~ ~
How to Swim a Big Grub
By Tom Reynolds

July/August 1999 Issue

It’s high noon, under a bright sky during the final round of the Oklahoma Bassmaster Central Invitational tournament on Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula. The water is seven to eight feet high, but angler Gary Yamamoto has more than 20-pounds in his livewell; the leader of the tournament, fishing the very same flooded bushes less than 50 yards away, is still waiting for his first strike of the day.

It isn’t until an hour later that the leader changes his technique to one similar to Yamamoto (although not using the same lure) and brings in more than 17-pounds to win. Yamamoto finishes second, after bringing in the day’s heaviest stringers the second and third days. Only a poor first showing on his partner’s fish the first day keeps him from winning. In three days of fishing in flooding conditions, he brings more than 42 pounds of bass.

How is it one angler can have 20 pounds in the boat while another, fishing the same water, doesn’t get a strike? The answer at Eufaula was lure presentation -- in this case, Yamamoto’s technique of swimming his 8-inch Big Grub, a lure he designed four years ago.

“At Eufaula, the water came up so fast the bass were still in the outside cover when we had the tournament,” says Yamamoto. “They were looking for baitfish, because the bait itself had probably already moved with the rising water.

“By swimming the Big Grub, I feel like I was actually pulling bass away from the cover, because many of my strikes came when the grub was already away from the bush.”

By contrast, Leo Osborne, who won the tournament, spent all but the final afternoon pitching a regular 7 1/2-inch plastic worm into the same flooded bushes and trees. Instead of swimming the worm, however, he brought it straight back up if a bass did not hit on the initial drop. Only after he started swimming a lure did he start collecting his winning stringer.

“Swimming these types of lures works more often than not,” says Yamamoto, who began perfecting the technique with other plastic baits as long ago as 1980. With the 6-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch Big Grubs the company manufactures, swimming is practically the only presentation he uses. The key, he says, is rigging properly to make sure the tail of the lure swims.

To that end, Yamamoto rigs with either a 3/8 ounce (less than five feet of water) or 1/2 ounce (deeper than five feet) screw-in sinker and a 5/0 Owner hook. He fishes both 16 and 20 pound test Sugoi fluorocarbon line, and uses a self-designed heavy action 7 1/2- foot flipping rod.

“I pitch the Big Grub to a bush or tree and let it sink to the bottom,” explains Yamamoto, “then I slowly raise my rod tip from a 45 degree angle to nearly straight-up vertical. and just hold it there. This raises the grub about two feet off the bottom and also brings it out of the bush.

“Then the weight of the sinker pulls the grub back down in a type of pendulum motion, and because the tail is giving plenty of action, the lure appears to swim very naturally back toward the bottom.”

With the lure back on the bottom, Yamamoto lowers his rod back down to the 45 degree angle, reels in slack line, and raises his rod vertically again to repeat the presentation. When done slowly and deliberately, the lure’s motion appears completely life-like.

It’s a type of finesse fishing, but with a larger lure and heavier sinker. In the case of the Big Grub, using a lighter sinker does not work because the bait over-powers the sinker and there is no tail swimming action.

“If there is not enough sinker weight, you cannot move the lure enough to get the proper tail action,” explains Yamamoto, who won the 1995 U.S. Open bass tournament by fishing a Hula Grub with a one-ounce sinker. “If you’re simply going to let the lure free-fall, a light sinker may be fine, but my baits have always been designed to take advantage of the tail action, and the lure has to be moving at a good clip (created by the sinker) or you won’t get that tail action.

“By using a screw-in sinker, you keep the weight with the grub so it can do its job. When the sinker slips down the line it doesn’t pull the grub down properly.

“I’m not doing much when I swim a grub. I’m just lifting my rod and letting line and sinker move the bait, and when you do it that way, the action looks completely natural.”

Yamamoto swims his grubs in both shallow and deep water; in shallow water he often pitches beyond a visible target and swims the grub by it.

“When I’m fishing I always keep my rod at a 45 to 90 degree angle,” he emphasizes. “If you don’t have a way to give a bass slack line instantly (as when you’re holding your rod down), the fish will feel the line tension and drop the lure. Even when I’m reeling in slack after the grub is back on the bottom, I only lower my rod to 45 degrees.”

Today Yamamoto considers fluorocarbon line an integral part of his rig. He’s been using it for about four years, and now it is all he uses for this type of fishing. The line has no stretch, is extremely abrasion resistant, and it essentially becomes invisible underwater.

“Because it has no stretch, the line is extremely sensitive,” he points out. “When you’re swimming a grub and it bumps into a limb, it feels like a shot. You have to get used to using it, but once you do, you’ll never use anything else. It’s not good for casting, but it’s a definite advantage in pitching and flipping, and especially when you’re using a swimming presentation the way I do. Often the fish take the lure pretty lightly and just begin swimming away.”

Yamamoto also uses a self-designed rod that starts as a G. Loomis heavy action blank, but he adds approximately five inches to the end of the handle. This add-on is weighted, and while the result is a heavier-than-normal rod, it is also better balanced and makes pitching much easier.

The 8-inch Big Grub was developed about 1995. From the beginning the Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits Company had specialized in small lures, but as Yamamoto himself spent more time fishing lakes in the Southern and Eastern United States, he learned that the larger fish in those waters wanted larger lures. He designed the Big Grubs during winter trips to Mexico’s Lake Baccarac, which is known for its double-digit bass.

The swimming tails were specially designed to match the length of each grub to maximize action; thicknesses vary on each model. Both the 8-inch and 10-inch Big Grubs were designed with big bass in mind, and when they’re used with the natural swimming presentation Yamamoto uses, they’ll certainly catch fish. Lake Eufaula proved that.

~ ~