hook and was amazed at his self- control. Even now, I don’t know if I could do that.”
Roumbanis likes to work the frog in open water with the rod tip down, reelin’ and twitchin’ as he reels it in. “A lot of people think that I am burnin’ it, but really what I am doing is picking up little tiny bits of slack at a time (almost walkin’ in place),” he said, “Other times, the fish will let you know that they want you to scoot it across the top of the water and race it. If you race it, you got to make sure that you kill it, because that pause is the time that the fish will strike.”
He fishes his frog with 65 lb braided line on a 754 Air iROD, a rod he designed specifically for frog fishing.
KICKER LURE
After narrowing his lure choices down to three, Roumbanis had to add in a bonus bait for a kicker fish. When you are known by the moniker Swimbait Fred, it is no surprise that your pick for a big bass attractor is going to be a giant swimmer. In this
56
case, Roumbanis
opted for the
Deps 250 Slide
Swimmer.
“When I lived
out in the Delta,
these weren’t
around,” he
recalled. I threw
the AC Plug, but
now I call the
Slide Swimmer
the Frank’s
Tract kicker
catcher.”
He
throws the
250 on 25 lb
fluorocarbon
and chooses
the color
from the
Butch
Brown
trout series. “When I retrieve one, I give a couple quick turns and then slow it down, a couple more quick turns and slow it down, again,” he said. “Basically, I vary the speed of the reel handle every time I make one full circle. That gets the bait’s action really darting side-to-side.
Roumbanis’ relocation to Oklahoma has left him homesick for the tidal waters he used to live on. His return with the Bassmaster Elite Series this past spring was a welcome return. “The Delta is the best fishery in the country, bar none,” said Roumbanis. “I think I took it for granted when I lived there, now I miss it every day.”
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