Thad

Several crankbaits will do kind of like a 180 when you pause them while they are rising. While it is normal on these crankbaits I prefer to throw one that won't do that when using a crank and pause method of retrieve. At least one that won't turn so far as to fowl the hooks up.

x2, others can't compare.

My partner and I have been pre-fishing for a tournament the last couple days. The lake is a deep (100+) rocky lake. Most banks are v's. The best pattern we have found so far is throwing flukes in laydowns with a bunch of limbs in them, without the limbs there seems to be no fish. But the fish we are finding aren't very big. We are headed out at about 1 today after classes for one more day to fish and were going to look for some bigger ones. A cold front moved in last night and I was just looking for some more options to catch these fish that are suspending. We threw hard jerkbaits all day the last two and haven't had much luck. Only thing we can get a bite on is a fluke, senko, and a shad rap that has been modified to suspend. Should we stay with these baits and just continue to look for bigger fish? Stay with the laydown pattern and maybe go up river looking for bigger fish? Water temp is 51-54.

They just stalked South Holston with something like 50,000 or 500,000 trout too. Can't remember exactly :-?. Might be able to get in on the swimbait fun with these smallies. Had one come up on one last week but didn't get the whole thing.

I am. Atlanta is my favorite team but my AL team is the Sox. Congrats on your tourney too, I just saw your post.

Went out today on Holston Lake in VA/TN. My friend and I only got 3 bites today. I caught a 20" smallmouth and a 1 1/2 lb crappie. My friend caught another 20" smallmouth but his had one heck of a belly.

That's a 4" BBZ that I painted.

Yep, we have a bass boat and I got a 14' john boat this winter but where we like to go, our boats wouldn't stand a chance. This is how the whole year went last year. He had the numbers but I had the size.

My dad and I always make a couple trips to New River during March and today was our first trip of the year. What a beautiful day it was, finally some warm weather around here. The fishing wasn't too bad either. My dad beat me in numbers but I got him in size. He caught 8 smallmouth and one musky. I caught 5 smallmouth. He caught his on a tube, I was throwing the same thing and couldn't get bit. I switched to a Sebile Koolie Minnow and caught one 22" on the second cast with it. After that I caught one 18" and a little later caught one 20". Of course I only had one jerkbait like that and of course I lost it. I put on a white X-Rap and caught a couple more, 14" and 15". The 20" fish was fun. I had thrown the jerkbait in a good hole and jerked it all over it. I decided to just throw it out and reel it in to see if that would trigger a stike, I figured one had to be in there. The water was really clear and about five feet from me I saw it come up and engulf the bait, it was an awesome thing to see.

On the Nat Geo site you can only watch like 3 minutes of it. Unless I'm looking at the wrong thing.

If anybody has this taped and can make a copy, dvd or vhs, I would love to see the show. I currently don't have cable at my apartment, between school work, paining lures, and fishing I really don't have the time for most of the pointless stuff on tv. Do miss sports though. PM me if you can help. Thanks

Take a pic and put it on here. We can tell you then. Put something like a penny beside it.

Any more suggestions? I'm looking to stay under the 7'6" size.

Well we're allowed to have 5 rods in the tournaments I'm fishing and I need one that can pull double duty for frogs and swimbaits. I'm not talking huge swimbaits, nothing more than a 6" hud. It would probably need to be rated for up to 2oz. I guess my bigger question though is what line would you use. I know braid is standard for frogs but not very good for swimbaits. I don't fish extremely thick stuff with the frogs. Would you go with a heavy mono or?

Well Wal-Mart quit selling D2T and that was the biggest reason I was using it, it was so easy to obtain when needed. I finally ordered some of the Dick Nites. I also ordered 16 1oz bottles to decant the stuff into. I shouldn't lose any of it that way. I plan on spraying it on to speed up the process. But like mentioned, you better have a good ventilation system.

The bed idea came to my mind too. Also I fish a lot of steep rock banks and points and look forward to hopping it down them.

Understood, I respect your opinions and always enjoy your reviews. Hope I didn't sound like a disagreed with you because I haven't even fished them yet.

I have to first say that I haven't fished these yet, BUT!!! My fishing partner and I did a little test with these and several other lipless. The "official" bathtub test . We took the Clackin' Rap, Red Eye, Aruku, Rat-L-Trap, LVR D-7, and the Excalibur One Knocker and swam them a little bit. The Clackin' Rap looks to be a versatile bait. Its action is almost a swimming action. The bigger body definitely makes this bait standout from the rest. It also stood up better then any of them. You could also fish this bait a lot slower then the others if you wanted. It keeps a nice swimming action when moved slowly. Edit: (Looks like Micro says you can't fish it slow. My test was only in a tub, ha, so go with his advice.) As far as fishing them, I'll find out this coming week down on Guntersville. My partner will be throwing his usual Spot so we'll see which performs better. Of the other lures I really liked the action of the Aruku. It also stood up really well. The Aruku and the Clackin' Raps are completely different baits and I plan on throwing both a lot this coming week and season. David Fritts is doing good right now in the FLW event on Guntersville. I'd like to see if he's throwing that Clackin' Rap down there.

I've got several t-shirts in yellow and brown, a couple sweatshirts, a hat, and a few of those baby line thrus. I've ordered way too much lately.

I use them all the time. Never have noticed a smell after they dry. Just get you some Devcon 2 Ton from Wal-Mart for an easy top coat.

They're not the perfect swim jig but they do have the 28 degree bend and they do run true. I'm getting a mold though just for swim jigs.

I just resized it and used photobucket.

I kind of figured the weedguards were poured in place, very nice. Did you use Createx on your jig? I am slowly going to break into air brushing, just don't have the time lately. I have all the components though. Your lures and paint jobs are beautiful. I originally was starting to get into crankbait building, but again got too busy with jigs. I use different automotive paints. I've been messing around with cranks myself lately.

The weedgaurds are inserted before pouring the mold. The paint on the third one is brown powder coat and then I airbrushed the belly orange.