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few told me about their favorite crankbait as
their first bait of choice. A few others said either
a spinnerbait or a vibrating jig. When it came to Jeff Kriet’s turn, he got a big smile of his
face and said a swim worm. I was puzzled by his answer. It
seemed like a shot from left field and caught me off guard
a little. But looking back, I do remember there were a few
Major League Fishing episodes where Kriet was fishing a
swim worm. That led me to sit down and talk about this in
more.
That talk is what this article is about – the tactics and
the secrets behind fishing a swim worm with Major League
Fishing pro Jeff Kriet.
WHY A SWIM WORM
My first question to him was, why a swim worm?
“That answer is easy,” replied Kriet. “It is a search bait that no one else uses. It is hardly ever seen by any bass, making it the perfect search bait”.
In all reality it was kind of hard to argue with that thinking. “I have been using the swim worm as a search bait for a long time now and it has just come to light on Major League Fishing episodes,” Kriet added. “There, I kind of let the cat out of the bag.”
worm to make contact with it as I swim back to the boat,” he said. “At times, I will also kill the worm and let it flutter down trying to trigger a bite next to the structure. The key here is to let your swim worm make contact with the cover that you are fishing.”
Kriet looks at it this way… if you were fishing a spinnerbait, you would make your cast and let the spinnerbait tick the grass as you were reeling it back or if you saw a stump, you would reel your spinnerbait to the stump and kill it and let it flutter down.
When fishing a swim worm, treat it just
the same, get your swim worm to make as
much contact with the cover that you can
as you bring it back to the boat, but not
so much to get it fouled.
“One other point I need to make is
when you are swimming your worm
and you feel the bass take the worm,
do not rip the bait,” added Kriet “Let
the bass load the rod tip and lean into
SETUP, RETRIEVE AND HOOKUP
“Do not make it over complicated, keep it simple” said Kriet. “To start, 90 percent of the time, I will use a 3/16-ounce tungsten weight on my line, unpegged. I will rig my swim worm on a 4/0 offset hook. I mainly fish my swim worm option on a 7’ MH Denali Lithium Rod (L843WJ). That is teamed with a baitcaster reel (6:3-1) that is spooled with15- pound fluorocarbon line.”
Kriet explained, once he is rigged, he casts and swims the worm back to the boat. It is that simple.
“If I see key pieces of cover in-front of me, I will make my cast past this cover, so I can get the
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