piscicidal

I will be at Lox later this afternoon if the weather looks good.

It takes about 300F to melt salty plastics, so storage temperature is not a contributor. The bad baits I've gotten in the past look like the ones in Stashers post. In molding terms this is called, "sink". It is caused by an under-filled condition in the mold or an in-molded stress which causes the material to shrink non uniformly when cooling. In either case, a little more attention to the molding/quality control process can cure this. I always check bags of zoom baits in the store before buying them.

odyssey batteries Bps extreme rods Aruko shad lipless cranks Yozuri US hybrid Quantum accurist pt reels Kvd line conditioner Snake baits

Nice video, Shane. Loxahatchee frog fishin...it don't get much better than that!

I replace the trebles on ~half of my lipless baits, putting the Mustad triple grip 2X (#4 on front, #6 on back). The hooks are a little stickier and shorter, and they do give a slightly different action to the bait (better, IMO).

Here is an informative article by George Welcome which helped explain the benefits of the C-rig for me. One of the key advantages of the C-rig is that you can keep the bait down in the water column, while still getting some lateral movement of the bait (George mentions this, describing the 360degree circumference about the sinker). I can't think of any other presentation where you can present a bait in this way. http://www.***/articles/crig.shtml

1.) Soft swimbaits: Skinny dipper/Big Ez 2.) Big worms: Zoom Ol Monster/Rage Thumper 3.) Plastic frogs: Horny toad/Rage toad (Honorable mention: spook/sammy, hack attack jig, spro little john, scrounger)

I love Zoom products, but they do have an issue with quality control. I buy my stuff from the BPS store here in Fort Lauderdale and I will always check the bag I am buying to look for misshapen baits. I do think it can be an issue, especially with the horny toads. If one side of the bait has an abnormal amount of "sink" (a molding term, indicating a non-filled condition) the bait might not run true. The worms I am not so concerned with, but I will check them anyway. I realize this is no consolation to someone who might be buying online. My favorites: Horny Toad, Ol Monster, Dead Ringer. I probably go through more packs of horny toads than I do any other soft plastic.

Salmi, That first day of the 2011 Okeechobee tournament where you were co-angler with Glenn Browne....that must have been a pretty awesome experience. Didn't he have ~30lbs that day?

I've been designing/building consumer products for over 15 years. I went through the entire evolution from building in our own factory in the US, to eventually building in Korea, then China. From my experience, the Chinese are much better at assembling components then our US workers. The issue with China, and the reason I have traveled there 25 times, is they like to cut corners. Think about the issues we've seen in the news recently with Chinese drywall, lead paint on toys, tainted dog food, etc... We always have to check to make sure they haven't cut some corner with the tooling/manuafacturing/materials/etc. In general, I would say that if the parts are produced in the US/Korea/Japan and assembled in China, then you should have no problem. Usually this is not the case, though, because China imposes a 17% VAT tax on items coming into the country for assembly. If the engineers are not diligent about ensuring the quality of those components, then you can have issues.

Thanks guys. I had a fun day that day. Brought some of my bass gear with me from Florida. I tossed around a Gambler Big-Ez for awhile trying to raise a Musky. About a half hour into it I had about a 40" Musky take it. He chased it four times before I finally got him to take. I had him on for a little bit, but didn't get a good hook into him. The rod I was using was a little flimsy to setup a 6/0 swimbait hook into that bony mouth. It was fun anyway. I was happy just to see a Musky, much less set hooks into one. My brother's friend caught a 55" Musky from Mille Lacs with my brother in the boat, when I was up there.

That was a nice fish, Jack. Definately the biggest bass I've laid my hands on this year. We did a pretty decent job making lemonade from lemons, I think. The bite definately was tough on the flats. Maybe it has improved with the rain, recently???

I've mentioned before...I've only targeted Bass for about two years. On the other hand, I've targeted Walleyes for about 35 years. My brother and I have fished several pro Walleye tournaments and we've cashed a few checks. I've probably spent 50x more time Walleye fishing than Bass fishing in my lifetime. Despite these disparities, I still find Walleye fishing more challenging. As Rolo mentioned, Bass are much more aggressive and once found are not particularly difficult to catch (IMO). Walleye can be downright frustrating. BTW...I just returned from a one week vacation in Minnesota. I only got to go walleye fishing one day, but I made the most of it. Here is a fine 29" (9lb) specimen I got fishing with my brother.

I like my Dobyns 734 for fishing jigs. I LOVE my Dobyns 805C for fishing jigs.

True. A keel-weighted smokin rooster has a similiar lateral glide. Give it a try next time that the beaver is working, if you don't want to copy your buddy.

I hear ya. I swing 5s with my frog rod all the time. And to be honest, if I broke it, I wouldn't be all that upset. My concern is more toward these higher modulus Dobyns rods. I worry about the relatively low ductility on these blanks when swinging a big fish. And I really don't want to learn the hard way that you shouldn't swing a 6lber with it. Maybe I'll give Gary Dobyns a call.

Thanks for the replies. I do have a boga grip and do use it quite a bit (esp. mudfish). Not sure the boga grip is that much quicker than lipping (maybe even a little slower). The added 12" space that the boga grip gives is not especially reassuring when an aggressive 8 foot gator is bee-lining at your bass which is half raised out of the water. Grabbing 50lb power pro by hand is something I did one time and will not repeat.

I've only targeted bass for about 2years so I don't have has much experience as some of you S Fla veterans. But that day was special. I had to pole my flats boat thru about8" water to get back to this spot. When I got back there and saw what was going on (huge swarms of monster bass just punishing spawning bluegill) my heart skipped about four beats. The water was 1.5' deep and crystal clear. You could see everything. It was literally a top20 event in my life...birth-of-your-kids type stuff! :-)

Wow...many people would be surprised how difficult it is to catch DD bass in south Florida. Central/north Florida more conducive to the big girls. To catch a DD as a first fish is amazing. It's all downhill from here... :-)

Some bass gear that I also use in salt water: jigs (w gulp shrimp trailer), rapala x-rap, spook, luhr Jensen jigging spoon. I try to keep it pretty simple in the saltwater (because I don't know much better...lol). I use basically the same rods/reels. 2500/3500 spinning gear for the jigs/spoons and one H action baitcast for the hardbaits.

One of the best bass fishermen I know uses almost exclusively BPS extreme rods. BTW, those rods look really nice paired with a curado E (both similar color green)

Nice work Fat G. It's said that that definition of maturity is the ability to consciously delay pleasure. That being, you are mature beyond your years. Get the education and that fat job. Then go treat yourself to a *#*$load of expensive gear. HINT: get the gear before the girl.

First off, 99% of the time I do not swing fish. Fishing recreationally, if I try to lip a fish and he gets away...oh well. There are times though when I can see the need to swing fish. For instance, often down here in low water situations, gators get real aggressive and crowd the boat if you are catching fish. This becomes a problem with bigger fish that are thrashing near the surface. You want to just get that fish in ASAP. A net is not always practical in the slop. My question...I use dobyns 766flip/805 champion rods for most flip/pitch/punch situations. Can you swing a 6-7 lb fish with these rods without breaking them in half? I like these rods and would rather not learn the hard way. But, I like my hands/fingers, also, and would like to keep those, as well.

If I was looking to spend little money on a rig I planned to keep a little while, I would keep an eye out at garage sales/flea markets (including the one at this site) for a 6'6" - 7' decent baitcast rod, with a fast/Mh action. There are many brands that people will recommend and most are very good, just get something with decent sensitivity...in the IM7/IM8 range. Then I would go to eBay and buy a used quantum accurist pt. These are great little reels: aluminum frame, flippin switch, 5 bearings, ext drag adjustment, etc. And you can get them for $30 -$40. Spool it up with some 12lb yozuri hybrid ultra soft and you will have a BC rig for under $100 that can do just about any kind of fishing you want to do from shore. Keep an eye on the garage sales, you can really get good deals at times. I recently bought an all star IM10 rod with a shimano chronarch 100SF for $50 at a garage sale (I could sell the reel for 3x that right now on eBay)

Some good info here...I fish frogs alot but there are four basic frogs which I have kind of settled on. If the fish are in the mood to chase, I like to burn plastic frogs to cover water. The two brands I have settled on are the zoom horny toad and the rage frog. The rage frog has a lot of leg action, almost like a buzz bait. I like to use this if it's kind of windy or if the fish are very aggressive. I use the horny toad probably the most often. I really like this frog because you can cast it a long way. The legs tuck in on the cast and there are no extraneous features to create drag. I like burning this frog early morning making long casts to cover maximum amount of water. You have to move it fairly quickly to get good action on it, but that's my intention anyway when doing this type of fishing. Without a doubt, my favorite way to fish. I also use the spro bronzeye and popper. I like to use these when fishing a little slower or fishing specific targets. The Popper is great for eliciting strikes on fish who are not in the mood to chase. Fat G in the post above described the action very well that you want to achieve. Cast it out, twitch it a little it, let it sit for a moment, then give 3-4 short bursts. I've seen this panic action elicit a response strike on fish unwilling to chase.