# BONUS: Swine Design Secrets: Eli Berant Discusses the Optimus Swine

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-articulate-fly-1052360/bonus-swine-design-secrets-eli-berant-discusses-the-optimus-swine
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-articulate-fly-1052360/bonus-swine-design-secrets-eli-berant-discusses-the-optimus-swine.md
Podcast: [The Articulate Fly](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-articulate-fly-1052360)
Published: 2026-04-24T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://the-butcher-shop.thearticulatefly.com/episode/s2-ep-3-optimus-swine-eli-berant
Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/podcasts.captivate.fm/media/d82b6abb-ff83-4423-871f-ef6cdc66c8ed/tbs12.mp3?played_on=58e6c23e-e5a5-4504-9684-c0346329ee35
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-articulate-fly-1052360/episodes/bonus-swine-design-secrets-eli-berant-discusses-the-optimus-swine
Duration seconds: 3032

## Resource

Episode Overview The Butcher Shop goes deep on one of the Great Lakes predator fly world's most distinctive patterns in this conversation with Eli Berant, the Michigan-based fly designer and founder of Great Lakes Fly . Eli is the creator of the Optimus Swine — a reverse foam head-embedded, side-kicking musky streamer that has been turning heads and producing fish since around 2009. In this episode, host Marvin Cash walks Eli through the full arc of the pattern: the lake musky problem it was designed to solve, the unconventional decision to reverse a foam popper head to create a slower fall and a pronounced glide-bait wiggle, the material choices that define the fly's profile and movement and the step-by-step construction logic from spinner bait hook to laser dub head. The conversation covers the full Swine family — the original 8–9 inch version on a 6/0 Mustad, the scaled-down Swine Junior for river smallmouth and stripers, the fettuccine-foam Pot Belly Swine for subsurface river applications, and the articulated Maximus Swine and Maximus Swine Junior, which remain something of a "secret menu" offering. Eli also addresses color selection by region — from olive-and-pink for fired-up Tennessee muskies to the Wisconsin-proven Willen's Villain black-white-yellow combo and his own favorite Mardi Gras pattern — and breaks down his preferred line and leader systems for lake musky versus river smallmouth applications. Throughout, the discussion grounds fly design theory in direct, tactical fishing application. Key Takeaways How reversing a foam popper head toward the rear of the hook creates a slower fall rate and induces the Optimus Swine's distinctive side-to-side glide-bait action. Why proportionality in bucktail application — specifically how much material per section and…

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## Transcript

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