fretfishman

I can't wait to try out these jig heads. the action looks like what I've been wanting for a long time now. so excited! cool thing is that the fun doesn't stop with the jig head and a worm, or at least I imagine. I'm going to be having a lot of fun trying a bunch of soft plastic baits and trailers. the combination of actions with this jig head and some rage tails is intriguing. might be overkill, but oh well - haha.

thanks, guys. I have some links to look through here - be back later! ;D oh, and that sucks that you're out of those *** tubes...what a great price. :-[

not sure if it's this way in the picture or not (it's too dark in the middle to tell), but I always used to put the heat shrink around the senko and just slide the hook bend under the top of the shrink so it doesn't enter the worm at all - doesn't weaken it that way. anyway, thanks for posting that - reminds me to go back to doing it and stop being lazy. good money saver.

good point. that's a yes and no for me. I fish most things faster, but will fish crawbugs and such even slower than normal. I also usually switch from a normal jig to a swimming jig in these situations. I don't downsize much on my baits, if any, but I do use dropshot or splitshot presentations a lot for clear waters....which, for me, does introduce some smaller baits just due to the nature of the presentation. one of my faves is a 4-5" hand-poured, laminated shad color worm.

Or upsize for the size of bass you would really like to catch! 8-) agreed! also, think of it this way. you don't ever want them to see the perfect outline of the blades anyway and size them up accordingly. a successful spinnerbait bite always masks that in some form - lure speed and current, water clarity, light conditions, etc - at least, imo. you're looking for the flash and/or vibrations - not neccesarily a perfect baitfish imitation. that's what swimbaits are for! ;D

handy, check out the tackletour flouro roundup test. or whatever it was called. that might give you some insight. I'd focus on knot strength and visibility since it sounds like you'll be using a short leader. abrasion resistance would be nice, too, but you can't really have it all with most line types - especially flouro. g'luck, man!

all I can say is "tunnel vision", buddy. ;D I make it a point to try something out if I feel the price is right and the features and construction seem solid. I couldn't be bothered to argue whether something is made by a company known for cheaper products or not. to each his own!

nice work, ghost. good times catching a nice bass on a lure like that.

i use an asaro and trion for my shore fishing reels - baitcasting and spinning, respectively. they're solid and I've had no problems so far. they cast and feel great, as well as having a solid drag. the best thing is that they perform so well for being cheap. the asaro cost me about 120 and I think the trion setup(combo rod/reel) cost less than that at around 70.

5:1 - spinnerbaits, crankbaits, jerkbaits, anything you need to "slow down" on. 6:1 - all around. 7:1 - rat'l traps, buzzbaits or buzzfrogs, jigs-worms-anything that is slack-based.

i didn't even know those existed. thanks, man. looks interesting with the zipper style ribs. I googled for tube baits and didn't have much luck. a whole lot of tubes that look the same, but nothing anyone could comment on. I guess the two features I'm looking for are laminated colors and a very lively skirt. I'll try those yum tubes out. any other suggestions, people? thanks a lot.

good point, xhogger. try and match the forage in your area. it's usually hard to go wrong with a white grub, though. almost every fisherman across the world I've ever talked to has had good luck with that. like rw says you're trying to imitate baitfish, so retrieve accordlingly - experimenting if they're sluggish. a grub might be more of a boring lure, but it's effective!

so, I'm in the market for some new hollow body tubes. I usually just use strike king, but I want to try some different things for fun. any suggestions on some good tube baits, especially if the manufacturer has laminated colors, you guys use would rock. thanks in advance!

for me it was a panfish soft plastic kit I tried when I wanted to get a "compact stowaway" setup to take and really learn panfishing more. (not that it's all that hard) granted, there isn't a whole lot of engineering that goes into small tubes and grubs, but these things just failed. it's a very good kit for a kid to go panfishing, but I should've known better than to try something like this. that's what I get for being lazy - I didn't want to put together my own kit with better soft plastics and jig heads that actually have a decent hook.

pretty much the same as roadwarrior except I use smoke, chartreuse, coke and white colors. my two biggest retrieves are snap, snap, fall, sweep, fall, repeat - or swimming the grub with an occasional snap and fall. I vary the retrieves a few times if I'm not getting anything. often while I'm swimming the grub they're wanting a little something extra so I'll raise and lower my rod tip 6 inches while swimming it. nothing too fancy.

great job, shorefisher. landing those big smallies is what it's about - they're so much fun to fight. take a camera phone next time so you can give us pics to drool over! ;D

"you're not likely to catch a 15 pounder back to back with 1 pounders" "I have caught 10 lb+ bass on one cast & 2 lb bass on the next so you go figure" big difference! ;D so, so some of us have caught "large" bass next to dinks - yet some would say the smaller bass would be gobbled up if they're in the same vicinity. I've always thought, especially after conversations with a marine biologist friend, that bass will only cannibalize if they think they won't get a different meal soon and/or the dink bass is exceptionally small and presents a really easy meal. the type of discussion going on here only solidifies that in my mind. conclusion? we worry too much. :

g'luck with the xt, cliff. at least you tried the braid and can always go back to it for certain fishing conditions and styles if you choose. that happened to me. I tried braid when it first really hit the scene and liked certain things about it but other things were annoying. now I use braid for only certain things like swimbaits and deep water presentations.

can't provide anything except my experience, but I only use two spook colors - clear/baby blue and speckled trout. they're both saltwater lures, but I fish them in all waters, because they just produce the best for me. the only time I really find that topwater color matters much is when the sun is super bright on the area I'm fishing - in that case, I don't use anything that emits a ton of flash. (chrome or bright holographic colors...basically anything that hurts your eyes on certain angles when you're retrieving it) hope this helps. :-/

Grats, Bobby! if that doesn't send butterflies up and down your spine I don't know what will - kudos.

roadwarrior pointed out single tail grubs, which are a great first bait to learn smallies. they're very reliable, because they offer a profile smallies like and can be fished in a variety of ways. another option you should try is a doubletail hula grub (yamamoto) with a pegged 3/16 or 1/4 oz. bullet. this is my confidence smallie bait - whereas I'd fish a fat ika more often for lmb. both will work. cast out, 2 quick snaps, let it fall, 6-18 inch sweep - let it fall and repeat two more times, two more small snaps and end with a large pop. chances are, the smallies hit your bait long before you completed all that. if they haven't hit it at all then they're simply not there, imo. move on. the biggest thing is letting the bait fall on slight slack - enough so it falls straight but not so much that you have to reel forever when you see your line jump - they hit it on the fall a lot. pay attention to your slack at all times between your cadences. just a suggestion to get you started, g'luck!

what you're saying is only half true - don't spread this due to misinformation. it's completely subjective to what someone considers a "large" bass. I've caught several 5-7 pounders on the same bed as bass that weigh 1 pound or less. sure, you're not likely to catch a 15 pounder back to back with 1 pounders, but I think we all understand why that is. what you're saying about survival of the fittest and bass cannibalizing is true, though. what we have to remember, though, is that it's completely situational. you can't rule out catching "big" bass next to smaller ones based on predator/prey logic alone.

i have 2 rods that cover my smallie needs. 7'6" mh casting (st. croix) with 12# copolymer (p-line) and 6'6" M spinning (pflueger) with 10# big game or flouro (p-line). allows me to throw the super light stuff and the heaviest swimbaits and jigs I'd need to throw for smallies. sometimes I bump the spinning rod's line down to 6# flouro for fishing open water structure.

alc - ok, cool beans. there are a couple lakes that I have to worry about the same thing. when I fish those spots I had a stinger hook, but it's in a tandem hook setup. basically, I just use a bit of 12-15 lb test to connect another hook from the shank of the main hook or the hook eye - depending on the size of the hook. another option is to tie on a grub to fish those guys out since the pink tail most likely looks like a small pink grub to them if it's a curly tail. dinks are really attracted to a curly tail so it's a quick and effective way to land those fish - especially if you know there are bigger ones on that bed that you're targeting. anyway, g'luck.

thanks for the clarification, but I'd check out the action on a robotail if I were you - not the regular roboworm. at any rate, the products look great and I can't wait to try them. thank our lucky stars good product designers are constantly trying to push the envelope.