Brand New Skirt Technology for 2007! Yes, that is a brand new style of silicone skirt that has all the good properties of living rubber - but it's made of a new generation of super-silicone material. Bassdozer's Store is one of the first and only sources for these new wrapped skirts.

Super-silicone is a soft and supple material that has a non-stop wriggling, swimming movement even on slow speed retrieves.

It has the lively action of living rubber but won't fade, it won't get old and brittle.

Three layers of Super-Silicone material are used. All three layers can be the same or different colors. All three layers or "wraps" are of this new and lower durometer (softer) Super-Silicone material.

• First, the innermost underlying core strands are wide, flat spears with pointed ends, just like the old time rubber
• Next, two consecutive but separate wraps of thin-cut strands are rolled or wrapped on top

All the slim (two layers) and wide (1 layer) strands are of this new and different durometer softer silicone.

The Super-Silicone layers are wrapped around or onto a solid hard silicone center hub or core. So the skirts are easiy to get on or off lures thanks to this sturd

Before the strands are sliced, the material is in sheet form. Both the thin-cut and wide-cut strands are made from the same sheets, in many colors, but none with glitter or flake. The Super-Silicone material is so thin that glitter flakes are too thick to put into the sheets.

 The picture below shows the skirts "inside out" so what you see on the "outside" here are the wider spearpoint strands. On a lure, these wider spearpoint strands would belong on the inside of the skirt.

Wrapped skirts are three inches long. When put on a lure like a spinnerbait, buzzbait or jig, these wrapped skirts are as long and as full as standard skirts.

Skirts go on lures so that the strands fold back or bend back over the hook. Water pushing against the bent-back strands are what causes the intense swimming motion.

To feel these skirts, they are lighter, more airy, more quiver, stretchier, softer, more rubbery than standard silicone skirts. They have a more active wriggling swimming motion than standard silicone skirts. Perfect for spinnerbaits, buzzbaits and jigs. Why not give them a try?

Bassdozer's Store is one of the first and only sources for these new wrapped skirts.

The price is for a pack of five (5) skirts all the same color and size as shown below :

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ White

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Chartreuse White

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Citrus Shad

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Chartreuse

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Pumpkin Chartreuse

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Green Pumpkin

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Green Pumpkin Black

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Black

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Wrapped ~ Black Red

Black Blue Flash Skirt. New skirt foiling technique for 2007! Each and every one of the 44 strands are heavily foiled in a non-descript, irregular pattern on both sides with metallic blue foil flash.

Rattles are often used on flipping jigs and these skirt bands have two sockets to accept two industry standard rattle pods. Rattles not included. Rattle pods sold separately in Bassdozer's Store. Better yet, try the easy on/easy off rattle nunchakus also sold in Bassdozer's Store. The nunchakus have more action, more noise and they move out of the way when a fish hits. Thank you.

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Black Blue Flash

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ White Shad

Has 44 strands in all. The first 22 strands are light, almost white silver pearl. The other 22 strands on the top half are a little darker (but still light) silver pearl.

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Watermelon Candy #2

Bright green watermelon strands heavily infused with toms of metallic light purple micro-glitter. The purple glitter is shinier and permeates the skirt more than photo can show.

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Brown Sunfish #2

Half brown pumpkin with green metal flake. Half dark orange pumpkin with green metal flake. Wholly good.

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Green Pumpkin Blend

Half green pumpkin blended with half mottled green pumpkin.

Photo makes strands look browner than they actually are. Strands are more of a dark green color than shown in photo.

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Green Pumpkin

Photo makes strands look browner than they actually are. Strands are more of a dark green color than shown in photo.

5 Spinnerbait/Jig Skirts ~ Mottled Green Pumpkin

Photo makes strands look browner than they actually are. Strands are more of a dark green color than shown in photo.

Spoon Jig. Weighs 1/2 oz. Heavy duty 6/0 Mustad UltraPoint hook.

Made of tin for more lively side-to-side action than lead.

Aerodynamic. Streamlined shape makes for extra long distance casts, even against a stiff breeze.

A Lip for Soft Baits. Think of the Spoon Jig as a diving lip that makes a soft bait wiggle and roll like a lipped crankbait or plastic-lipped jerkbait.

Wire Brush Guard. Wire can be fine-tuned for the optimum hookset under any and all conditions. Wire brush guard has equivalent snag-resistance as standard fiber brush guard - except the wires can be precisely adjusted for the conditions at hand.

In open water, bend brushguard down and in to the sides below the hook point. Otherwise, adjust for more or less snagless defense depending on the cover at hand. You can even adjust from cast to cast, say to fish a gnarly laydown for a few casts, simply adjust brushguard for more defense. Once you move past the log area, adjust for a little less defense.

Keep in mind, the brush guard serves more as side deflectors (vee'd out to the sides) rather than straight up directly in front of the point.

Flip It. Can be flipped or pitched into tight cover like any weedless jig. Let it hit bottom, hop it a bit, then swim it out, wiggling its tail all the way.

Cast and Retrieve It. Can be fished shallow or deep, and attracts suspended bass in mid-depths. Comes through cover surprisingly swell! Equally at home off deep points and ledges - or anywhere.

Can be used like a spinnerbait also, with a skirt and long-tailed trailer.

Use Big Worms, Flukes, Slug-Gos, Senkos, etc. Ideal for any beefy worms or long-bodied soft baits over five inches long. You've seen Senkos shimmy and wiggle before, just never with an eel-like S-shaped swimming motion like this! Slug-Gos develop a fast-whipping tail motion like a frantic baitfish that bass can't resist. Many other long-bodied baits have enhanced swimming actions, which can be adjusted. with the Spoon Jig. You see, the line tie eye is stainless steel and also adjustable. So you can fine-tune the swimming action of any bait used as a dressing.

 It's like a crankbait bill for soft baits, except snagless.

I've added the red and green pumpkin colors to the shakey swim jig series, making two sizes (1/8 and 5/32 oz) in three colors (black, red and green pumpkin). Please enjoy.

5 Shakey Swim Jigs ~ 1/8 oz ~ Red

5 Shakey Swim Jigs ~ 1/8 oz ~ Green Pumpkin

We're witnessing an unprecedented shift of pro bass fishing techniques the past few seasons (from 2005 onward).

On the top pro tours in the USA, the legacy and domination of top pro wins with staunch staples like crankbaits, Texas-rigged worms, flipping jigs and spinnerbaits isn't over, but it's not the only way anymore. Lures, tactics and even locations being fished by winning pros are often new and unfamiliar at pro levels. A few examples include mop-sized rubber jigs, saltwater-sized pencil poppers, waking plastic-lipped floating and jointed minnows, plus humongous soft swimbaits to name a few unprecedented approaches we've seen pros embrace and win with lately. Some of these lures and techniques are regional practices not widely-used outside their areas, such as mop jigs in Georgia, big trout swimbaits in California or wiggle diggles (jointed Red Fins) in Missouri for example.

What all these regional favorites have in common is that these techniques are being used (many for the first time) by top pro anglers to win in top competitions.

The last several seasons, top pros have won and place highly with such new tactics. New, that is, at top pro levels. With the heavy media coverage of top pros on TV and in fishing magazines, these new and often regional tactics become communicated and disseminated to local and recreational anglers everywhere, causing major shifts in lure usage nationwide.

That's not to say every bass angler has gone and gotten a saltwater pencil popper or mop-sized jig, but do you have a Chatterbait due to top tournament successes reported with it in early 2006? Do you have a new interest in fishing deep with football jigs or shakey jigs since top pros have repeatedly won with such jig types by fishing deeper locations the past two seasons? Like many bass anglers, you probably have or will incorporate shakey jigs and football jigs into your repertoire, based on top pro's recent successes with such lures.

The shakey jig in particular was virtually unheard of across much of the country - until top pro anglers started to use them about three seasons ago. Since then, due to top pros continuing to demonstrate success with shakey jigs, it is an incredibly popular tactic across the USA today.

Shakey jigs are associated with long, slender finesse worms and with 6, 8 or 10 pound test finesse spinning gear. It's hard to find a winning pro today who isn't using finesse spinning gear as part of his winning methods today. Consider however, such gear was relatively unused by top pros until two seasons ago.

Shakey jigs are not really geared toward shallow water or the bank. One accepted way to use a shakey jig is to let it hit bottom in moderately deep water, say in the 10 to 30 foot range. Many anglers believe the shakey jig design will stand a finesse worm upright on its nose (which actually isn't the case much of the time). As the name implies, many anglers then shake the line to make the worm quiver and shake on the bottom. Keep in mind however, it's often the initial fall and touchdown - or it is a lackluster pause in the shaking process, when most bites occur.

Left and right: Shakey jigs for bottom contact. Center two: Shakey swim jigs.

Shakey Swim Jigs. The Shakey Swim Jigs you see here can be used and works swell exactly as described above in a bottom-hugging approach.  Yet its special value is, as the name implies, swimming and shaking it, keeping it moving above bottom. Swimming and shaking - not bottom-hugging - is what this Shakey Swim Jig is all about.

Shakey Swim Jigs. Getting the most out of swimming soft baits is the raison d'etre for this shakey swim jig head. The shakey swim jig is optimized for swimming style soft baits like Gary Yamamoto's Swimming Senko, single tail grubs or any other brand or model of soft plastic bait used with the swimming method. However, it will work swell with straight-tail worms, small craw worms or any other soft baits that can be rigged on it. It is not designed to bounce bottom, although it can do that perfectly. It is purposely designed and optimized to swim soft baits anywhere from just below the surface to just above the bottom, and all mid-level depths in between:

1. Sub-Surface. Use near the surface, and just keep it coming at you in open water. It can be swam through weeds emerging close to the surface - or swam through deeper weed beds growing closer to the bottom.
    
2. Mid-Strolling. o swim through suspended bass at any mid depth in the water column (called "mid-strolling" in Japan).

   Mid-strolling is a technique whereby a Japanese angler casts out and will softly shake the rod tip ever-so-gently little by little and have the lure swim back to the angler anywhere from 3 to 15 feet deep in the middle range of the water column - slowly. The retrieve speed can be from zero (just letting the lure pendulum fall back toward you with no reeling) to whatever reeling pace is needed to maintain a target depth level. That is, you should reel slower to maintain a 15 foot depth level, often requiring momentary pauses in the retrieve. Brief pauses in the reeling not only help the jig counter its ever-present tendency to ride up higher in the water, but the brief pauses are also high percentage strike moments. During the pause, the jig will reverse its tendency to rise and it will instead want to settle lower. When reeling is resumed, the jig will again want to ride up again. The overall up-down-up effect of a brief pause is a natural strike trigger.

   So you will need to reel slower (often requiring pauses) to maintain a deeper strolling level. You will need to reel a little quicker (with the rod tip up) to maintain a higher (say a five foot) strolling level through the water column.

   What anglers in Japan do during the retrieve, they shake it maybe 75% of the time. The other 25% should be equally-spaced, short intervals when it falls or glides slowly. Think of three slow turns of the reel (75%) while lightly shaking, then one slower, steady turn (25%) without shaking.

   The mid-strolling technique excels under tough conditions, or whenever bass are suspended at mid-levels in the water column.
    

3. Swimming Deep and Slow. Swimming soft baits deep and slow close to the bottom can be done with the same tactics as mid-strolling, except touching bottom opccasionally to makwe sure you are inthe strike zone. There are many times that bass wil not rise much above bottom, and the painstakingly slow method of swimming jigs just above bottom often gets them when mid-depth or surface presentations fail.

The same size 4/0 Mustad Ultra Point round bend hook is used in both the 1/8 and 5/32 oz shakey swim jig sizes. This strong medium wire hook matches well with 6, 8, 10 or up to 12 lb test line. The hook has an extremely low angle eye positioned to shed weeds and debris as the jig swims through cover. This jig and hook work best with finesse-sized soft baits and finesse fishing rods/reels/lines in the 6, 8, 10 class range, up to 12 pound test. On such gear, the jig can handle something up to the size of a 5" Senko or 5" Swimming Senko with ease.

The hook point can be rigged exposed for fishing open water, tex-exposed for light to medium cover, and Texas rigged for dense cover as shown here:

Don't screw the bait down too tightly too close to the jig head. There are more than enough turns on the screw wire so that just a few turns will attach a soft bait more securely than most any other means of attachment including glue. So don't screw the bait on too tightly. In fact, try to "suspend" the bait relatively set back from the jig head on the wire coil.

One common theory with jigs is to incorporate the jig head as a part of the bait presentation. An example is a jig head shaped like a fish face with eyes, realistically etch gills, etched fins, etc. With the swimming shakey jig here, it is not part of the bait presentation. Don't try to incorporate it as the head of the worm or bait. It is only a dot of ballast strategically suspended on the hook wire in order to aid casting distance, accuracy and most importantly, to govern proper swimming balance of a soft swimming bait. With some colors, such as the red-painted jigs, they also add a small spot of color flash, but it would be wrong to think of the jig head as the worm or bait head. It's just a strategic blob of balance weight put there to help make soft swimming baits swim at their very best. You'll see this in action when you start swimming a few baits with this jig.

This jig is so perfectly balanced that even an ordinary Senko (can one call the Senko ordinary?) on the shakey swim jig will swagger and sway, squirm and squiggle like a live earthworm that's fallen into the water. Just use a semi-tight line fall, and the Senko will vibrate both its tips, undulate its body in an oscillating S movement as it falls on a semi-tight line. A Senko makes the same famous shimmy and shake on the swimming shakey jig as when a Senko is fished weightless. With the jig of course, it's a faster fall and gets deeper than a weightless Senko, yet has the very same tip movement and body vibration. The jig head lets you fish a Senko faster and deeper than possible weightless, without any loss of squirm or squiggle as it falls on a semi-tight line. Once it reaches bottom, wait a spell and then start a series of slow lifts followed by pauses. The lifts will raise the Senko above bottom, attracting attention. On the pauses (with a semi-tight line) the Senko will wriggle and squirm like alive as it glides forward and toward the bottom again. Repeat the lifts and pauses is all you need to do. It's too simple and devastating in its effectiveness. There's no better way I know to fish a weighted Texas-rigged Senko.

Established in 1996, Optimum Baits is one of the earliest California swimbait companies, and there's something to be said for that.

They're pioneering. Optimums were some of the first soft swimbaits developed to mimic stocked rainbow trout, the meal of choice for California's lunker bass.

They're ground-breaking. Optimum was the first company to release a swimbait with the jig head internally built into the bait.

In 2000, Optimum introduced the first soft swimbait to the Japanese market as well. That was in the year 2000.

In 2003, the Japanese national record bass (19.15 pounds) was landed on an Optimum swimbait.

A plethora of soft swimbait companies have sprouted up in the USA and Japan in recent years. Yet Optimum's swimbaits still hold their own, especially where it counts most, in the mouths of bass.

Original Optimum. With an internal lead head molded inside, use the Original Optimum to fish deeper areas and points, especially slowly and steadily retrieving the weighted swimbait just above bottom. The Original Optimum has the desirable deep-bodied shad shape you don't see much on swimbaits anymore. Most other swimbaits tend to have a trout's long tubular shape nowadays. Yet the Original Optimum's deep body shape is a great shad or sunfish profile. An action or strike trigger is that the deep body can flip or flash up on its side during the retrieve, just like real shad do all the time. The deep body also helps to fish it - or slow roll it - right along the bottom. The deep body elevates the hook several inches above bottom snags. So the deep body acts like a protective barrier that helps keep the hook that much further away from snags. It also has a harness to attach a treble (not included) to the belly for swimming at mid-depths.

Suspending Optimum. In 2000, Optimum introduced the first soft swimbait to the Japanese market. Since this was a completely new lure type to the studious Japanese anglers, they were keen to learn all about how to get the most out of fishing these huge trout-patterned baits from California. The Japanese immediately recognized the swimbait’s potential, but the Japanese anglers wanted a swimbait that would suspend so that it swims on the surface. Because the Original Optimum swimbait was internally-weighted, it could not do that. The majority of Japanese bass anglers fish from shore, not from boats. The Japanese wanted a swimbait that could be swam with a slower retrieve near the surface, but still produce that great paddling tail action. So Optimum designed a new bait (in 2000) called the Suspending Optimum, which became an instant hit among Japanese anglers. It was widely accepted in Japan. Shore anglers were able to fish shallows with a super slow retrieve, and not snag up with the Suspending Optimum. With a slow steady retrieve, the wide profile Suspending Optimum provides a huge surface-waking action ideal for anglers fishing from shore or in super-shallow areas.

It has an internal hook harness but is not weighted. It comes with a premium heavy duty treble to attach to the hook harness. As you retrieve the Suspending Optimum, the body rolls back and forth as the tail produces a nice wake action. The shape of the bait causes the bait to rise to the surface. As with all large swimbait lures, the Suspending Optimum draws out huge bass that follow the lure. The difference is you can easily see the huge bass that follow the Suspending Optimum on the surface. That's great excitement and thrilling fishing.

If you want to keep it subsurface, each Suspending Optimum comes with trimmable nail weights. An angler can optionally insert these nail weights into the body to lightly weight it to get it a bit deeper if desired. It comes with illustrated instructions how to rig it with the nail weights. It can also be fished with a light bullet sinker on the line.

Weedless Optimum. In 2003, Optimum expanded it's product line with the Weedless Optimum. It has the same body shape as the Suspending Optimum, except the Weedless Optimum has an internally-molded jig head and weedless jig hook. It also has a harness to attach a treble (not included) to the belly for swimming at mid-depths.

Most other swimbaits have exposed hooks, and anglers fear losing these expensive swimbaits to snags. Anglers can only throw most other swimbaits in open water next to fish-holding cover, hoping to coax bass out of the cover into open water. Disappointingly, bass often will not come out of cover to chase swimbaits in nearby open water. The Weedless Optimum can be thrown deep into fish-holding cover with little fear of snaggage. Being able to work a Weedless Optimum through trees, brush, docks, grass and other cover greatly advantages that angler over others trying to coax the lunker out of its preferred habitat.

Optimum Bait Company is constantly looking for improved and innovative ways to help an angler’s chances to catch that prize fish with a swimbait. For example, the Black Silver and Chartreuse Shad colors in the chart below are new for 2007.

Speaking of colors, Optimum swimbaits are hand-poured works of art. Like snowflakes, no two are exactly the same. All track close (but no two the same) to the sample color patterns pictured here:

By the way, when you are done using a swimbait, make sure they have dried off first, then store swimbaits back in their original packages. This helps them to stay straight and to preserve their originally-molded shapes.