JohnFromLisbon

Here's another one that's worked for me: Brown/Orange Special Dobyns Extreme Football Jig and a 3.75" Watermelon Copper Orange Red Laminate (956) Yamamoto Flappin' Hog This a variation of Greg Blanchard's cheater jig (that's the Craw Daddy jig color with a 954 Flappin' Hog) that has worked for me, as you can see from the trophy sized fish on the photo below

@MN Fisher the first time you mentioned the Pit Boss as a jig trailer I bought a pack and tried it out - I was not expecting the action to be that good!

I can see why, this thing is all the rage with the fish around here.

@roadwarrior it's a great summer-ish color for our clear water reservoirs. It doesn't really show in the photo, but the skirt has some purple flash to it

953 "SMK W/PRP BLU/042 W/BLU". I have some Flappin' Hogs in that same color.

Last year I got into jig fishing and this led me down the path of matching certain jigs with the right trailers. Now, before you @ me, I know that it matters a lot more to me than to the fish, and that you can pretty much get bit on any jig and trailer combination. This is about the aesthetic, as the Instagram crowd would say. Here are some I've found that go great together. PB&J Dirty Jigs Finesse Jig and a Cinnamon Black and Purple Flake (221) Yamamoto 4" Double Tail Grub Watermelon Pumpkin Craw Bass Patrol Silicone Football Jig and a Hard Candy Strike King Rage Chunk And my absolute favorite, the Green Pumpkin Craw Bass Patrol and a Falcon Lake Craw Range Chunk. Green on top, red bottom. On these last two the light from my desk lamp does not do them justice. In direct sunlight they look a lot better. And compressing the file down to a sub 350kb JPEG didn't do wonders for that first one either. So, what do you got? What combinations have you found that just... Click?

@NorthernBasser wow, that almost looks like a super obscure JDM bait. In a good way!

I have! That's how I fished after I graduated from the old original floating Rapalas. My first bass baits were the DT4 and 6, and my first higher end rod was a Loomis 783 CBR. I didn't start fishing soft plastics until like 2010. I had a lot of fun at the time but I wouldn't go back to just fishing crankbaits, now that I know what I was missing out on.

Here we go, one day ahead of schedule. A few things from Roboworm, a couple of packs of Flat Worms, drop shot hooks, line, tungsten weights... And Plano StowAll bags, two of each, and also couple of 3500 Edges plus hook containers to make my own tiny terminal boxes, to take with me with I'm bank fishing and to have a dedicated drop shot terminal box on the someone-else's-boat bag. The 3700 size ones I got a few weeks ago.

@NorthernBasser right? Over here it's a lot easier to get JDM stuff than regular USDM tackle and gear, but luckily these are now in pretty much every single store. And at pretty much the same price, I paid 3.49 EUR for each, that's like 3.80 USD. Good hooks, solid colors... What's not to like?

I use both the 12 and 15lb as leader line and honestly, for the price, it's great. I got larger spools some time back and when I spooled the 12lb on my cranking reel I didn't like the inconsistency in diameter, felt a bit off especially while putting pressure on the line while spooling. You could feel when the line got thicker at times. But for leader material, it's good.

Just restocking on my two favorite colors, PB&J and Green Pumpkin Craw Oh, and I have something else on the way from a little shop in a faraway land called California...

Red/orange/craw type colors. I know they're more of a seasonal thing, but I'm a sucker for these.

Same here. I'm thinking of getting either another 6'10 Zodias or the new Expride B to have a dedicated straight fluoro setup for jerkbaits and a braid to mono leader setup for small topwaters.

@Tennessee Boy that's why I switched to Costas. I was setting the hook on every single rock and bump!

I had a pair of Split Shots with those lenses. Coming from a cheaper pair of polarized sunglasses I really noticed a difference, the lenses were the best part of those Oakleys. Ended up having issues with the metal retainer rusting, Oakley (Luxottica) replaced them, and I sold the replacement pair because in the meantime I'd gotten a pair of Costas. Overall I like the Costas better, but have to admit that the Shallow Water lenses on the Oakleys were just a bit better than the Green Mirror 580P on the Costas. It's hard to describe, but under the same conditions on the same body of water I feel the Prizm lenses had a slightly better contrast. Or I may have read so many "reviews" and seen so many YouTube videos that it's all placebo effect and @jbsoonerfan is right. I definitely wouldn't rule that out ?

IMX-PRO 852S JWR with a Stradic FK spooled with 20lb 832 to an 8 or 10lb Sniper or InvizX leader. That setup also applies for wacky rigged Senkos and 1/0 Flashy Swimmers with 4" Easy Shiners.

Here they are next to each other, and the 70 and 150 spool next to each other where you can see that the braking system is different. You get 4 brakes on the 70 vs 6 on the 150. After fishing all 3 of them I can say that the 150 is definitely the Goldilocks size. It is just barely larger than the 70 and manages to be just a bit lighter - mainly due to a "plastic" star drag and more metal machined out of the handle. Colorwise... I dig it. I like the green tint that only really comes out under direct sunlight. Looks good on the IMX-PRO, but not as good on the Zodias for example.

#1 Decoy Worm 108 "Body Hook Guard Heavy Duty" These little guys

First fish of 2022 Finally got to go fishing yesterday, after a cold front rolled in and brought down both the highs and the lows, on an overcast windy day. Started by fishing the creek but the only fish I saw was a carp and a bunch cormorants going crazy, splashing around and diving 20 feet in front of me, and I just wasn't feeling it. Drove another half hour south to a bigger lake, finally got bit on a drop shot, what else...

Overall, rods and reels for sure. But it varies in intensity. A couple of years ago I bought some nicer rods, paired them up with nicer reels, and then started going down the tackle rabbit hole because they opened up a few possibilites to throw stuff I hadn't considered. Started branching out, trying something other than just DT-6s and Rattlin' Rapalas, bought my first Japanese lures (LC 1.5 and LV-500, Jackall TN60), started fishing jigs properly and matching jigs to trailers (I know, I know...), dedicated more time to the right line, hooks, and soft plastics for drop shots, Ned rig stuff, and so on. This year, because I figured out what I really enjoyed out of all that, it got me back to rods and reels for that stuff. Already got myself a new drop shot rod, a new reel for my jig rod, and it's still February.

40 lb regular Power Pro to a 15 lb mono or fluoro leader, but then again I mainly fish football jigs in rocky highland reservoirs. Might go down to 12 lb fluoro if I have to downsize the jig and trailer.

1/2oz Bass Patrol football jig in green pumpkin craw with a Strike King Rage Chunk trailer in Falcon Lake Craw. A 3-10 is nothing to write home about, but it was the biggest fish I caught all year.

Yeah, they are pricy. To be honest that's it for me for now, I only got handful of them for the someone-else's-boat bag, or to take with me on 2-3 day trips. Most of the stuff is still stored in normal 3600 and 3700s or just regular Ikea plastic bins here at home.

3 more 3700 Edge boxes, this time the Thin version - and about the only thin thing in this house - because why not