The Rooster

Some of the repair issues are why I shop in the $100 range and don't really get into Curado prices with reels. Small parts break sometimes. Not every single part on a costly reel is made from higher grade materials. Sure some things like the bearings are, even gearing too, but some other parts inside are going to be the same grade as the cheaper reels and if they fail and aren't available to replace then it becomes a costly paperweight at that point. For my uses, $100 BPS reel serves me the same as a $180 Curado would. Would last no longer cause I take care of my stuff as if it were new years after I bought it anyway.

You can order any size you want on their website. I have seen for sale locally here though, the sizes of 1/2 and even all the way up to 1 full ounce!! I'm going to try what you also said about reducing line twist by modifying the line tie cause this is my primary complaint with these lures. I have nearly 100 roostertails and have lost that many more over the years for sure so I obviously like them a lot but the twisting makes them a hassle to use without changing line often or using a swivel which I do not like doing. Some seem to twist worse than others also. Not sure why but I've just noticed it while using them. Two identical lures and one will spin sometimes where the other one won't. If bending the line tie will help with this then I'm all for it. Also I'll be trying out your bending the blade technique as well. I've been experimenting some with this by cupping the blade more but not actually bending the tip out or anything. I was trying to get more thump from it. I voted Roostertails as my favorite though, mostly cause they have so many colors available in them and I own so many. ;D

I have so many different plastics in my arsenal, and this is the only one that I would NEVER let run out or go fishing without.

RAPALA!!!

May 1996, a friend of mine asked me to go fishing with him and swore to me that it would not be like I was imagining it would where we just sit waiting on a bite to happen for hours while being bored the whole time. By the end of that day I was hooked for life and I knew it then and there. We had only used nightcrawlers that we had found in his father-in-law's back yard the night before, but we had caught so many bass that it was just mindblowing to me. A month later in June, Walmart where we both worked at was going through inventory and clearancing out all the stuff they didn't want around for it. They had grab bags full of lures for $1.00 each and I got one. It had a number of (to me) insignificant items in it like hooks, cheap floats, marabou jigs, but also contained 3 nicer lures and one of them was a Strike King Spindance spinnerbait (endorsed by Bill Dance at the time) in chartreuse color, 1/4 oz. This was my first artificial bait I ever tied on and quickly became my favorite bait for a very long time after this because I tied it on for the first time while fishing a pond near my house and caught 5 good sized bass in about 2 hours. I was just convinced it was the best bait ever made.

I'd rather sit down with someone like Glen Lau who has been studying bass behavior so I could ask questions about what bass are, what drives them, how they act, and therefore I could make better decisions when it comes to fishing. It's one thing to know where to find them on a body of water based on time of year and conditions, expecting bass to be where they are based on this. I want to know WHY they are there, and where they would be if conditions weren't what they are for them to be there now. Once I know how they think and what drives them then I think I could catch them better.

I once saw a Geo Storm coming off of a bridge with what looked like a 40' extention ladder sticking out of the hatchback. About 5 - 6 feet of it was inside the vehicle and the rest was hanging out. Collapsed down a 40' ladder would still be 20' long. So that's at least 14' of ladder hanging out the back. When the car got to the bottom of the bridge and the road angle changed from sloping to level it sent the front end of the car in a bounce as the ladder acted as a counterweight going up and down. I thought he was going to wreck the car but somehow he kept it under control. I've also seen people driving with extention ladders laying on top of the car with one hand out the window holding on as they drive really slowly down the road. Ridiculous. The day before Christmas I actually saw a family driving down the road with all their gifts piled up on top of the trunk lid, driving really slowly, nothing secured, and they actually stopped to get out and rearrange things while waiving cars around them as they pulled to the side. : I could go on but some of the stuff I've seen around here actually sounds unbelievable so much as to have been made up. So I'll save anymore stories until I have pictures to prove it.

I need to get into topwaters more. Only thing I've ever used and was successful on was a buzzbait and they've always been chartreuse or chartreuse/white. Got one of the Rapala Skitterpops for Christmas so we'll see how that goes. I've had others including some of the Heddon Spit'n Images and Spooks, Rebel Pop-R's, and various other poppers and walkers for years but never use them at all. When I did they never worked so I just quit using them and gave most of them away over time.

Well the reason I ask is cause it seems that once a lure makes it past a certain size then it goes to being called a swimbait. Whether it be made out of plastic or wood, has treble hooks or singles, the designs vary back and forth, hard or soft but as long as it's LARGE then it's a swimbait. I was just trying to put a definition to the word for my own knowledge just so I understood them better. I may be one of the very few fisherman around nowadays though who has no interest in learning swimbaits or using rods heavy enough to fish them on so I dont' know why I was asking really. ;D But that lure sure does look good for making it at home. Very professionally done.

I chose Gamakatsu cause everytime I get any EWG hooks it's always those. It used to be Matsuo hooks at Walmart cause they were a little cheaper and you got 1 more per pack than with the Gammys, but now they don't sell them anymore and Gammys are available everywhere. Since using them I've seen they're a bit sharper as well. Does VMC not make a single hook?? I really like the trebles they hang on the Rapala and XCalibur baits.

Thanks for the info on the Pointers. I've stayed away from LC lures due to their pricing but if there's some extra magic in the bait besides just the finishes then it might be worth the extra cash. Just hurts when you break one off is all. But I'll start looking more at them now that I know that. Also been thinking about some of the even smaller sized X-raps, the XR-06. Dad got some for Christmas and they look good, think I'll get a couple of them to see how they do too. And I have never been a fan of Smithwick lures cause they just look cheap. No finishes on them that I like at all. If they're poorly made to go with it then I'll probably stay away from them.

You did a beautiful job making and painting this lure. Very professional looking all over, I would swear this was a branded lure instead of handmade at home. But I'm curious, I would like to know what classifies it as a swimbait instead of just a large jointed minnow like the Rapala jointed minnow?? Does it sink or float or suspend??

The chartreuse and red color on that clown pattern really POPS out of the murky green colored water on my lake. Stands out in a very easy to see way, almost a glow, in the early morning light before the sun gets high. Really shows up on overcast days as well when there's not much light.

I've been buying the deep X-raps also. Got 3 of them so far in the 08 size. Just now moving into the 10's and also plan to grab some 12's too, though to my knowledge they don't yet make a deep version in the 12. Someone said here they don't like the colors of the X-raps. I like about 1/2 of them. I don't care for the weird ones such as the pink color, or the all orange one either. But the regular ones like silver, gold, olive, ghost (white), or trout colors, those are the ones I get. Also the clown color really tears them up around here. I didn't even like that color at all until my brother-in-law showed up here with one and loaded the boat with it. I saw how visible it was in the off colored water one day and I had to get one then. Now I have 3 of them in that color, XR-08, XR-10, and XRD-08, the most of any one color I have so far.

I don't set the hook with trebles, but I would think when the trailing bait comes up and hits the floater it would drive the hook deeper like hitting a nail with a hammer. Or it could knock it out of the fishes mouth, who knows. Buzz Well, I know there are a lot of people who don't do a traditional hook set with trebles, but here you wouldn't even have the same resistance you'd have if the lure were tied to the end of the line. It would be even less than normal resistance so my question is how do you get any hook penetration at all??

I'm thinking about getting some of the Huskys in the metallic colors just for the flash of them, they seem very bright in the sunlight. Silver, gold, silver/blue/orange, tenessee shad (silver/green/orange). And the firetiger color for the brightness of it. Shallow and deep divers too. I'm a Rapala junkie. That's my problem, I'll buy them even if I don't need them cause I "think" at the time that they will be just perfect for "this" use. Then I never seem to get them out. I'll definitely end up getting some of them, but first there's other Rapalas I want more. Such as the skitterpops, skitterprops, and skitterwalks, want to get some topwater baits this year to go along with all those jerkbaits.

Did you really get 4" of snow in the mail?? ;D

Nuff said. I thought it might be something like that, just wanted to ask. I have 2 Husky Jerks in the smaller sizes and have really never fished them at all, then I got into X-raps when they came out new and have really tore the fish up with them so I stocked up on them a lot.

Check out this link, you can buy spinnerbaits built with handtied lumaflex skirts. http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0KjqmlGVQ1LXtoAdhAPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTExN2szY25nBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA3NwMQR2dGlkAwRsA1dTMQ--/SIG=11itvrlih/EXP=1259251398/**http%3A//www.basscraftlures.com/ And I already know that link is gonna say it's not authorized by Yahoo. Click OK to continue at your own risk. Go ahead and click it, it's just doing it because of the way I had to save it to my favorites. When at the home page of the site I right clicked to save to favorites but it would only link to just parts of the page only, not the site guide or anything, so I had to search it and then right click the link to save to favorites. Ends up doing that to me everytime I click it but I PROMISE it's safe even though it looks scary when it gives you that warning.

I guess for me it would be about matching the forage as closely as possible. I saw a lure on ebay painted up, being sold for about the price mentioned above, $35 I think, and it looked exactly like a live bluegill in every detail. I would feel more confident in a bait that matched exactly than I would one that matched only closely. And then as I kind of mentioned above in my joke about the cars and young girls, there's the WOW factor also in showing it to your buddies while out on the boat. Well, and then on top of all this, you got people who are just collectors and would want something like that for their collection, not to fish with at all but just for display.

I didn't know custom painted fishing lures were just for impressing 16 year old girls. :-? ;D

With the X-rap line available, is the Husky Jerk really necessary?? Both suspend, dive to similar depths, have the same profile, but the X-raps have nicer finishes in my opinion. Some of the Husky Jerks have metallic finishes which I like for flash but the X-rap has a metallic look to it also on some colors. I'm the type that will buy both series, in as many colors and sizes as I can find or afford. But do I really need to do this if I have plenty of one series only??

Aaaahhhh............... I was thinking of adding some weights to my plastics this year but thought I might try to just get some small trim nails to insert in the lures. They're cheap enough, and I already have a lot of them laying around here. Might fly out on me though, don't know yet cause I never tried them before.

Why Thankee!!

What are they??