MNGeorge

To be perfectly honest, I have sufficient supply on hand already to last for the forseeable future. Of course, that won't keep me from buying more. The baitmonkey can be very persuasive.

After reading a number of posts here and some reviews elsewhere on the web, I am getting the idea that the Zoom Trick Worm is supposed to float. I have a bag of them and can attest to the fact they sink like a rock. Is it supposed to float? Are mine defective? Do some colors float and others do not? Mine are white. Any tips on fishing these worms will also be appreciated. thanks.

Baby Bass is hard to beat. It is one of our favorites.

Gammie even makes a 6/0 EWG offset "Superline" worm hook. We use it in 5" flukes and 6" flappin shads, and I'm sure it will work just fine in these new 7" models.

Damien is right on in my opinion. We have both Gander and Sportsman's here in St. Cloud. In my experience, Gander is head and shoulders above Sportsman's when it comes to customer service.

My experience with them has been what you gain in durability, you lose in action. I've used the frogs and the jerk shads neither of which works as well as their "soft nosed" counterparts such as the Horny Toad or Ribbit frogs or the Houdini Shad or Super Fluke. However, they do work well enough that when the fish are really going on jerk shads or frogs, we will go to the hardnose ones for the durability. Our best fish count on one jerk shad is 15.

The baitmonkey thrives because: "There is a big difference between "Need" and "Gotta Have"

We have had some awesome days throwing buzzers over submerged vegetation on windy days. My guess is that the chop on the water diffuses the light penetration enough so the Bass sit higher up in the weeds and are willing to hit a surface lure. My personal preference in buzzers is the Persuader Double Buzz. We fish in current alot and the counter rotating double blades keep the buzzer from washing out due to the side force of the current. Also, it stays on the surface at a very slow retrieve speed. I bought a couple of Cavitrons based on their popularity on this site and will give them a good trial as soon as we can get on the water.

Not ready yet because I'm waiting for some new Plano boxes. I have time though. Walleye opener is a month away and Bass doesn't open 'til May 24th.

Always open to try something new. (The bait monkey loves me) Willingness to keep fishing despite poor results. (This doesn't happen very often anymore) Ability to read water.(I fish mostly in rivers, so it's not that hard to learn)

If you are asking me this question, we use both depending mostly on how fast you have to retrieve them to induce strikes. The double bladed ones can be really burned in without washing out like some single blade models do on high speed retrieves. The important thing in windy conditions is how much commotion they create. The more the better.

Bigdog, love your avatar.

Don't limit yourself to calm days for throwing a buzz bait. We have had some of our best buzz bait success on very windy days. Use the biggest, loudest buzzer you have and work it over submerged weed beds. You will likely be pleasantly surprised at the action you get. We don't throw pencil baits much at all, but do fish heavy slop with both buzz frogs and hollow body frogs like the Swamp Donkey or Spro Dean Rojas Bronze Eye Frog. This is a very exciting and fun way to fish. It does require some specialized tackle, heavy action rod, heavy braided line etc. to pull fish from the heavy cover, but it is so much fun to watch them blow up on a bait in the middle of a big area of thick cover. Popper or chugger type baits we use on calm to relatively calm days, especially if there is some cloud cover and/or it is humid out. Don't know what the humidity has to do with it, but we have had some awesome days with both popper/chugger style baits as well as walk the dog type baits when it was very humid out.

We use Rattletraps often and have for years. Our experience differs greatly from Sam's in that we rarely lose a fish on them. In fact, they usually come to the boat with multiple hooks in their face. I do agree about the chrome with the blue back though. It's absolutely our best color and the one we always start with. Second choice would be some kind of red pattern.

We have better results with the Super Hog, don't know why. We always T-rig them. Colors for our lake are Tequila Sunrise and Watermelon Candy.

Any presentation that requires a good sense of feel. My buddies don't call me "stone hands" without good reason. It's the main reason I took up river fishing. River fish are seldom bashful about grabbing a lure or piece of soft plastic. They are simply more aggressive than their lake counterparts.

I share your pain and your remedy. The bait monkey has been very hungry this winter, especially after stumbling onto this and another site. Besides the problem of waiting for Spring, I now have the problem of how am i ever going to get all this stuff into my tackle box/bags?

I have been back and forth a couple of times. As a youth, I played a fair amount of golf with my Dad who was an avid golfer. After I got married, my wife's family were fisher people and I took up fishing. I did both for a number of years, but did neither very well. When we moved to Minnesota, fishing received a great deal of emphasis and golf was just something to do once in a while. Things stayed that way for about 10 years until the river got so low one year it was unfishable except for wading. I started playing more and more golf to the point where I didn't even buy a fishing license one year. I got pretty good at golf, getting down to a 2 handicap for a while. An Arthritic knee made me give up the golf for a while so I went back to fishing and was surprised to learn how much I missed the fishing. After knee replacement surgery, I played golf and fished for a year or two, but the golf scores really suffered. When an Arthritic left wrist prevented me from playing golf, I really got into the fishing. Now I am all into fishing and loving it.

I smell "Sierra Club".

Not that I disagree with everything you say because I too believe we all give the fish way too much credit sometimes, but to compare today's fisheries with the fisheries the indians had to deal with is hardly a valid comparison. I'm guessing you'd have a hard time feeding your family fish using braided husk and a bone in this day and age.

Went to Lake Fork Tackle and could not find the hooks. Can you provide a link?

I don't wany any cr*p for knowing this, but that is a crochet hook, NOT a knitting needle. (My wife is a big knitter and crocheter) It looks like a good idea, though, very creative.

Bass Pro has them on page 358 of the master catalog. Also, Tackle Warehouse has them from several different hook makers. FWIW, I have tried these weighted hooks in Fluke type baits with less than satisfactory results. While they will get the fluke deeper in the water, they seem to reduce the action of the fluke significantly. Are you using the "Super Line" EWG hooks? They are made from slightly heavier wire and don't seem to affect the action of the fluke. We use up to 6/0 Super Line EWG Gamakatsu hooks for flukes even though we don't use braid for fluke fishing. Hooksets are no problem even with the 6/0 hooks. Flourocarbon line sinks, so that also helps get the flukes lower in the water column.

Does it come with the boxes for $40? As for BPS bags, I have the blue 360 size bag and have absolutely abused it for at least 5 years and it is still as good as the day i bought it.

Go to any good fly shop. They should have bulk wire leader material that is "knotable" and it comes in light weight pound tests. We don't have Pickerel, but we have Pike and Musky to contend with and this has proven to be the best solution so far.