BobP

There are many better painters with much less experience than me around, including guys using a Paasche VL or a Badger 170. I've had quite a bit of practice on lures but will never produce any of the jewel-quality crankbait art you can see on tackleunderground.com. So yes, I think raw artistic ability has a lot to do with it - at least as much as the equipment you use. Good equipment makes learning faster and easier but most of us will never rise above journeyman level as crankbait painters. But not to worry! Fortunately, If you paint to catch bass, you'll find "standard" paint patterns are not that difficult and bass are not art critics.

The Paasche VL is a decent airbrush though I think the tip sizes are not optimized for crankbaits. Most airbrushing excellence comes from raw artistic ability + practice, and not from the equipment you choose. But good equipment makes the learning curve easier. My choice after 15 yrs of crankbait painting is an Iwata Revolution B, which is an inexpensive (less than $100) brush with a .3mm tip and a gravity feed cup. You won't find the tip sizes listed for Paasche VL's, but I think all of them are larger than .3mm. The siphon feed on the VL is also not ideal. Another recommendation I have is to start out with airbrush formulated paint and stick with it. It's only sightly more expensive than cheap hobby acrylic paint and it will shoot much more reliably through an airbrush, saving countless hours of aggravation.

I agree with Matthew about 50% of retail for used equipment, depending on condition. There are a few reels that are very popular and sell for more but I don't think yours qualify.

Quite a few custom bait builders participate in tackleunderground.com. Many of them have reputations for making exceptional baits. Just look through the pictures to see some eye-popping stuff! What I like to do is visit a local Mom & Pop tackle shop when I want to see what the locals are going ga-ga over. Such shops often carry unique custom lures from nearby makers who have a loyal following among local fishermen. When I want to buy a special crankbait, some of my favorites are D-bait, Flatshad, Tennessee Tuffy, and Zoom. There are plenty of others, these are just some I've tried and liked.

The above, or around grass, or when the bass are feeding on bluegill. There's good reason why fire tiger has been popular for decades.

I use 1/16" Lexan on all bass baits but some guys use the thicker stuff. To me, it's as much a balance issue as it is about lip performance. Little differences in a crankbait can make big differences in its performance so I think all anyone can say is - Try it and see how it works for you. I wouldn't round the edges but some guys bevel the under side of the lip to make the leading edge sharper, which is reputed to give the lip slightly quicker action. Of course, that also makes the lip wear quicker, so like a lot of things, it's a trade-off.

Most factory lures are painted with solvent based paints/clearcoats and the finish needs to be removed mechanically. Any solvent strong enough to remove crankbait finish will also cloud the lip and even if you are careful, solvent removal is very messy. One method that does work quickly is to burn finish off with a propane torch. But you have to be a torch artiste to avoid screwing up the bait - and many commercial wood baits have a thick undercoating that is very flammable! Ask me how I know! If the bait is a floater, just go ahead and use the method already suggested - sand the gloss off the topcoat and then paint it and clearcoat it. That's certainly going to be good enough for some Chinese crankbaits.

You need to consider the whole system: rod, reel, line. If you are fishing a medium action medium power graphite rod, you can stick with braid since the rod has some 'give' to keep fish from throwing treble hooks. But in clear water, I don't like braid because of its visibility and you certainly don't need 50 lb braid for crankbaits. I fish small swimbaits on 20 lb Suffix 832 braid with a 14 lb fluorocarbon leader and it works well. But constantly tying leaders and hearing the knot pop through the guides is not ideal. I like a graphite rod for crankbaits and mostly fish 10 or 12 lb copolymer line on it. You want some stretch in the system somewhere. I don't see the need to fish fluorocarbon on crankbaits. Won't hurt, I just don't see the need.

I also like the 4-5" hollow belly swimbaits. How you rig them depends on the cover you fish. One favorite of mine is to put one on a 3/4 oz Owner Ultra Head jig with the hook exposed. I throw it on a 7' Med Hvy rod and 20 lb braid with a 14lb fluoro leader. You can cast it a long way in any wind condition and fish any depth, shallow to 30 ft - and it will catch big bass. For very weedy areas, a wide gap hook with the screw-in wire in the eye and lead molded onto the hook shank is pretty weedless.

If you're asking 832 vs regular PP, the 832 casts farther because it is smaller diameter and smoother. If it's 832 vs PP Super Slick, I think the 832 would cast roughly as well but has a little smaller diameter for the same test rating.

I use the small size Norman Speed Clips on all crankbaits. Man, Ben! Those Owner clips are super pricey!

X2 on SirSnookalot's suggestion. Just BTW, under test circumstances on a representative group of fishermen, the authors of Precision Casting found that an "average cast" was 70 ft and a "long cast" was 100 ft. So they used those distances to test the dive profiles of the crankbaits available in 2000. The important point here: hogwash you hear about guys casting 100 YARDS is exactly that unless we're talking international casting competitions with specialized saltwater gear. But this is really beside the point. OK, we're guys so it's inevitable that some of us idiots are gonna compare sizes one way or the other. But if you're a bass fisherman, you're not in a distance casting competition - you're there to catch fish. The right cast is the distance it takes to hit your target accurately. And the shorter the cast you have to make, the more chance you have of detecting a bite, hooking, and boating a fish. So if your reel is operating smoothly and you aren't backlashing every 5 minutes, you're good to go. Be happy and just go fishing.

When the water is that cold, softly yo-yo-ing a rattle bait across the bottom is a good way to put some in the boat. A Rapala Shad Rap or another tight wiggle crankbait retrieved at medium speed just above the bottom also works well. Only the fish can tell you how fast a retrieve is best. It depends somewhat on water clarity because you never want the bass to get too good a look at a crankbait, but in cold water I'd start out fairly slow and experiment from there.

Here's the orthodox view: Cloudy days, fish roam more. So use moving baits like cranks, spinnerbaits, etc. Sunny days, fish stay in cover. So use worms, jigs, dropshots, and other "still presentations"

I just squirt a little superglue in there - the gel kind, aka gap filler superglue.

To me, it's mostly about being able to put a lure where you want it. If you are a spinning rod master and can put a lure in a dixie cup 50 ft away, why switch? I use 80% baitcasting gear because that's what I can cast most accurately and most reliably. I also like that there are fewer line handling problems, especially line twist, with a baitcaster. But if I fished mostly on Lake Erie in high wind, I might never pick up a baitcaster again. Likewise, if all I ever did was dropshot, I would never need heavy line or a baitcaster. I have a closed faced spincast rig that I use for some presentations. It works great. And if I have an inexperienced fisherman out on the boat, it's a great option for them. They can have fun, catch fish, and not tear their hair out with backlashes. If you are catching fish like you want using whatever gear you have, don't be intimidated by yahoos kidding you about "fairy wands" or "Barbie rigs". But if you're into fishing enough that the art of casting and different kinds of bait presentations are becoming important, you might want to branch out into gear including baitcasting to see if it gives you more satisfaction.

I snagged a brand new St Croix IMX rod and Abu reel with a C-rig back cast and launched it into 35 ft of moving water. Stood there dumbfounded as it slowly sank out of sight. Went home, got my underwater camera and searched for it for several hours - but never saw it again. Some lucky bottom dragger is probably fishing it now! But what goes around, comes around. The next year, my nephew dredged up a GLX and Daiwa reel that had obviously been in the lake for years. The reel was pitted beyond repair but a little TLC on the rod brought it back to fishing form. Win some, lose some.

I've been fishing Shimano reels with the trapped bearing on the spool shaft for decades and I've never removed one. Strip off the line and clean/relube the bearing in situ. Why take a chance on ruining your reel?

Yeah, line memory and how full the spool is are biggies when considering casting distance. If your spool is half full, it has to turn much faster than a full spool to get the same casting distance. That's not practical because then you have to apply too much cast/brake control to keep it from backlashing.

There are rods specifically designed for dropshotting and if that's what the rod will be dedicated for, you should choose one of them. Good dropshot rods have a "hinged" blank with a M butt section and an extra fast but light power tip section. I've used a $150 Shimano Crucial CRS-DX-68M for several years on the recommendation of some west coast pros and it has been a great choice. Very sensitive, handles 1/8 oz weights well, and it can handle big bass. Lifetime OTC warranty. Other companies have come out with dropshot designs since then but I haven't tried them. As to reel choice, I would go with a 2500 size because that's the sweet spot for weight versus spool diameter and line handling characteristics. Yes, a 1000 size would handle braid OK but if you decided to go "all fluoro" at some point, the smaller diameter spool is definitely sub-optimal. I use a Shimano Symetre 2500 or a JDM Shimano Biomaster 2500. But I think the rod is the main thing to consider for this presentation while a wide variety of reels will work just fine.

Once epoxy has cured hard, it almost never reacts with other coatings so I don't think it's a reaction to the thinner. A bubble indicates that the acrylic paint has been pushed away from the crankbait's surface. Most often this is caused by water penetrating the the acrylic paint somewhere. It can also be caused by heating the crankbait. If the finish contains solvent from your thinner, it is more likely to expand and cause the paint to delaminate.

Big Game is a decent mono - moderate in performance and inexpensive. It's one of the most popular and prevalent brands of mono sold in stores like Walmart, etc and it's been around for ages. But you can get a bad spool if it has been improperly stored or has been sitting on a store shelf exposed to UV light and ozone for years before you buy it. If you bought a UV damaged 1/4 lb spool and spooled up your reel from its beginning, the problem may disappear because UV did not reach the interior portion of the line. But I'd be inclined to toss it or return it and choose another brand from a different retailer to avoid the possibility of future breakage.

The advantage of a C-rig to me is that you can fish it very deep and it covers lots of water quickly. So no, I wouldn't stitch retrieve it. That something I'd reserve for a T-rig presentation, if ever.

Despite the conventional wisdom of wide wobble in warm water, tight in cold water, I use a lot of tight wobble baits year round and catch fish on them.

Player's choice. I always use a fluoro leader with large diameter braid except when fishing heavy vegetation. It may also help prevent cut-offs from toothy critters and rocks.