Just curious about peoples thoughts and experiences with Sebile lues (particularly the stick shad and magic swimmer) in the surf at locations other than the canal, where they are obviously very propular.

My only experience is with the magic swimmer at night in the rocks. It attracted some fish, but no more so that bombers and other stuff I was throwing that night.

I have a few of the smaller magic swimmers and haven't had much luck on them.

But honestly I don't throw them unless am at the ditch.

I have more confidence in other plugs for the spots I fish.
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Retrieve speed is needed to generate the vortex forces that make these lipless multi-jointed baits swim.

I've no experience using them (they are plastic after all :eek:) but it would not surprise me if the needed retrieve speed in still water offsets some of their appeal. Sweeps and pauses might get around this, I suppose.

I have seen large fish taken on both Sebile's glider and swimmer at outflows, both by night and day.

Fished them up north and got some fish in the mornings on them. No better than pencils though. I would think super clear water at night would be a good bet for them.

I've done well with both outside of the canal.

I carry a magic swim around more then I use it. Actually, I find myself using it outside of the canal more. Problem is most places I fish are to shallow to work the slow sinking model slow enough and the deeper places I fish are much to deep for anything but the fast sink to be effective (which I don't own). The hype tends to make me want to use something else.

I had some great luck with the storm knock off of the magic swimmer at other locations. And some guys that i went to block with were consistently getting fish on their sebiles when. I added an once of shot to the storm and it really seemed to draw them in, i am going to be adding some to a magic swimmer to see if i get similar results.

Anyone want to give a tutorial on the stick shad? I did not do much with it last year. Just wondering what retrieves seem to draw fish. I experimented and failed. Kept going back to plugs that I already had faith in.

Magic Swimmer is always in my bag, I have taken some decent fish on it from the surf, nothing huge, but it works well. Contrary to what George said, it actually swims pretty well even in calm conditions on a slow retrieve. It's deadly when the herring are thick... look at the thing, it looks just like a herring!

I played around with the smaller (6" i think) magic swimmer and did fairly well with it in both moving and calm water using a slow retrieve with the occasionally twitch. This was the slow sinking version.
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I trolled the big magic swimmer and big sinking stick shad on wire this year ( I rarely troll wire but this year I got back into it)...and did pretty well. Not nearly well enough to justify the price. (30-40 bucks/lure)

It worked particularly well off old man shoal (off Nantucket) but I was hooking up on other lures as well that day. I was looking for a big bluefish but constantly hooked teen size bass with it.

Casting it from the shore I found awkward and it lacks distance when the wind it blowing. I like the concept but it needs more work.

yeah, weather conditions can definitely affect your casting...or should I say lobbing as with the bigger models, but then again...that's how you'd be casting a real live Herring anyways ;) ....and by controlling the height of the rod tip, you can most certainly catch in skinny water on slower retrieves...:uhuh:

It's definitely in my rotation of plugs through out the night. If I found that the long-rangers were finding the fish, it stayed in it's holster though

One problem with the canal is the lemming like mentality of many who fish there. There's a lot of imitation going on there and if one person does it, many others follow. I can't slight the sebile stuff as I've seen fish come up for them when nothing else will work.

It becomes difficult to determine how good an individual lure really is when everyone is throwing them. If everyone suddenly started throwing white danny plugs you'd begin to see a disproportionate number of fish caught on white danny plugs and the lemmings would clean every last one off the shelves.

With the above said, I did quite well in the canal this year on metal lipped plugs, at times they out fished the sebile stuff. I don't own any sebile stuff as I try to fish my own lures, but can't argue against the sebiles being highly effective at certain times.

As an add on to my point, we used to fish rebel f-90's and musso needlefish exclusively off race point and never thought to throw anyting else. Not sure they were the best lures, but they were responsible for a disproportionately large amount of fish simply because they woked well at times and also because its all anyone threw.

One of my mentors always used to ask me, "What's the best plug, Mike?" He would pause a second and then answer, "Whatever is working best at the given time."

One problem with the canal is the lemming like mentality of many who fish there. There's a lot of imitation going on there and if one person does it, many others follow. I can't slight the sebile stuff as I've seen fish come up for them when nothing else will work.

It becomes difficult to determine how good an individual lure really is when everyone is throwing them. If everyone suddenly started throwing white danny plugs you'd begin to see a disproportionate number of fish caught on white danny plugs and the lemmings would clean every last one off the shelves.

With the above said, I did quite well in the canal this year on metal lipped plugs, at times they out fished the sebile stuff. I don't own any sebile stuff as I try to fish my own lures, but can't argue against the sebiles being highly effective at certain times.

As an add on to my point, we used to fish rebel f-90's and musso needlefish exclusively off race point and never thought to throw anyting else. Not sure they were the best lures, but they were responsible for a disproportionately large amount of fish simply because they woked well at times and also because its all anyone threw.

One of my mentors always used to ask me, "What's the best plug, Mike?" He would pause a second and then answer, "Whatever is working best at the given time."

One thing about the Sebiles, they work in all current situations, try throwing a Danny at full tide--waste of time. Also they give you another advantage, because they sink you can work different parts of the water column and you can stop them giving the deadly look of a dying bait, a metal lip floats to the surface on the pause, which can also be deadly. A caveat to the Sebiles in calm water is that the fast sink needs current or a lighting-quick retrieve, the slow-sink seems to be universally effective.

I think the point here is that you should really be throwing both, the Sebile does not replace all other plugs as many of the Canal guys would have you think. There's a situation for everything.

I think the point here is that you should really be throwing both, the Sebile does not replace all other plugs as many of the Canal guys would have you think. There's a situation for everything.

Indeed. :uhuh:

More to the original intent of this thread, I think the sebiles are the "hot" lure in the canal right now for reasons already mentioned, but that can change and likely will at some point.

Indeed. :uhuh:

More to the original intent of this thread, I think the sebiles are the "hot" lure in the canal right now for reasons already mentioned, but that can change and likely will at some point.

Agreed, and just to be clear when I said "you" I meant everyone not you specifically :love: I think you knew that anyway but... that's how these things start...

EXCELLENT points, Mike and Dave~~~~
of the plastiques/rubber trilogy my preference is CLEARLY
the deep shad by Tsunami, then the 7"- 9" paddle tail by Tsunami/Storm.
neon green for the former and white to bunker for the latter.

for me, the trick is to be the NEXT trend,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

that way i'm thinking ahead of the feesh,
perhaps giving them/HER sumthin' she hasn't seen in awhile,
possibly creating a new wrinkle or reviving an old one in the Strigh Ped Bass Canal Continuum,
and aiming to remain in the vein of "beeing the Report, NOT chasing the report."

already bounced a theory or three off of one of me fellow NShorians~~ that is verrrry far removed from stick shaddin' The Ditch!

only time and tides will tell,,,,,,,,,,,,,C'MAWWWN Springtime, C'MON!!
:fishin: :fishin: :fishin: :fishin: :fishin: :fishin:

in keeping with the crux of the thread,

i Sebiled the infamous Herring Stick Shad

from Cape Ann to SoCo and ALL points inbetween,
from Spring to Fall, in darkness and thru 1st light, moving and still waters,
from the top to the middle and back to the top of the column,
through every phase of tides, and inside/alongside/frontside/and coveside of the walls and b'ways along the coast.

i jerked it, ripped it, paused it and dipped it.
i worked it, flipped it, tossed it, and skipped it.

mostly to no avail and to teeners exclusively,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
but i DO NOT think it was thru any fault of the lure, itself.

more the result of the offering not being offered
during a feeshy where and when. i'll give it a go again next yr, just prolly further down in the rotation, for me.

Dawg I'm going to start calling you Dr. Seuss, that's was pretty good. :cheers:
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thanks guys. pretty much goes along with my experience and thoughts. just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing out on anything too impressive.

So many Sebilles ,,, floating ,,,slow sink ,, sinking ,,. I have fished the slow sink magic swimmer alot ,,.and the sinking stick shad ,,, did great with the magic swimmer .. Funny my bag is pretty much all plastic at the canal ,, super strike,cordell,red dots, red fins,north bar,diawa dp minnow, sebile ... I put my sebile's away when the bluefish started showing and opted for cripple herring... so many sebiles,, still learning ,, so much for fishing plastic = fishing cheap .. I still prefer throwing wood needles from the beach ,, so many times I catch on the end of my cast and think .. If I was throwing anything eles I wouldn't have reached that fish ..

Dawg I'm going to start calling you Dr. Seuss, that's was pretty good. :cheers:
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thanks, Thumper,,,,,,,,,,,,

hard to avoid, sometimes. it just seemed to fit?
:rotf2: :rotf2: :rotf2: