Matt Allen fishes the waters of California from small lakes to the bigger impoundments, but wherever he goes, he pulls out some giant largemouth bass on swimbaits from a variety of manufacturers.
Some of his favorites are MattLures, made by Matt Servant, a taxidermist, that creates lures so likelike that it is hard to beleive!
Matt Allen also uses other types of swimbaits at different times, depending on location and time of year. Yamamoto makes some great new swimbaits, as well as Big Hammer, and others.
On February18th, 2006, Matt took first place witha 23 pound plus sack of bass to win a tournament on Lake Berryessa. It is truely amazing the size of the bass he catches on the swimbaits, and not just in California.Here is what Matt had to say about the tournament.
"After having a very successful prefish, I was concerned that my bite had fallen through because of the intense cold weather. (Threat of snow on the coast).
We started fishing this morning and had a hard time putting anything together on the big baits so after 3 hours of nothing I decided to go for a limit. My partner and I put a quick limit of small fish together and after bouncing through a couple spots we settled back on where I expected the big fish to be. On my first cast into the area I landed a 10.2 pounder and about 10 casts later a 9.1! After that the bite just tapered off, we got two more bites the rest of the day that didn't connect. With about an hour to go we decided to try and cull up our smaller fish but it didn't work, we caught a lot of small 1 pound fish that did us no good. We went to weigh in and found out that my 23 pound+ bass was big enough to win the event by almost exactly 10 pounds! What a day!"
These swimbaits take the bigger bass in any lake from California to Delaware when fished properly and at the right times.
Here are a few pictures of the bass Matt wins his tournaments on below.
