Pros like Edwin Evers of Oklahoma like to fish swimbaits on weighted hooks, with the baits rigged weedless. Photo by Jeff Samsel.

"Swimbait."

A decade ago, that term meant nothing to most bass fishermen, and even as recently as two or three years ago, most fishermen had never given a swimbait a try. Although it's true that certain swim baits have been common tools for select groups of western anglers since the late 1980s, those anglers did a fine job of keeping their favorite big-bass lures to themselves until pretty recently.

During the 2000s, the popularity of this style of bait started to work its way east, and the baits began to become more mainstream. Tournament success, magazine and web articles and talk about giant bass in California and from waters south of the border helped sparked the spreading interest. Momentum seemed to increase as the decade progressed.

Before digging too deep into the swimbait story, it's probably worth noting that while the term "swimbait" has been popularized only within the past few years and while new styles of swimbaits clearly have evolved and swept the nation, the general style of lure isn't totally new, even to the East. Long-established soft-plastic minnow imitations, such as Sassy Shads, would probably be categorized as swimbaits if they were introduced today.

In addition, some of the swimming wooden baits that were popular more than half a century ago shared characteristics with today's hard swimbaits. In fact, a fine case could be made that the original "trophy bass swimbait" was the Creek Chub Fintail Shiner that George Perry used to catch the fish that's now tied as the world record largemouth bass on June 2, 1932.

So what exactly is a swimbait? Given the great range of materials these baits can be formed from and the variety of sizes, shapes and swimming actions, defining a swimbait is a little like explaining what makes St. Bernards and chihuahuas both look like dogs. Generally speaking, swimbaits are elongated, natural-shaped, fish-imitating lures that are engineered to come to life with a natural swimming motion when cranked steadily. They can be made of hard or soft plastic or wood and some require rigging while others come ready to fish. Some stay very shallow -- even waking the surface. Others probe the depths.

A decade ago, when swimbaits were largely regional baits used by western trophy bass specialists, the bulk of the baits were quite large and many were sculpted to resemble rainbow trout. Hard versions were usually jointed and often hand-carved from wood, although some had soft-plastic tails. Some looked like they should hang in art galleries or be placed on mantles and were extremely expensive. Most of the earliest soft-plastic versions were pre-rigged with a hook and internal lead weighting systems. Some of the soft baits were exceptionally realistic and were also quite expensive, although not quite as expensive as their hand-carved wooden counterparts.

MODERN SWIMBAITS
During the past decade, as swimbaits have gradually grown in popularity, various major companies with national distribution have added both hard and soft swimbaits to their line-ups, with some of the hard versions being highly realistic hard-plastic versions of the wooden baits that started the swimbait movement more than two decades ago.

Among the most realistic of the modern hard swimbaits is the Spro BBZ-1, a bait designed by western trophy bass legend Bill Seimantel that has three hard sections and a soft-plastic tail. The original BBZ-1 is 8 inches long and weighs between 4.8 and 5.1 ounces, depending on the sink rate. Spro has since released a slightly smaller (6-inch) version and a shad-bodied version.