River Rat316

The "old" style jig trailers still catch fish, there are times that less action is wanted from your trailer, but you still want a quick fall speed or need to fish the jig fast. cold water and frontal conditions are what come to mind. I only use the old style chunks in the winter, I know some people still use action trailers but I just feel more comfortable using a chunk style. Then other condition I have noticed is frontal conditions when the fish are shut down, I use a heavier jig that drops faster but still don't want a lot of action as it falls infront of there face, for this I use trailers just like your powerbait trailers, this is basically a reaction type strike and i feel the action type trailers will turn more fish away under these conditions, I just want a big piece of meat falling right infront of there face as fast as I can get it down there.. Realistic trailers have also been real good to me behind a finesse jig, but then again so has the zoom swimmin chunk, the difference is I am basically swimming it along the bottom with the swimmin chunk, and barely crawlin it with the realistic trailer

1/0 ir 2/0 circle hook, I use regular old Mustad circles, or used to, rarely wacky rig a weightless senko, but my son uses this setup a lot and his hookup ratio is great and also never gut hooks a fish

If you are on the river south of pool 3 you could use 2 arms, border waters rules. I also think you can use a dummy bait instead of a blade all over the state. I don't see it as being as effective in our natural lakes up here, our lake make up is different and our fish generall don't "school" chasing pelagic bait fish, smallies up north on lakes like Rainy, and some other areas are the only areas I could think of using the thing.

they are a 5/0 3x Mustad hook in the 1/2 oz and above, 3/8 is 4/0, the 5/0 is a substantial hook, I am unaware of a 5" swim Bait that will not work with these.

Flip and Swim jigs are on Sale this week.

the solid chartruese is under the solid colors no flake. he is out of alot of stuff right now, I have about ten colors that are really hot sellers for me that haven't been up for like weeks, I think sales have rebounded a bit for everyone and alot of the suppliers got caught with there pants down. Kinda funny though, I talked to him in late December and he said that he had this spring licked and there was going to be no out of stock stuff, talked to him like a week ago and he had a little bit something different to say...lol Poor Charles is putting in alot of hours this spring!

ahhh see ya learn something new every day!

forgot to add, that baits with salt already injected into them are pourus?(sp) so if you were a manufacturer and added a oil or scent to a salt injected bait it will eventually soak it up, leaving nothing to keep the baits from sticking together, this is why most bigger companies don't use scents or oils to keep there baits separated, that and salt is way cheaper

Does fish blood contain salt though? I was thinking of this the other day when I was writing it, I know that most if not all living creatures need sodium at some level to survive and it ultimately ends up in their blood stream, but how do fresh water fish get salt into their blood stream? Especially bait fish, they don't eat land based prey, like a bass can eat a frog, lizard, bird, or whatever else that is more than likely have salt in their blood stream, but what would a minnow digest that would have salt in it? So is salt that common for fish to taste? Probably thinking way to deep on it, but was just wondering if that really is a added benefit?

I ha ve only used the Jackalls but I saw that BPS is now making an alternative, otherwise you can throw just about anything on there, from flukes to senkos

The salt is in the bag to keep them from sticking together. The salt injected into the plastic adds weight and makes the plastic sink, this is why stick baits weigh so much and sink on their own. A byproduct of adding the salt is the baits do tear easier, and salt is way cheaper than plastisol so its a win win for the bait company. But to say the salt adds "no" value is wrong, it does allow you to throw plastics weightless and varies the sink rate of that weightless plastic, a senko would be a lifeless turd if it wasn't for the salt.

Skeeterman is correct, the tails and pectoral fins are chartruese in clear water, don't look like it out of the water but they are in clear water with sunlight.

I had an 02 Explorer 4.0 and it would have pulled that no problem, just be careful about your stopping distances and mind your speed and you should be fine. Gas mileage is going to stink but than it stinks with just about any tow vehicle big enough to pull an 18' bass boat. On a side note I know the Explorer gets ripped on alot, but that was imho the best suv of that year class, the 02's and up had independent rears that hurt there towing capacity a little bit but made there on road ride well worth it, I have owned 3 Suv's from the Explorer to a Suburban and a 4-runner, the Explorer was by far the best and easiest riding, lets face it you probably are not going to use it off road so on road performance is way more important to me. The explorer was comfortable, reliable and good looking, right up until a cam chain decided to take a crap and take out the engine, but in its defence it had a tick since like 38,000 miles and I wasn't smart enough to bring it in to the dealer to see what was going on, I like doing my own maintenance and stuff but it bit me this time.

Lots of factors. But for a general rule clear water, clear skies, little wind = Swim jig windier, murkier, cloudier= Spinnerbait 90% of my swim jigging is pretty simple, I take long casts past cover and reel the jig into the cover, whether it be weeds, wood or rock, and try and make the swim jig contact the cover, if it is hard cover let the swim jig bounce off of it and that is where most of your strikes will come, if it is soft cover (weeds) rip the jig through and either keep cranking it or rip it through and let it drop right next to or into the weeds, the fish will tell you which way they want it. The other 10% involves working weedlines with either a straight retrieve, or more of a jerk bait retrieve only like 5 times faster. There is no real set rules though, one of my favorite techniques is burning spinnerbaits covering as much water as possible, this is a complete reaction strike pattern so it doesn't matter if the fish are negative or not feeding, if you put your bait infront of enough of them some will bite it just out of a natural reaction to the bait being close to them. And I have done this under all conditions, warm water, cold water, clear water, murky water, and any kind of cloud cover you can think of.

Crap... that thing is huge, I would have lost it to if I were to catch that hog, especially on top water. Congrats on the PB, looks like a replica might be on order! On a side note we might see ice out here this week.... so only a couple more months until we catch any topwater fish...lol

We are starting our spring sale this week, it will run a little different than last year, each week we are going to have a different bait on sale going through the end of April. We are doing it this way to hopefully try and spread out the sale a little and make sure that everything gets included. This weeks bait is the Original Swim jig, Regular Price is $3.49 it is marked down 15% and you can take more off with the br10 code, or even more if you are on our mailing list or a fan on Facebook. (To get on our mailing list you can sign up on our website). and here is the link to our FaceBook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/NorthStar-Custom-Baits/132601386796834 Right now our ship time are 5-7 BUSINESS days, this can change drastically, order volume is usually heavy this time of year even without sales, I will try and keep up with the notice on the site wide footer so people have at least some idea of what to expect. Alo this is the busy time of year for vendors, so as much as we try to keep material instock it is not always possible, so if something gets back ordered I will end out notification, if it gets back ordered without me having a shipping time for material I will issue a refund and let you know when i get it back instock. We aso will have the bargain bin back up for some specials, these will be added over time, as more product is available

They are very good, but this is the crazy time of year, I am sure their order volume is huge and I believe it is just two people that run the whole show. And yes your order will always say pending.

Female bluegills in clear water are almost all grey, with some blues, purples, greens, and very faint orange mixed in.And on a side note, I wouldn't worry so much about your "baby bass" colored bait having orange on it, there isn't a natural swimming crank bait out there, when have you seen a fat 3" baby bass wobbling through the water and making rattling noises. If fish were hitting your baits for their realism crank baits would never get bit, they are more than likely hitting that crank bait because it is stimulating some type of feeding response, or they are curious as to what the heck it is.

my current 91 ranger that I bought for $600 and have been driving for over a year beats them all, I used to be a gear head, and maybe will be again some day when I have the time, but right now I am on a lets see how cheap I can get around for kick. My idea of a cool car is way different anyway, I like the guy that takes a complete POS like my ranger and puts a v-8 in it, works some other areas and is a force on the street with a car that he has less than 5g into. My driver before the ranger was a m3 with some work done, and while it was a fun car and would have made that vette look even slower on that autocross course it wasn't my cup of tea, to many looks from cops and other for my tastes

that can be arranged also...lol

Mr fat G you are the man! Nice fishies and yes we are still iced up and on top of that season is closed until Memorial day weekend.... why do I live here?

Good for you G-Man, this is a great lead free alternative for you MA guys. Built in the USA and by a stand up gentleman who cares about his product and customers!

I just wanted to drop everyone a note and let you know about some new and exciting changes for us at NorthStar Custom Baits. We are currently working on relocating our shop, we have out grown our home shop and in order to continue growing we are renovating a new shop about 25 miles north of our current location. this is probably the worst time of year for me to be doing this, I actually leased the shop back in October but having to jump through hoops with the local township board, building inspectors, the epa, and just about every other gov't agency out there we are just now getting going on this. The new shop will give us about ten times the room we have now and will allow us to do some things we should have done a long time ago, like carry an inventory, and update our machinery. This is a huge step for NorthStar and I have the BR members to thank for it. The unfortunate thing about the timing of the move is our production times are not looking good, I am trying to catch up on orders and put time in at the new location to get it ready for the move. I apologize for extended wait times but in the end it will really be worth it, we have big... well not big.. HUGE plans for the future, and this new shop is just the first step. The really cool thing about this new shop, well for me anyway, is it has about a 9 acre pond on it that will become our true life test tank, it is 17' deep and is loaded with bass and gills, so I can come up with an idea, produce it, and walk out my door and test it out in a private test tank, pretty darn cool if you ask me. It will make lunch breaks go alot quicker also So needless to say the spring sale will be delayed this year, but when we have it (probably early to mid April) it will be HUGE!

The way I see it is I have very few competitors on the market, I don't see any of the mass produced jigs on the market as competition, my true competitors are guys like Seibert Outdoors, and all the other small builders that are doing GOOD custom stuff and putting their heart and soul into their work. Business doesn't have to be cut throat, most of what I do I owe to my competitors, I wouldn't be hand tieing, going through all the different paint steps, using the highest quality components and so on if it wasn't for companies like Seibert and all the other hand builders out there. We all push each other to take the next step into building a quality product. I am sure g-man wouldn't have bought into the Owner hooks if I hadn't been doing them with success , I am also sure I wouldn't have a mop jig if his wasn't so successfull. One thing I always try to remember is in the end we are all fisherman, so no matter what we all share a love of this sport, and everyone benefits from the friendly competition of smaller companies.

I don't know much about the War Eagle jigs you were using, just what I see from TW there flipping jig looks to be a basic Arky style with a flat eye medium wire hook. The Pro series Alien head is a bigger thicker hook and will require more force to set. Like G-Man said the Owners that I use in the Premier series and he uses in his Big-O jigs are still a heavy wire but the advantage of the cutting point over regular conical point is it takes less force to penetrate, imagine a suregeons knife as opposed to a big blunt needle. I still think most of the problem was due to the fact that you switched to a heavier hook style and also trimmed the weedguard and it just takes more force than you are used to too get the hook to drive through. I am not in any way saying you have a weak hookset, just that these require more force than what you are used to. I would make the switch to either cutting point series of jigs, or get a heavier longer rod with 17lb floro. I personally use a 7'11" mh flipping stick, 20lb Yozuri hybrid (not the soft) and have a bone jarring hookset when using any type of flipping jigs, it may be more HD than what is needed but it is the way I have always done it.