Jrob78

It's hard to maintain momentum after several months off for winter. Hackney definitely has the momentum going right now though. Alton Jones won his Classic at Hartwell last time they had it there, I think Cliff Pace finished 2nd. Either of those 2 would be as good a pick as any. My pick would probably be Aaron Martens, you can never rule that guy out. Look out for Casey Ashley also, this is his home water and he won a FLW tournament there this spring, by a large margin.

That's impressive!

I have one of the originals with the "carrot fiber" in the blank. Mine is still going strong, a lot of other people haven't been so lucky.

Yep, it happens to the best of us. Snagging something on the back swing is the biggest culprit for me.

These are my favorite in the under $9 category. The H20's are great baits for the money also.

I've got 5 or 6 of their other baits that I've been using this summer. I've been really impressed with all the baits I've used so far. The finishes are great, the hooks are great and the baits have all caught fish. I don't mind paying a little more for a really good bait and I think these are. I hope they come out with more lipped crankbaits soon.

The season is over for KVD. The top 50 in AOY points have one more tournament, KVD finished at 53, so he is done until next spring.

If you're just fishing for fun and don't mind losing the occasional fish due to bad hook ups, use whatever hooks you want. In some cases it probably doesn't matter much, in others, it definitely does. Why spend all that money for a boat, rods, reels, baits, gas, etc, and then use cheap hooks? The hook is the part that actually catches the fish and they're cheap compared to everything else.

No problem bud, good luck with the new rods and reels.

I agree with rangerjockey, they are still good rods and worth the money. If any of them happen to be Houston rods, even better.

Mexico for largemouth or Great Lakes for smallmouth.

This is correct, although they also made maroon cranking blanks and matte black IM10 blanks. All will say "Houston TX" on them if they are originals.

I'm going to give the Duo Realis lipless baits a go this fall and winter. My favorites are the XCalibur XR50's and XRK50's, SK Redeye Shad and Lucky Craft LVR D7's.

MHX doesn't make or sell rods.

The other thing is, it's much easier to walk a frog on a longer cast. When it gets close to you it gets tougher. If you're only practicing in a pool, you're making it harder on yourself.

It's fun to use topwater baits at night but really, any bait you use in the day time will work at night.

I use the Gammy short shank round bend trebles. They are fantastic hooks. I haven't tried the short shanked EWG's yet because they are so expensive. I use the KVD's instead, even though the Gammy's are a sharper hook. I also use the regular Gammy EWG's and Owner ST 36's. Different hooks for different baits and techniques. Sometimes I try to make things as complicated as possible.

It's a good pitching bait.

If you're going to Academy and don't want to spend a lot of money, try the Sunline Super in the blue box. It's by far the best budget friendly fluoro I've used. I use Tatsu and Sunline Sniper on most of my reels. Tatsu is the better of the 2 but it costs a lot more.

I agree with you. I fish the Hard Head a lot and it has become a go to for me. I do think it's an improvement over a fixed football head, in a lot of cases, but it isn't really that much different. I've also had to cut hooks off and add my own split ring and new hook.

I'm not sure that I would consider the Biffle Head "revolutionary" or the addition of a split ring an "eclipsing improvement." Just saying...

Better for what? What exactly are you trying to do? Baits with different shapes and different bills all do different things. It's better to pick a bait for a specific situation than to pick a bait and try to find a situation to fish it in. You are going to be hard pressed to find a crankbait that will effectively fish 25' deep.

A no name 5'6" spinning rod you bought at a garage sale is probably not worth anything. What did you pay for it?

I would start at $7,000.

I don't have any experience with Spybaits but FWIW, the "G-Fix" designation means that the bait has tungsten beads instead of lead/steel/whatever. It basically allows for a heavier bait without increasing size. I know the Spybait and the Lipless baits come in G-Fix models.