The_Natural

The Moonsault has an extremely tight action, and is the loudest crankbait I have come across. All Moonsaults have multiple rattle chambers combining several sizes and materials of rattles, including glass beads. I would consider the Flat CB a 'Finesse crank'...it is definitely more subtle when comparing it to the Moonsault. You can hear the moonsault coming before you see it surface. I'll take a pic when I get my camera recharged.

I also use 10lb line on my crankbait rig, sometimes going down to 8lb if I'm throwing smaller baits.

I purchase from Backwaters, BPS, Cabelas, and Ebay the most. Backwaters sale bin always has some good deals.

I have quite a few Slender Pointers...They are indeed a great bait. I scored 10 Slender Pointers from BPS online last year for $6.88 each...5 Shell White 97MR's, and 5 Matte Pumpkin 112MR's. I've also got American Shad and Original Tennessee Shad, but I haven't thrown those yet.

A weedless football jighead rigged with a modified Zoom Brush Hog. I take the 'fins' and cut them a little to where they flair out more, and also cut speed-craw style grooves in the 'fins'. Here are some pics...

I have owned both. The 6'9" SBR with the X-fast tip can cast as far as the 7' 843 with a fast tip, but I just prefer the 843's fast tip for spinnerbait fishing versus the SBR's X-fast tip.

Ditto..................Al +1 +2

I use 8lb fluorocarbon exclusively for jerkbaits, mainly to get them to run a foot or two deeper. I seem to always outfish my boater when fishing jerkbaits, and I feel lighter fluorocarbon is one the reasons and a definite advantage. Try it...you will get bit more often.

I think the Easy View's clips are easier to use than the rings the Cook's system uses, but I suppose that is preference. I also think the Easy View is...well...easier to view .

Who cares where the rights to the company lie...it's not like they shipped over busloads of Asians to work at the Loomis Factory in Washington when Shimano took the reins. Shimano didn't pay millions to buy a brand and then change things...they are smarter than that. They simply provided Loomis with the financial backing Gary could never dream of. Gary still worked there when I talked to Marshall (a guy I know in the Loomis marketing department) in November, and still has his office, even thought he admitted he doesn't see Gary all that often. According to him, Gary was behind the design of the BCR and SMR series. Go figure...they don't have smallmouth in Asia . The only people I have ever heard try and say the quality went down when Shimano purchased Loomis are people that don't fish or can't afford Loomis rods. I've asked some nay sayers directly what part of the rod has suffered, and I haven't received an answer. I've owned pre-Shimano Loomis rods and I have a quiver of post-Shimano rods...maybe someone can educate me on the difference, because I can't tell.

The CRC silicone spray available at Wal-mart is a pure silicone spray...and says "contains petroleum distillates" on the label, which is obviously in the carrier agent that evaporates. Reading on down the label, like the Clearco silicone sprays, it reads "FDA food grade approved for incidental food contact". Folks...if you can eat it...it will not harm your line . Silicone is in all Amour All or plastic protectant products.

I saw that study, and I think anise was at the bottom, followed by salt and then garlic. BTW...Anise is the black licorise smell, not garlic.

I hate the salt they put in the bags...it is nothing but annoying!!

Last Season seemed to be the year of the crankbait for me as well, and the Lucky Craft Moonsault 100, BDS 2, and Bagley B2 all produced like crazy for me. I fish shad and rootbeer colors the most.

The Walmart dollar deals. Every February they have had baits on sale for about three weeks, and they usually mark everything down to a dollar at one point. The problem is every Walmart hits the dollar point at different times, so I have to make frequent trips to check prices. I just hit one about 20mins from my house yesterday that had all clearance baits for $1. I got 4 War Eagle spinnerbaits, 5 bottles of kick-n-bass, 20 bags of Ultravibe speed craws, 10 bags of Lake Fork Tackle Craw Tubes, 10 Norman Deep Little N's in Lavendar shad, 10 bags of Yum Zellamandars, and about 15 bags of Kinami Flash's in Watermelon and shad. I find deals like this too often...my backstock is as large as it is because I can't say no to dollar baits.

I stock Firetiger, Blue/Chartreuse, Ayu, Texas Shad, Tennessee Shad, and Craw. You could get by with just a shad and chartreuse variety, such as firetiger or blue/chartreuse and Tennessee Shad or Texas Shad. I throw the craw probably the least, but when bass want craw it works well.

I love the Frenzy medium divers...I just bought 20 more from Cabelas for $1.99. They excel in colder water, and is one of my go-to baits in the prespawn. How can you beat a good paint job, scaled finish, and glass eyes for $1.99?!

I guess I am a Team Daiwa man myself, seeing how I own more Daiwas than Shimano's at the moment. Higher end Shimanos are buttery smooth, but the high end Daiwas have the tighest tolerances I've seen on any reel period. Team Daiwa=Refinement.

Fluoro is more sensitive...period. It's very noticeable. I use fluorocarbon on all 'feel' baits, such as worms, jigs, lizards, and tubes. I fished stained water most of the time, so invisibility is not an issue; I just want the sensitivity. Fishing with fluoro on a GLX feels like somebody kicked the end of your rod when you get bit.

Fishing line is basically plastic (nylon), and plastic gets UV damage from the sun just like anything else. Just look at the weatherstripping of any car that is a couple of years old. Sun causes UV damage...silicone is a UV protectant. The repeated getting wet with that hard lake water, drying in the sun, and getting wet again is harsher on line than just sitting on the boat deck. Have you ever been at the lake all day partying, and jumped in the lake for a swim several different times during the day? Your hair feels like straw when you get home. Silicone is good for your line...period. I won't pay the money for reel magic, but I will spray silicone on my line.

I throw a few Lucky Craft crankbaits, but the Moonsault CB is the one that is without an equal produced by any other company. It is the tightest wiggling, loudest crankbait on the market. It has multiple rattle chambers that utilize tungsten, glass beads, and lead to produce a unique racket that excels in colder water. If you decided to shell out for just one Lucky Craft crankbait to try...this is the one to buy, and the chartreuse shad color will work in any water clarity.

That's a fairly easy one considering the lake and time of year. I am an extremely confident cooler water fisherman (48-55 degrees), and I have done my best in March tournaments. Two seasons ago I took second in our club tournament on Lake Sardis here in Oklahoma (an impoundment nearly identical to Fork), and last season I won our March tournament on Eucha. I'm a modest person, and certainly am not mentioning this to brag, but to illustrate that I know exactly what I want to do this time of year, and can pack very light. Regardless of the lake or time of year, I just carry one of my red bags ( one of the two that is in the first pic of my tackle), and I can squeeze 8 3700 size boxes, with a 3600 (hooks and weights) in the the front zipper pocket, and a worm binder in each side pocket. I don't need all 8 3700's for a March tournament, due to my small March playbook of what I want to do. My main baits are a jerkbait and spinnerbait, followed by a crankbait and then a jig. Red works very well in the south during the spring, and I have a 'special' spinnerbait I throw every year about that time. It is a tandem 1/2oz white Red River Tackle spinnerbait with fluorescent red colorado 'kicker' blade followed by a heavy cupped #4.5 willow. The heavy cupped willow allows it to come through the water with less resistance than willow blades of the same size, and also allows it to run deeper. This makes it an ideal spinnerbait to slow-roll, and the red kicker blade gives it a special appeal. I used this bait solely in the tournament on Sardis, and had a 15lb limit of spots to secure 2nd. This spinnerbait is absolutely dynamite in the south, and Lake Fork is well known for bass prefering red baits down there as well. Next would be a jerkbait, namely a Pointer or an X-rap. The first time I ever tied on an X-rap, I won my club tournament on Eucha during VERY tough post cold front conditions. I won a 14 boat club tournament with a 6lb limit if that tells how tough the conditions were. During practice, there were a few fish on beds with the water temps in 61 degree range, but the night before the tournament a cold front blew in, pushing the fish back and dropping the water temps back to 58 degrees with 30-40mph winds. When fish are in the worst mood possible, I have found that a jerkbait with a very erratic darting action worked with a several second pause is ideal. I'll let it sit for a few seconds before giving it a full, rod-bowing rip. My boater only had 1 keeper all day, and he was throwing a Pointer 100. He was working the Pointer with a steady jerk-jerk pause, and the fish just didn't seem to like the consistancy. I think working my jerkbaits on a spinning rod with 6 or 8lb fluorocarbon is equally key...this not only gives my jerkbait more action than my boaters, but it also runs a little deeper. After around noon, when the sun warms chunk rock main lake points or ledges toward the mouths of large creeks, the fish get more active, and a crankbait like the Lucky Craft Moonsault CB or Berkley Frenzy is a great choice. The Moonsault has an extremely tight wiggle, and is as loud or louder than a rattletrap due to its multiple rattle chambers combining glass, tungsten and lead. Jigs are never a bad choice in March either, but I'd rather work a moving bait than slowly work a jig. However, there are times when a slowly worked jig is the ticket. My cold water jig of choice for working shallower cover is a 3/16oz Baby Boo Jig in Black/Red flash with a modified brush hog or Nories bug trailer. This jig just seems to have that perfect size and descent for cooler water, and I also fish it on light 10lb fluorocarbon. My other jig choice is for deeper ledges, and in this scenario I go with a 1/2 football jig and just drag it slow. Sorry for the novel, but it's slow here at work . PM me your address and I will be more than happy to send you one of the Red River Tackle spinnerbaits I mentioned; I did for GMAN on here (and bass pro's forum) and it has been quite the producer for him as well. Here is the spinnerbait I am referring to...

I have go-to baits like everyone else, and if I didn't fish tournaments; I would probably have a fraction of the baits I have. I fish lakes every year that I have never fished before, and each have different water clarity, structure, and different patterns that work for that particular impoundment. Fishing as a non-boater, I have to be prepared for all these different conditions, and in the larger pro-am's, I am at the mercy of my boater as to where I will be fishing and to an extent the pattern. I try and do something different than my boater, but if he is running down bank at mach 3, I have limited choices, just as I do if we are sitting in 30ft of clear water on the main lake. My local waters are stained to dirty, and have a lot of shallow wood, which are my favorite conditions to fish. I can get away with just a handful of baits, say 5 or 6, and feel I have worked the water over well.

I just made a master list of all my backstock. It was actually easy, because I only have 3-5 different baits in each box, but 10-20 bags of each. The 3741's are the best way I have found to store your backstock plastics. It is very easy to see your bags, and you can flip through them like an index file, and I just pull out a bag or two that I need to refill. If I am fishing a tournament and am getting bit on a certain senko color, I will carry an extra couple of bags with me. Here is what they look like inside...

I love to organize...I have a knack for it. I could post some more pictures later of how I organize my hooks, weights, and such. The plastics backstock in my closet isn't thousands of different baits, yet 10-30bags of baits and colors I use frequently, and stocked up when I caught them on sale. The colored things on my foregrips are custom foregrip covers I make from special order, extra large diameter heat shrink tubing. It seals the cork and keeps it chalky new.