MNGeorge

Put it on a Revenge Swimbait Head, worked quite well for river Smallies. Read a thing from Shaw Grigsby about putting a drop or two of glue on the head to hold the glass minnow in place...amazing how many fish you can catch on one bait without even having to re-rig. If you don't lose your rig to a bite off or a snag, I believe you could fish all day with one or two of these glass minnows. Thanks for the heads up on this one...it will be in my arsenal from now on.

I have this problem with all my Loomis MBR series IMX rods...thanks for the teflon tape tip. Where do I buy teflon tape...never heard of it before.

That is the page that was included in the thread I was looking for...thank you.

Yesterday, 8/20/10, I found a thread about crawfish which included a map of the USA. When you clicked on a state, it gave you a list of the crawfish present in that state along with a photo of each species. I can't even remember for sure what site I was on when I read the thread, but would sure appreciate any help finding that thread again. Thanks for any help.

Some stretches of the upper Mississippi have a lot of vegetation, especially this year due to low water early this Spring, and the Smallies on those stretches have been using it extensively. The vegetation not only provides cover, but is also an excellent food source for the Smallies as it is loaded with minnows which are plainly visible as you float by the vegetation beds. About the best presentation we've found for these "weedbed" Smallies has been a swimjig fished over, around and sometimes, right through the vegetation. Maybe river Smallies are different than lake Smallies, but when the water clears up enough to see fish in the water, we cast to and catch a lot of Smallies that we see in the water so I'm not sure I totally agree with the suggestion that if you can see them, they can see you and become hard to catch. Maybe the current has something to do with it or maybe river Smallies tend to be more aggressive that their lake dwelling siblings...can't explain it, just know it happens.

Tubes and wacky rigged senkos are #1 and #2 on our Smallie hit parade so we always have each of them rigged when we hit the Mississippi. There are days when either will work about equally well, but more often than not, one will outshine the other by a significant margin, and sometimes one absolutely will not get bit while the other is absolutely getting all the bites. Color has proven to be almost a non-factor with the senkos while color is usually fairly important with the tubes. If crawfish are the primary forage, green pumpkins and browns seem to work better. If minnows are the main forage, lighter colored to almost white seem to be better. RW is right on about the retrieve...keep trying different ones until the fish tell you what they prefer for that day. Keep trying the tubes...Smallies love them and once you start catching a few on tubes, your confidence in them will grow and confidence in a bait many times is key to success with it.

What is it about the tube making process that prevents manufacturers from producing a consistent product? Any more, it's hard to find more than a few tubes even in the same package that are similar in appearance to each other. And it's not just one or two manufacturers having this issue...it seems to be happening more and more no matter what brand you buy. I'd love to go through a factory that makes tubes sometime, just to see for myself why it's so hard to make a consistent product. Anyone have an explanation?

I don't know how it would work on fabric, but Listerine helps get the smell off my fingers after using JJ's.

Has anyone used this bait? I bought some online, but now that I have them, I'm having trouble finding a hook that fits this bait. Even a 6/0 Gammie EWG offset worm hook seems too short to me. Any experiences and/ or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Here's a link to look at the bait: http://www.***.com/Hags_Undertaker/descpage-HUT.html

Anyone care to share their experiences with this bait...good, bad or otherwise?

Anyone know what happened to Pastor Shane? Is he still making soft plastic baits? His web address no longer works and the phone number I had for him was @ work and he no longer works there...no one there knows how to contact him. Any help would be appreciated either in contacting Pastor Shane or a recommendation on a source for custom hand poured stick worms. Thanks.

Does anyone have a source for Quickleen that sells below retail price? I don't need any alternatives to Quickleen, I'm simply looking for a good price on some. Thanks.

Can't believe no one has listed "Lost Lake" from WFN. They drop a Bass pro on a lake he's never been on and give him one day to put together a pattern and catch some fish. The step by step thought process they go through I find to be both informative and entertaining...one of the better shows to come along in quite some time.

I've been using yellow for several seasons and have found it to be very visible. I use Yozuri green fluorocarbon for a leader, not so much for the visibility factor, but so that when I get hung up, it will break. I have used PowerPro, Stren and Tuf Line yellow braid and haven't noticed much difference in performance or durability.

I would get the 4 bottle order...2 bottles of clear. Once you see how effective JJ's is, you'll be dipping all your soft plastics whether you want to dye them or not. I use clear abour 3 to 1 vs. the colors. Pay special attention to the warnings about it's use and storage...they are all true.

We often times fish both Wacky and TR simultaneously in the upper Mississippi. TR produces more bites for sure, but the average size is noticeably bigger on the Wacky rig. If you prefer TR, try a swimming Senko, we've had excellent results on them also.

JJ's is awesome stuff and lasts a long time...well worth the few downsides mentioned above. If you are a believer in garlic scent, JJ's is the only way to go. ZipLoc bags will keep the scent contained on baits in storage and washing with Listerine will kill any scent on your hands.

We use a Gammie Octopus Straight Eye, 4X wire salt water hook and the wacky o-rings. The 4X wire adds weight to the rig which we need to get the stick worm down in the current of the Mississippi River...Smallies love stick worms. Both Cabela's and BPS sell this hook in their respective salt water catalogs and on line or you can order direct from Gamakatsu through their website.

My sons and I are in the market for 7'10" to 8' rods specifically for throwing hollow body frogs and buzz frogs. We've been losing more fish than we'd like using 7' rods and think the longer rods will help get and keep the fish up out of the cover. If possible, we'd like to keep the cost limited to $150 max per rod. We also all prefer rods with a foregrip. Any suggestions?

This past Fall, I broke off a Smallie I had hooked on a tube dipped in JJ's Magic. 2 days later, my son caught that fish still wearing my jig and tube...the tube still smelled strongly of JJ's Magic. Amazing stuff!

What is it about the process of making tubes that makes it so difficult to produce consistent results? I have fished tubes from many different manufacturers and they all have the same inconsistencies...body length vs. tentacle length as well as body wall thickness can vary greatly even within the same bag of tubes. Just curious about why as it doesn't seem to matter that much to the fish.

We had an awesome day yesterday with Smallies on tubes and beavers in 41 degree water. 2 of us fishing about 7 hours wound up with 6 20" or better and another 9 that were 19" or better. Even got 1 LM about 18 1/2" in that 41 degree water, but she came on jig and Paca Craw combo.

I've been using a jig made by Fin-tech called a Title-Shot for tubes and other soft plastics as well. The hook up ratio is excellent, it's pretty darn snag resistant and you get a lot of fish per tube.

I've had good results with their stick worms, their beaver type baits and their tubes.

Whatever you do, DO NOT put them in JJ's Magic. I made that mistake and all the tentacles fell off immediately. The body deteriorated shortly thereafter. :'(