pc bait, so there is no “knock” sound. To me, this makes a bait sound a bit more natural and subtle. What you end up with is the natural sounds the water makes, as the bait is swaying during the retrieve. Add that nice wake behind it and you have a super effective technique. So what are some tips or strategies you may have? Please share and see if we can all learn from each other.

mossyback.angler wrote: Wakebaits to me, is some of the most fun and exciting baits to fish. The anticipation of a big blow up or the subtle slurp off the top of the water, leading to a big bass is always something special. It’s such a visual experience that is to be remembered . Rats, bluegills, even multi jointed trout wakebaits all produce. A couple tactics I employ are pretty straight forward. Most seasoned wakebait anglers will probably be familiar with them. But maybe there is something that might help others as the community here grows. That’s the goal of starting this topic. Let’s talk tactics and tips:I like to look for shallow flats that have submerged vegetation. I tend to favor baits that “knock” to draw fish up and out of the vegetation. These baits also work well when there is a little disturbance on the water. Another technique I started doing last season, was adding weight to almost make a wakebait suspend (or super slow rise) as I cranked it down. This particularly works well with bluegill style baits. Cast it out, crank it down, and slow retrieve. Throw in a couple of pauses or even a deadwalk and you can absolutely get bit. I found this to be effective over deeper vegetation, or favorably running it parallel along a weed line. My final tip is for fishing extremely calm, glass like water conditions, especially at night or low light. Use a 1pc rat with cord assist hooks. This is something I was clued in on when I purchased a 1pc that had cord assist hooks. Think about it: a rat really is silent when it swims. So eliminating a lot of the unnatural noise traditional split rings and hooks make, and replacing them with cord assist hooks really silences a bait. Not to mention it’s a 1pc bait, so there is no “knock” sound. To me, this makes a bait sound a bit more natural and subtle. What you end up with is the natural sounds the water makes, as the bait is swaying during the retrieve. Add that nice wake behind it and you have a super effective technique. So what are some tips or strategies you may have? Please share and see if we can all learn from each other. I still cant get enough of fishing the 1pc with some assist cords, it always produces. The more pressured the water, the better the 1pc/tail/assist cord works. Some of the things that I wanted to add and key in on. Shallow flats with vege is always a great area. The king for me is fishing parallel on drop off points, distance casts only. I know a lot of people approach to catch as many fish as possible, but i will blow out 4-5 viable casts to do 1 big one, then move to a new spot. This method works so good and produces so many fish for me and also RELIABLE! It's possible to reproduce these results on any body of water.

We are adding private messaging and quoting on posts as we speak. I will give some updates on this thread as we go, if you have any features or suggestions , post them here!

I know this is heavily discussed, but what do you guys think a swimbait is? It just happens to share a name with something that conventional fishing has, like a Keitech. It seemed like a much more streamlined answer back sometime, for the swimbait community. Since more and more people got into this business, I think it kinda opened up the definition a bit.

I think the swimbait category is a double edge sword. It’s a genre of fishing that can be interpreted by each individual and there really is no right or wrong answer. For all intents and purposes I think the category should be changed to “Big Baits” vs. “Swimbaits”. However the OG’s who started the swimbait craze gave it the moniker of “Swimbait”, hence why, most, including me, consider large baits “swimbaits” when talking about that style of fishing. Again, it’s all subjective to the individual. So my opinion on what is a true swimbait: it’s a soft bait, 6” or bigger, that looks and mimics the swimming nature of a fish. Now this next part might ruffle a few feathers, and I mean no disrespect to anyone. A glidebait is a glidebait, a wakebait is a wakebait. They are not true swimbaits in my opinion, and should fall under that Big Bait category. I think that would be a better name suited for that style of fishing. Yes, this also includes multi jointed hard baits and walking baits like a Lunker Punker as well. I love fishing wakebaits, rats and other large baits, and yes I am guilty as well of categorizing and calling them “swimbaits”. But it’s also like how people refer to all locking pliers as “Vice Grips” or all acetaminophen as “Tylenol”, it’s just how the wording was used and adopted. That’s my opinion and thoughts on the subject. Chris~~~

Def a hot take, I just call everything home made or resin a swimbait haha, as long as its over like 1oz. Im lazy af tho and all worms are senkos too

When I hear "swimbait" I go one of two ways depending on context, it's either a boot tailed soft plastic like a sassy shad or keitech, or I think of it as a hyper realistic unlipped, multi segmented hard bait. That's if I'm splitting hairs... On an average day I'll use the term in reference to anything boot tailed, hyper realistic, big, or generally awesome including but not limited to rats, crawlers, wakes, glides, wedge tailed, etc... I definitely fall into the big baits are swimbaits category though. I don't consider a 3" wakebait that looks like a crank bait a swimbait, but I do consider rats (and even small mice) swimbaits. I'm a generalist, and I apply that to fishing unless the situation necessitates otherwise... Despite this, I do NOT consider large top water walkers swimbaits. Maybe because they're not jointed, I don't know, but I do draw the line there. Punkers are not swimbaits.

yellowpineplugs wrote: When I hear "swimbait" I go one of two ways depending on context, it's either a boot tailed soft plastic like a sassy shad or keitech, or I think of it as a hyper realistic unlipped, multi segmented hard bait. That's if I'm splitting hairs... On an average day I'll use the term in reference to anything boot tailed, hyper realistic, big, or generally awesome including but not limited to rats, crawlers, wakes, glides, wedge tailed, etc... I definitely fall into the big baits are swimbaits category though. I don't consider a 3" wakebait that looks like a crank bait a swimbait, but I do consider rats (and even small mice) swimbaits. I'm a generalist, and I apply that to fishing unless the situation necessitates otherwise...Despite this, I do NOT consider large top water walkers swimbaits. Maybe because they're not jointed, I don't know, but I do draw the line there. Punkers are not swimbaits. I tend to fall into this line of thinking also, but I do consider a plunker a swimbait because the weight. A regular spook no, but something about the size and wood qualifies for me

After catching hundreds of fish on it, I always ask myself, "Am I having fun using it?". This simple question answers things like, is my tail getting caught in the hooks? How was the hookup ratio? Can you slowly/quickly reel the bait without it blowing out? I find if any of these are negative, plus a plethora more, then I am not having fun.

Couldn’t agree more, if I’m not having fun with the bait that’s a good indicator that something needs to be addressed. If I am having fun, the fish are biting, and it passes my durability tests… I chalk that up as a win 😁

lazybaitsco wrote: Couldn’t agree more, if I’m not having fun with the bait that’s a good indicator that something needs to be addressed. If I am having fun, the fish are biting, and it passes my durability tests… I chalk that up as a win 😁 100%, the durability is always a nice factor to have. I remembered my first travel 2pc I poured, caught a 11lb catfish on it that night. I was excited to catch the catfish, but more excited of the prospect that it survived a fish that no bass could produced the same force on the bait.

Right. When it functions as desired and does not have any features that irritate me.

yellowpineplugs wrote: Right. When it functions as desired and does not have any features that irritate me. This is huge... I know this sounds strange, but i forge my baits from hatred. If i hate the feature, i try to find a fix. After 6-7 months of testing, I've worked out most of the things that ruin my experience.

sacpigbaitco wrote: yellowpineplugs wrote:Right. When it functions as desired and does not have any features that irritate me.This is huge... I know this sounds strange, but i forge my baits from hatred. If i hate the feature, i try to find a fix. After 6-7 months of testing, I've worked out most of the things that ruin my experience. Right! It might look right at first, but once a new design hits the water things get found out.

yellowpineplugs wrote: sacpigbaitco wrote:yellowpineplugs wrote:Right. When it functions as desired and does not have any features that irritate me.This is huge... I know this sounds strange, but i forge my baits from hatred. If i hate the feature, i try to find a fix. After 6-7 months of testing, I've worked out most of the things that ruin my experience.Right! It might look right at first, but once a new design hits the water things get found out. Fishing and catching fish are so crucial to the process and can't be exported out to people who dont create. Gotta do it yourself!

11lb 28in Bass (https://www.instagram.com/p/DZot9RDIImW/) Not caught by me, but I was recruited to help weigh and measure it! Glad I could help out the locals

My heart was and still is racing. What a fun way to catch a giant https://www.instagram.com/p/DZkraL4IlrT/

All items up on www.sacpig.com are 20% off (besides merch), including microballoons! Sale will go on until the end of Wednesday!

I just wanted to quickly run down some tips for pouring resin! 1. Convert all volume to weight, I prefer grams. Every time you scoop Microballoons in a volumetric measuring device, the numbers will not be the same. Adding 15g will be the same every time. 2. Mix your balloons and hardener (the thicker part of the 2) together first, let it sit for 5min, then mix in the thinner part. 3. Use extra wide popsicle sticks, microwave them to decrease moisture content in the wood 4. Never use plastic (red solo) cups for your resin mixing. It breaks down the plastic cup and releases extra VOC's into the air. 5. Use wax lined paper cups or mixing cups designed for resin. 6. Get some rechargeable silica packets for your balloons and cycle them relentlessly. https://www.amazon.com/FURWEY-Rechargeable-Desiccant-Indicating-Dehumidifier/dp/B0DM1DXSGR/ref=sr_1_15?sr=8-15 7. If you are using the www.microballoons.com Balloons, and followed #2. Mix hard and fast. Sweep the cup and make sure to scrape all sides and the bottom as you go. Try to pour as quickly as possible, do not worry about introducing air from mixing fast. 8. If you have straight edges in your mold or pointy ears (like me), they can be tough to cast properly. The solution is, open your clamshell mold and mix up a small amount of resin/balloons and paint it on the problem areas. Close up the mold and pour. Presto!!! NO MORE PROBLEM AREAS! 9. Resin, Microballoons, cups, popsicle sticks all accrue moisture over time. If you see pitting or bubbles on the surface if your resin bait and you are below 40% mixture by weight, then you more than likely are experiencing water damage somewhere. Feel free to post below some of your tips. This is why the forum is good, it would of took looking through 500+ IG posts to find all this info. Now other people can post and we have a solidified source to help people. Can't wait to hear your tips!

These are some awesome Tips! Hard to add to that list :) I would add, keep your workspace as organized as possible and nail down a good process especially when running multiple molds. I find that having a process to follow helps me be more efficient and consistent. Keep your PPE close by, if its too hard to find you might forget to use it! If possible try to have a mostly climate controlled work area, things like temperature and humidity can cause resin to cure at different rates. This means what worked great in the spring might not work in the summer when your shop is 30 degrees hotter. And just to reiterate on your point regarding water... Be VERY mindful of sealing your resin and microballoons when not in use. Surprisingly in my experience the resin is affected more by moisture, if you ever notice your hardener (typically side A) turning a darker color or crystalizing that could indicate water intrusion. When this happens in extreme cases you will notice your cured mixture expands more like a muffin (small pockets inside). This drastically reduces the density therefore making your bait more buoyant and less hard/ durable. Love that we have a place to share these tips! Hoping to see more of them :)

I recently had the opportunity to work with Specialty Resin & Chemical to make a Tips and Tricks video for making resin baits. Of course part of that was our favorite SacPig Microballoons! Give it a watch! Hopefully there is some helpful info in there :) And add some of your favorite Tips and Tricks in this Thread! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjridDorRDE

This is the official thread to post your submitting your cast to catch. We are still finalizing the page, so expect changes before the start of season 1, and changes to other seasons as we expand and find ways to improve. I wont changes the rules mid season unless they are actually breaking the format. I know the picture says Submit on multiple platforms, which will be changes. This is the only thread that matters for submitting your catches/videos/Youtube video. I cannot manage that many pictures myself. Working on adding more prizes, i will get some stickers up also on the prize page and will be expanded as SacPig's product list grows also. Each season will only have 3 winners who have the MOST verified points Youtube may be used once every season, but you get unlimited C2c and pictures. There is 1 caveat, you may only submit one of each per day. The YT quest reward can be done at any time however.

I know its going to be hard to get people to move out of IG/FB and other websites, but once we get 4-5 people I will start this immediately.