rubba bubba

Citica E or Revo S would be my recommendations. I'm not familiar with Daiwa or Flooger and whether they have something similar to these 2.

Sell it and get a Revo. Sorry, I couldn't resist. You are throwing fairly light baits which aren't the easiest to learn on, however it now makes you much better at throwing heavier weights which are easier. It's like any sport - sometimes you can't hit the broad side of a barn - but it really is just a matter of practice. I wouldn't give up on them but if it's making fishing miserable, eventually if you don't improve you'll need to make a decision. If it's performing differently after you made a change (oil), then you'll need to re-educate your thumb to that change. You'll need to thumb more during the middle of the cast now. It'll be less needed when you throw a heavier bait.

Let me summarize: - I, myself, do not need any justification for your price tag. I get why they cost what they cost and why they work. - Those who are experienced with high end swimbaits also get the $50 price tag and why action and detail and translate to the price. - Those who are inexperienced with high end swimbaits are the ones questioning the price. You can give them 1 and 2 line posts all day speaking about the detail and action and you aren't going to get any traction with them. You need to translate that into fish catching ability. You said it best yourself: Those who are asking are NOT seasoned. You have to explain to them in a different way if you are going to make any inroads into them accepting such a price for your lure. They don't know what they don't know, but they do know that what's important is can it catch fish. The newness of the lure is irrelevant. This isn't your first $50 swimbait. The question from those posters isn't for those new swimbaits in particular, they are having a hard time comprehending *any* lure costing $50 (in general). If you haven't noticed, every time there's a Mattlures thread, this cost issue comes up. If you think the best way to answer to that group of people is the detail/action, and expect them to make the connection to actual fish catching ability, then we are simply going to have to agree to disagree. As you said, seasoned people will get it but seasoned people aren't the ones asking the question. I am only making a recommendation; use it or not. I have no vested interest nor do I have any pride equity at stake on this.

I can't disagree with this more. There are more than a few posters on here who do indeed focus on the action and it's looks as a selling point, however the VAST majority of anglers do not fall into that category. The people questioning the $50 price aren't people who know swimbaits inside and out, and are focusing on the realism. Those are people who have never fished a high end swimbait before and so have yet to be convinced that it will outperform in relation to its higher price. You look at any one poster questioning the price and you find 1, just 1, who is clearly a hard swimbait skilled angler. You can't. These are people who are inexperienced to high end swimbaits and so they need to be approached on what's important to them. Those who are skilled swimbait anglers are already on board with Matt, his products and his pricing.

This is where we keep getting disconnected. I was not comparing *anything*. I was suggesting that the posters who were supporting your lure and your price speak to it's ability to catch fish, not it's appearance. That is ALL that I was saying. I'm not sure why this is so hard to grasp? I think your lures rock, but I'm not going to convince my buds to get one because it's beautiful, I'm going to sell them on how well it produces and thus justifies the (perceived) high cost. Why do you keep reading my posts and think I'm comparing your lure to other lures? The great irony help is I was trying to help defend the product and it's pricing.

Sigh. I'm going to say this in a different way - when someone questioned the price thinking that it was high, the only replies supporting the price tag were those posts saying the detail and action are second to none. That will never work with 98% of the people who fish because what's important is how well it catches fish. Not 1 person on the entire 1st page of posts responded to how well it catches fish. The comparison to RageTail wasn't about Mattlures vs. RageTail fish catching ability, it was comparing the differences between the people who post in support of each product as both products are considered pricey in their market. However the RageTail posters frequently point out what's most important - how well they catch fish; and in particular compared against the other plastics that are cheaper. I'd plop $50, $100, or $200 if the lure caught fish in an exceptional manner. I'm not plopping down $10 or $1 if it's just a beautiful lure. One more time: it's not about the Mattlures vs. RageTail lures. The comparison had NOTHING to do with the lures but the posters. Look at the posts by Randall and Repper - those are the posts that people debating whether it's worth $50 need to see; it just took 3 pages of posts to get to them.

I'm with Muddy on the BPS reliability - I have a Pro Qualifier Extreme that I bought as a combo for $69. The rod is mediocre but I have thousands of casts on that reel, with centrifugal brakes, and no problems. I'd be amazed if anyone could go into Bpro and grab any 3 of Johnny Morris' or Pro Qualifiers and get 3 with brake issues; let alone pins falling off. I'm not buying it.

More than 1 lure has looked and behaved beautifully and hasn't worked for squat. More than 1 lure looked and behaved like crap (to us) and works wonderfully. I'm not buying a $50 lure because it looks and moves great, I'm buying it because it's going to catch fish in a manner well exceeding average baits (which are less expensive). By no means am I saying Mattlures swimbaits do NOT work, I'm just saying people should be touting how well they catch fish, not how well they look to us. I haven't used them so I can't speak to that, but so many others here have used them that I would expect the fish stories to just roll in (like they do for the RageTail fans).

Very well done. Time for you to go straight to building a rod.

They sure look awesome but I'm not sure why people would tout the action and appearance as the selling point. Their ability to catch fish should be the focus and if they do that well, that will justify the cost, not the action and looks.

I recently picked up one of these BR's and although I doubt I'm going to start making my own baits (I have other uses for it) anytime soon, where is the best place to go to learn the fundamentals of air brushing? Googling how to airbrush brings up millions of links/videos/articles/etc...

Exceptional work as usual; very impressive.

It's what the majority wants, so like any good business they offer it. Of course it isn't free, that's not good business.

Could have been a flawed blank or somewhere between St. Croix and you buying it, it got scratch that was deep enough to weaken the blank. Graphite is not forgiving when that happens. Chalk it up to bad luck and get it replaced.

Nally - congrats on the new gear; the bait monkey strikes again. Gear and upgrading gear make the non-fishing hours almost as enjoyable. Over time you'll learn the subtle differences between your gear and will be able to pick nits with the best of them on this board!

Did you miss my 1 smilie? Was I 2 short? my mistake.

Way to fuel the ongoing Shimano/anti-Shimano battling while trying to look like you aren't. 4 stars for you, sir. :

That does look nice, Flech. I had a blue but felt blue on blue would be too close to factory looking as they like nice dark wraps which when finished, hide the mistakes. The light colored metallics have no such forgiveness. Yours looks pretty darn sharp, though. Oh and that yellow is actually metallic gold. shfishinsticks - got any pics of the LTB with sunburst you built? I bet that was pretty hot looking.

Nope. Patio.

It is, but it's still at 10%.

Knowing my penchant for colors, I struggled with a color combo (unlike black, not everything goes with blue) for this gorgeous SC4 blank. I finally settled on silver and built this bad boy up. Note, my woodworking past makes me prefer cork with lots of grain which, ironically, ends up being the cheaper cork.

Normally I get visits from the brown Santa but Cadman doesn't ship UPS... Anyways, this arrived on my doorstop, what could it be? It looks like he sent me a box. What's that mess inside the box? Jigs, jigs, and more jigs! Woohoo!!! I guess I was running a little low and decided my jig box needed a makeover. And I may have gotten a little carried away but I couldn't help myself..... If you need some excellent jigs at a great price, I highly recommend you send Cadman a pm.

There is no schedule, you have to monitor it. Over the past couple of weeks it was between 8-12% until today's 15% (now back down to 10%).

Yes. Ignore it.

I've had to spread the hanging hook open wider, as it was somewhat problematic to slide it into the gill/jaw gap with one hand. I've had them thrash while hanging - and they can come off, so I keep my free hand right by their tail to grab them if they start thrashing.