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Posts: 267
Location: Central Pennsylvania | Anyone ever used the huddleston swimbaits for musky/pike/tigers? It seems the big swimbait side of bass fishing love these baits so it made me wonder how successful they'd be for musky? |
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Posts: 60
| I use huddlestons for bass. They're much softer than shadzillas or swimmin' dawgs, so I bet durability would be a major issue. Also, not sure if it's good or bad, but you have to fish huddlestons way slower than any musky bait I can think of. |
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Posts: 267
Location: Central Pennsylvania | I'm trying to get into bass swimbaiting more but it's also led me to fishing the same swimbaits for muskies. Saturday morning I went out and had a high 30s to 40" purebred chase a tiny klash but unfortunately not eat. |
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Posts: 8717
| They do work for muskies. I like to count them down and crawl them along just fast enough to keep them off the bottom. The downside is that they are usually wrecked after one fish. For the price, it's not worth it unless you're chasing a big one and know where she's hiding. |
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Posts: 267
Location: Central Pennsylvania | How do you rig them? bass fisherman usually rig huddlestons with a Butch brown rig. (pretty much just a stinger hook on a piece of wire attached to the jig hook on the top) |
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Posts: 253
| Some people that i have talked to have used them for pike.
The fish like them but, as mentioned previously, the plastic is very soft and tears particularly easily.
If you do try them, make sure to get a bottle of Mend It or similar.
Otherwise, take a look at other similar size & style baits. The savagear pulse tail trout for example has a more durable plastic. |
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Posts: 1199
Location: Walker, MN | F.W.I.W., the 8" Megabass Mag Draft is a good swimbait for muskies.
I've never tried Huddleston's for muskies (even though I own a bunch), I always thought they were a bit passive for 'skies. I suppose on negative or pressured fish they could work. Working it slow in front of a fish, grinding on a sand bottom for instance. I snapped up a couple of the Fireclaw color when they came out...could work well when muskies are feeding on crayfish. |
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Posts: 267
Location: Central Pennsylvania | The whole reason I was questioning Hudds is because in the spring fish stack in 1-3 feet (where they just lay on the bottom), so they're visible. Along with a specific fish laying in a creek mouth in the summer where it's visible. |
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Posts: 205
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota | Huddlestons are a wedge tail style swimbait which is different than a tradition boottail like a swimmin dawg or Poseidon. A wedge tail is designed to be fished super slow and have a very minor kick to it. They are incredibly realistic and a good imitation of a trout but there is almost no action compared to a traditional musky swimbait. Savage gear makes the 4d trout which is almost identical to the hud. I have never seen much reason for using a wedge tail for musky as they are best suited to barely crawling along the bottom. I have thought thrown the 8” magdraft and the 6.8-7.8 keitech swimbaits and those are incredible downsized musky baits. If they made a 10-12” keitech with a harness that would be my #1 swimbait I would throw although they are really soft. |
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Posts: 267
Location: Central Pennsylvania | My thought was that the subtlety of the huddlestons may trick more pressured or neutral fish because of the "lack" of action. Plus, the fact that they're so realistic looking and have that top hook is fairly suited to my bottom fishing needs. |
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Posts: 480
Location: NW WI | Pa Tigers n trout - 1/9/2023 6:59 AM
My thought was that the subtlety of the huddlestons may trick more pressured or neutral fish because of the "lack" of action. Plus, the fact that they're so realistic looking and have that top hook is fairly suited to my bottom fishing needs.
Haven't thrown a Huddleston but I do throw hollowbody Optimums, Smashtechs, and Keitechs, think all about 8"-12" range. I rig all the same with different Variants of 12/0 EWG swimbait hooks texposed. The optimums and Smashtechs I do work extremely slow, lots of twitching and pausing with some short slow straight retrieves mixed in and at least 1 rapid succession series of jerks as if it's trying to flee. I'm throwing this in weedchoked rivers and lakes with good success, but I'm not getting down to the bottom, because I can't. The Keitecs seem to work best used as a wake bait, just slow straight retrieve with some jerks and pauses mixed in just below the surface.
So I think your plan will definitely work, the slow swimbait has been working for me. |
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