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Bass Strike on Bitsy Pond Minnow Fishing small urban creek in the L.A., O.C. and I.E. region has become my new-found fishing pastime. Discovering these little concrete gems has been an educational experience, both from a fishing and ecological standpoint. I think it's important for everyone to realize the sad state of disrepair that has befallen most urban streams, thanks to our own greed and poor stewardship. (More after the jump) This past weekend I had the pleasure of tackling one of my favorite local warmwater creeks. Bass, green sunfish and carp all haunt these waters, struggling to survive amidst urban runoff, entrapping debris and the waste of modern society. I've never landed a carp at one of these urban creeks, although I've definitely hooked up with several in the past, losing them on long, panicked runs. This time was different. Bread ball on a hair rig (not too hard to tie once you've practiced it) was the ticket, landing me a wonderful 21'' common...

After taking a look at wLure's excellent trout swimbait and chunky sunfish swimbait , let me turn your attention to another interesting Chinese swimbait they offer. The HS6 from wLure is an affordable sunfish imitation lure, not frequently seen in the United States. (More after the jump) Design The HS6 is a 4 inch swimbait, shaped after a basic sunfish pattern. wLure offers 4 unique patterns for this lure, including a black crappie one (seen in my photos). They all look pretty great, especially for a bargain Chinese swimbait. The joints are rather unique for a swimbait. Instead of using the typical hinge metal joints found in many swimbaits, wLure has opted to go with a flexible band of tough material to link the swimbait. It's pretty unique but doesn't seem to detract from the motion of the lure. Price The HS6 is priced fairly competitively, at a little over $7 with free shipping from wLure. For this price range, a comparable model is the H2O Academy Sports line of swi...

For the second lure in my series on wLure's Chinese swimbaits, I have the HS145F2 , a jointed, chunky swimbait somewhat shaped after a bluegill. It sells for $5.49 online, with three different color options, length of  5 3/4'', and a weight of 1 2/3oz.  (Continued after the jump) The HS145F2 swimbait is pretty chunky. It's certainly not a "knock-off" of any specific lure I've encountered, and it seems to be a hybrid swimbait/crankbait style lure. The entire lure is hard plastic, complete with a nice set of fins sticking out both dorsally and laterally. However, the tail is a soft plastic/rubber piece, attached by two pins. If any part of this lure was to fail after repeated hits, this may be it. Still, it's fairly well attached and shouldn't present too much of an issue. This swimbait will float, diving around 2-3 ft on retrieve. When using the HS145F2, I found it had excellent action, even at slower retrieval speeds. The added crankbait lip r...