River Rat316

I have used them a ton and have not thought they were to fragile, I throw them in nasty brush and snags on the river here and rarely have a problem, the only ones I have broke have been user error, bouncing them off bridge pilings, rock, and the TM head will eventually break them, they are plastic. Not near as fragile as most rapalas though, and 1/2 the price!

For all that are ripping on her for keeping it, if it was legal to do, there is nothing to say about it.

Save up for a rod that's at least 7' and H action, I prefer a mod fast or fast tip with braid. I use 65lb Power Pro for froggin, some may say its overkill, but it won't break on a bad cast, and gives a little piece of mind when a hawg has you wrapped around some pad stems. One other thing not mentioned here is after the hookset (which needs to be hard) you really need to keep the pressure on the fish, if you give them the chance to turn there head and get some pull against you the battle just became ten times harder. Bigger fish will instantly dig down into the weeds and wrap you up, this is another reason I recommend at least a 7' rod, you get a lot more leverage the longer you go!

Spinnerbait is my go to search bait in the wind, next would be a crank, which one depends on the depth I was fishing, but typically a bomber fat a or a bandit 200. Next would be a jig depending on how hard the wind is howling

Yeah I don't like the mess that makes, I would rather not have my hands black and turning everything else in the shop black. I am gonna try that mold release stuff CadMan was talking about on a other site though.

The federal license is called a 6 pack operators permit I believe, it will cover boats for hire with up to 6 paying customers, it runs from anywhere from $1000 to $2000. And yes you need it if you are guiding navigable waters. Navigable waters are now defined as anything that has a connection (of any size) to the ocean, and if you think about it that's darn near any water way in the US, unless its a puddle with no inlet or outlet.

I have poured thousands of them, they pour good with little to no rejects. My biggest complaint is the larger sizes are hard to free up from the mold. Especially the 3/4 mine hangs up something fierce and doesn't wanna come out

If you are fishing alot of wood try either these Or these The wide base of these jigs help them deflect off of wood meaning less hanups, also slow down, and feel your way around things, you will get more bites this way also. They both can be found here http://www.northstarbaits.com/premierjigs.html

haha I felt the same way when I caught my first jig fish, now I have at least 2 rods in the boat with jigs tied on, sometimes 3. Thats not counting swim jigs cause I classify those different. It only gets better from here on out!

for swim jigs I usually use a 5" grub (action plastics work well) or a paddle tail of some sort. For spinnerbaits I try not to have a trailer but when I do it is a action plastics 5" grub in a complimenting color

Alot of times with senkos the fish is in the act of swallowing the bait when the hookset and fight starts, they have the bait in there crusher and the hookset doesn't allow the bait out for the hook to grab flesh. First thing I would do is make sure your drag is tight enough so it doesn't slip, tighten it down, if you need to adjust after the hookset, then do it, but leave it tight for the hookset. If you feel you are not getting a good hookset, you can do two or three different things.... first hike the skirt up.. ;D jk of course. First thing would be set it again when you have a tightline on the fish, second would be a switch over to braid so there is less give in your overall setup. and third would be a circle hooks setup so when the fish finally relaxes it crushers the hook finds the corner of the lip on the way out. I assume you were t rigging it and not wacky rigging so the third wouldn't help with this set up

HE IS NOT SUEING OVER THE BEAVER TYPE BAIT, the suit is over the Paca Craw pinchers and legs. Andre from RI has a patent on the beaver and if I am not mistaken has a similar law suit on most of the players in this suit

While I hope NetBait wins this one it goes both ways, the big guys get hosed alot by the little guy also. I see netbait has "trick" style worms and a beaver bait, so they are far from perfect. Bu8t in this particular case they deserve what was rightfully theres for inventing a whole new style of plastics

This is about patent rights, I agree it always doesn't seem right but think about it if you invented something (yes different lure styles are inventions) wouldn't you want the rights to the profit also? Otherwise what is your incentive to go out and make new things? We owe a great deal of what we use now to the patent system, if not for patent rights new products would not be hitting the market. Someone also mentioned deep pockets, it probably took a couple years to raise the funds to actually enforce the patent, its not uncommon for patent enforcement to hit 6 figures and it takes time for a small business to get this pile of cash. Companies like bass pro also pay a royalty to the original company when they do a direct knock off, so companies always have that option if they want to knock off a patented product. If you want to talk about patents that are not right, look at Terminator spinnerbaits, they patented Titanium wire, to me that doesn't seem right.

I am not going to go to far indepth into this but most of these comments are way off base, he has every right to sue for patent infringement, he developed the product, got the patent , and introduced it to the market, how much do you all think that costs? Now there are a bunch of companies out there riding on his coattails. I also believe Andre at RI has started a law suit and it involves many of the same players in this other one

Letting your baits sit in coffee grounds will do basically nothing except turn your baits an off color of brown. Try upper hand scents coffee scent (google them). Add a couple drops to your bag and it will soak into the plastic, well salted plastics anyway, the salt leaves open pores in the plastic and will soak up the scent. It will soak into regular plastic over time but not near as good as salted plastics

I have about 30 bags of the creature bait they have in my bargain bin at my garage sale right now, if you want to drive up to MN you can get em for 50 cents a bag ;D

Barlows, Janns and Lure Parts online are probably the big 3. Zeiners bass shop has great prices on molds also.

Spinnerbait, jig (either arky or alien head) and a Bomber Square A. We don't have deep standing timber here though, deepest I can think of is about 4-5' on a couple lakes (all natural lakes for the most part)

They are pre spawn on the croix right now, they will be spawning soon if this weather holds, my guess is within the next 2 weeks, remember that the croix bass season follows the MN season sso it doesn't open until Memorial day weekend. Inland WI waters will open for Bass (C&R for the first few weeks) with the regular WI season next weekend

Hmmm and here the whole time I have been tying 7 strand to the hook, your idea looks a whole lat easier!!

I should do something like this, I usually set the camera on my outboard and hit the timer, but my little jon boat I currently have is a little tippy and my boat camera slid into the river last year doing this :-/ I got a new camera but need to figure out a way to mount it, that clamp loos good and cheap just the way I like it ;D

Illegal in MN..... but then again what aint

3 taps= fish picking up jig, fish turning head and feeling resistance, and fish spitting jig. Thats the taps you are feeling. I also agree with Rolo on the trimming of weedguards, trimming them makes them stiffer, keeping them long keeps them flexible and proivides the nescassary leverage to drive the hook home on a fish. If you do anyhting to the weedguard fan it out or take some of the fibers away but do not trim it

20lb floro is good, if you are using lighter jigs you can even go down lower to 14lb or so. Floro has more abrasion resistance than braided lines, braids cut easy on anything sharp, unless your fishing slop I would not be using braid, but that is just me