Pro Angler Jared Lintner debuts his new Shaky Fins Shad Swimbait

Introduction: We hook up with the team at Tackle Warehouse including prostaffer and Pro Angler Jared Lintner for a day on the water. We engage in a little friendly competition and Jared uses his secret weapon, a new swimbait that he is working on which was molded from an actual Delta Smelt.

A tough two weeks: Anglers that follow the B.A.S.S. tournament trail know that it has been a rough two weeks for Jared Lintner. On the way from the Duel in the Delta to the Golden State Shootout at Clear Lake Jared got into an accident that resulted in both his truck and boat getting totaled. The next few days were a mad scramble for Jared as he tried to get his head back into the game in time for the tournament. He was one of the clear favorites for the event and has previously won on Clear Lake. Instead of finding time to prefish and lock in his strategy he instead had to find a new boat to fish out of and organize the tackle that survived the accident.

Brad and Rich from Tackle Warehouse pull up alongside and we talk about fishing on Lake Lopez

Pro Angler and TT contributing Editor Mark “EZ Bass” Lassagne loaned Jared his Skeeter for the event and Jared got off to a good start in terms of a total bag even though he cut his hand so badly during the first day that he had to wrap his hand in a towel while fishing. Jared fished all the way until the final day and though he caught 20 fish during the tournament he had two days of sub 20lb bags and ultimately finished in tenth position.

Jared starts out throwing a swimbait

Rich and Corey from Tackle Warehouse had driven up to support Jared at the Duel on the Delta and ended up staying through the entire tournament to help. The week after the tournament was no less hectic and Jared needed to replace both his truck and his boat, ultimately opting for one of the new Skeeter FX boats powered by one the new Yamaha SHO four stroke engines.

Brad works the front of his boat and rigs weedless to get into the vegetation

At the time we hit the water his new rig had just arrived but we were not able to fish it because it had not yet been registered and also still needed to be wrapped. In just a few days Jared will hit the road again to head all the way across the country to the Blue Ridge Brawl at Smith Mountain Lake in Huddleston, VA., and even though he had a lot on his mind he was still willing to hit the lake with us in his hometown of Arroyo Grande, CA.

Nick starts things off with a drop shot fish

Lake Lopez: Jared and Rich grew up fishing the lakes surrounding San Luis Obispo and Lake Lopez is one of the closest lakes to Tackle Warehouse. On our last trip to TW we fished Lake Nacimiento and while we caught a ton of spots we didn’t get into any big fish. This time around Rich decided that we should head to Lake Lopez, a smaller lake but one that wasn’t inhabited by Spots. Lake Lopez is nearly 1000 acres in size and is home to a good population of largemouth, smallmouth, crappie, catfish and some surprisingly large red-ear sunfish.

and lands another one almost back to back, looking for more quality he starts to pound the shoreline

We headed out to Lake Lopez after our tour of the new Tackle Warehouse facility and was joined by Brad Lum, who is in charge of website programming at TW as well as Jared and his local fishing partner Nick who was gracious enough to lend us his boat for the day since Jared’s boat was still getting prepped for the tour.

I notice Jared is fishing a swimbait I have never seen before