senko_77

Eakins jig all day. The 5/16oz is an awesome bait. Another great one is the Grass Stalker by Uncle Josh.

The best hook modification you can put on a rattletrap is to get a large #1 VMC or Owner, and stick it on the front and not keep a hook on the back. This makes the bait more weedless, you can penetrate a big fish's mouth easier, and you lose less fish because there wrenching power is gone if there hooked on two hooks.

Any Columbia, Merrell, or North Face are better suited for more intense cold situations. But, if the cold isn't horrible, the Sperry Barracuda boot it top of the line.

The Revo S hands down. It packs some serious punch with 24lbs of drag. Strap some braid on that puppy and your good to go.

78DD in American Shad. That thing kicks pre-spawn bass's butt!

Generally I just keep a few colors on me. In clear to stained I fish watermelon/gold, and in stained to muddy I fish watermelon/red. If the water is extremely muddy I fish red bug. Other than that, I have found that fish respond WAY better in a few select lakes around me and I only found that out because I have fished there awhile. I have one lake where castaic choice is the only color they will hit. The lake where I caught my PB only bites black consistently. The only other thing I will somtimes consider is cloud cover. When its real cloudy on a clear lake I will dip my worms tail in chartreuse.

Lol. Speaking of mice. Before I moved to my new house a few months ago, we had a mouse problem at my house for a few weeks. I knew they were there, it's just a slow process to get rid of them, but I was always on edge. One night me and a few friends were asleep in the family room, and I felt something small walking across my chest. I jumped up, ripped off my shirt and shorts, and ran downstairs in my boxers yelling. My friends swore they saw the mouse dart into the closet. I slept on the roof the rest of the night.

I'm an Eakins addict, so 5/16 and 7/16 are my favorite weights. I also like to take a Booyah baby boo and put a big Zoom Super Chunk if I want a super slow fall for suspended or sluggish fish. I've also found if you take the 5/16oz. Eakins and put a paca chunk sr. on it the fall is pretty slow.

I've been tying for bass for about 2 years know. What I've learned is that most qaulity bass will pass up subsurface flies like clousers, wooly buggers, and decievers. Most of the better bass came on deer hair bugs, like poppers, frogs, and mice. I've never gotten to tie a crawfish pattern so I'm not sure on how good they work.

Those are sweet! The spots and smallies are gonna destroy those things. How did you tie with the weedgaurd on there? Must have taken awhile. I have tried tying with it on, and its a PAIN.

This is definately a "catch the fisherman" lure. I beleive that when bass hit ducks there keying in on the kicking feet. How would a bass know if it was a duck, it cant see the top part of the head and us seeing the top of the bait is the only reason we recognize it as a duck. Other than that, it is sweet. That must take so long to make

I've worked in footwear the last 3 months, so I've gotten pretty knowledgable about shoes and boots. Crocs are great, but if they dont fit you perfectly, they can slip off when the bottom of your feet get sweaty. The best fishing shoe is the New Balance 965. Its waterproof, breathable, and comfortable with good arch support. New balance also comes in regular to 4x widths so its real versatile. The Absolute best fishing boot and my favorite, is the Sperry Barracuda boot. It is waterproof, light as a feather, it has mesh lining so it keeps your foot cool, and its great for people who have flat feet like me, but has good arch support. The Barracuda boot retails for $99.95, and is worth every penny. If your looking for sandals, keens are another great choice. North face also makes a great shoe with goretex that retail for $140 and under. North face and merrell are the two most popular brands as far as low cut tennis shoes.

Lol. I just got the prefered thing in the mail today. I was wondering the same thing. And I felt really really special that they gave me a coupon for a FREE MASTER CATALOG for being in the top 10%. LAME

In order: 1. feet 2. needles 3. heights 4. cabbage

This is an awesome thing to do. The problem with the jighead is when you let it fall on slack, it nose dives. This only seems to work when your hopping it on the bottom so it looks like a shad is bottom feeding. If you place weight in the center of the bait, it will glide down evenly. Its the same thing you do with a senko. To keep the senkos action, but to get a quicker fall you place weight in the middle of the bait, not all in the front. Another thing I will do is wrap the bend in the hook with 1 or 2 storm suspend strips. This adds a little to my casting distance, centers the weight, and doesnt tear up your fluke like an inserted weight can.

I think that 95% of what comes out of pro's mouths is pure crap. Most people I talk to have never heard of Ikas before. If no one throws them, then why does GYCB still produce them. Easy, people dont want that secret leaking out. Just like what Brad said, the senko was secretly used for awhile before it got popular. Give it a few years and the ika will be everywhere I don't think you guys are fully understand my point. And i must disagree Ryan, if 95% of what came out of a pro's mouth was untrue than we would be fishing with bamboo sticks with a rope. After all, they are the ones who write up the useful articles for us to read, and provide the weekend angler and others with better knowledge of bass and how to catch them. Just because they are competing for a lot of money does not mean they neglect to share useful information and teach. Now to think that the pros would lie to someone, if asked if they had any success with a Fat Ika is absolutely obsurd. There is no reason for them to keep a Fat Ika a "secret and not let it leak", and yes Ryan they might lie, but its totally absolutely unnecessary and there are a few good reasons for that. One is my own personal experience. I have a small lake near my house that i would go to almost every morning last summer and it held some nice size bass but there was this one lunker that held by this tree day in and day out......stay with me Every other day i would purposely throw a worm at him and he would take it, no matter how many times he seen it it did absolutely nothing. yes, bass have some memory but its very short termed and in crystal clear water they will shy away from lures that have been used with a lot of pressure. But nationwide there is not a chance in hell that bass are ever going to adapt to certain lures etc, lures that were made 40 years ago are still being thrown and catching fish. Another thing is the pros do not care if anyhting gets popular or not. Even if you were given the same exact equipment than KVD, or say Mike Iaconelli youre not going to beable to do what they do. They are absolute fishing machines and they know that keeping a lure secret is not important to their success. They are there to catch fish and fish only, they are not there to see how many fish they can catch with the secret lure, i mean comon guys i hope your not serious. And one other thing to keep in mind before throwing your "secret ikas" a bass CANNOT THINK OR REASON, they REACT which means if you throw a lure in front of a bass he is not sitting there thinking to himself, "am i going to eat this or not?, wait NO thats the bait that put a hole in the roof of my mouth". If you throw a lure to a bass he is either going to eat it or he is going to shy away and head for cover. thanks -WM Sorry, I should have been a little more specific. You made some great points btw. But, what I was referring to is when the pros come off the water and are saying, I was throwing a jerkbait over chunk gravel points to suspended fish, they could have very well been slowly flipping docks with an ika, senko, jig, etc. They don't want other competitors in the tournament to know what they were doing, and if the ika has been a hot bait for them then they cetainly want to be the only one throwing it. Sure bass will bite time after time, but you gotta admit there are times when certain things catch wayyyy more fish than others, and I think the bass react to the ika a little differently because they rarely see it. Just my Opinion

Whenever I fish a soft plastic jerkbait its always a model of the zoom fluke series. First you want to try and match the size of the baitfish. Usually I will throw the super fluke to mimick a slightly larger baitfish, but sometimes the baitfish are so tiny that the bass are feeding on that the super fluke jr. or the tiny fluke will work better. For colors I usually just stick with anything "baitfishish" like albino, green shad, or arkansas shiner. I toss them most of the time on a 2/0 or 3/0 owner rig n' hook depending on the size of the fluke I'm using. Sometimes I will tie on a swivel about 8 inches above my fluke if I'm having alot of line twist, but I'm not crazy about it because it gives you 3 knots instead of 1 and that triples your chance of knot failure. The best time to throw soft jerkbaits is pre-spawn, post spawn and fall. This is when the bass are keying in most on shad. Throw them on flats, points, humps, bluffs, or anywhere else the fish would be feeding actively or suspending higher in the water column. The cadence of your retrieve is something you will have to figure out on the day your out on the water. Sometimes they need it to move quick to trigger a reaction strike, and other times they need a slow, lethargic retrieve.

Curado 100D hands down. You can cast lighter stuff a mile but it can handle heavier stuff to

I know he has been extrmemly busy with his military move to Cali, but I haven't seen Tenka for a awhile. He came here a few months ago to check it but thats been it. Hope he's doing alright at the new place.

I just picked up a pack of the 3/0's yesterday. I played around with them today trying to get them to slip down the hook and it was TOUGH to get those suckers to slide. There definately worth the money if you skip plastics hard. I have a tourmanent on Lake Sinclair this Feb and I know that I will be fishing docks so these hooks are a gift from god. There great and I will definately have one rigged for skips that require some extra muscle.

22 and now I'm lying 6ft under

Brovarney definately, but I also have come to like the KVD swimjig. I bought a bunch at the 99. sale at bps, and found that there awesome. The hook on the light side.

I dont get to fish for spots often, but when I do its at Lake Lanier. Everyone knows that Lanier means magnum spots. My favorite way to fish for them is topwater or shakey heads. My PB spot is 5lbs even and it was caught on a sammy 100 in american shad on a point in around 45ft of water. I love it when those spots gang up on the baitfish and just demolish them on the surface. Its BEAutiful

This is exactly what I was going to say. The flat's size really has much less of an impact of its effectivness than its location. The sharper the breakline off the flat, the better. Bass, especially the bigger ones, feed mainly in areas where they have quick access to deep water. So let's say there is a flat that is 8'-10' deep and is 100 yards by 75 yards and the breakline drops slowly into 13' of water. Then you have a flat that is 8'-10' deep that is 10 yards by 20 yards but the breakline drops from 10' to 18' sharply. The qaulity fish will DEFINATELY be on this flat. It may be small but big fish need security and that gives it to them. When fishing the flats concentrate most of your efforts on the breakline. Although there may be alot of activity visible on the surface over the top of the flat, most of those active fish will be smaller. The large fish will sit on the breakline, dart onto the flat, pick off a meal, and rush back to the breakline and will most likely suspend over it. Topwaters, suspending jerkbaits, and jigs are awesome flat baits. Also, most flats usually have some sort of vegetation on it. Where the vegetation forms its own breakline is another fantastic place to find quality fish. They sit on the edge, hidden in the vegatation and they pick off prey swimming by but they feel protected in the weeds. Secondary points are smaller or less defined points located just after or near a "Main" point.

I think that 95% of what comes out of pro's mouths is pure crap. Most people I talk to have never heard of Ikas before. If no one throws them, then why does GYCB still produce them. Easy, people dont want that secret leaking out. Just like what Brad said, the senko was secretly used for awhile before it got popular. Give it a few years and the ika will be everywhere