BobP

I don't use Hot Sauce oil or grease because the red dye migrates all over the interior of the reel. I've not seen any specs on the grease but a material scientist on another cite tested bearing oils and the Hot Sauce oil came out very good in lubricity, viscosity, and maintained its viscosity in a wide range of temperatures. Too bad they insist on the red dye - it's a killer for me.

Here's something I thought of reading this, but have not done - yet. If you use a bobber stop, you can fish the rig in either pegged or unpegged fashion by snugging it down on the weight or slipping it up the line a little ways. Best of both worlds.

No doubt CXX is tough as nails. But like Roadwarrior says, it develops lots of spool memory. It also has a "greasy" surface texture that I don't think casts as well as some hard surface copolymers like Trilene XT or Izor Line Premium. As far as sensitivity, line differences are a matter of degree, not day/night. On average, fluorocarbon is more sensitive than copolymer. For slack line presentations in relatively clear water, fluoro excels. If you fish stained water, fluoro's advantages are less clear cut. Yes, you can use CXX for slack line presentations and it will work just fine. I personally would not use it for C-rigging because long casts and hook setting power scream "USE BRAID" to me in that particular application. But I think it's OK for short-medium distance slack line or moving bait applications. Line choices are definitely not "One Size Fits All" so it's almost impossible to match the perfect line characteristics to you, me, or anyone without them trying various lines and choosing for themselves. I like fluoro for lots of things. Another guy hates it because he ties lousy knots and it keeps breaking off on him, or he just can't wrap his head around paying two or three times the cost of a copolymer. I'm not a big fan of braid. I don't like its visibility, how the color fades, and I hate using leaders. Other guys think the visibility issue is for dummies, love how it handles and how long it lasts, and use it for everything all the time. We're all right as long as we all catch fish.

I like Superlube grease. It's a white translucent grease fortified with PTFE (aka Teflon) and works great on reel gears and other parts. You can buy it at auto supply stores (NAPA carries it) in little squeeze tubes for around $3 or you can buy an 8 oz can (lifetime supply) for under $10. Good stuff. Shimano Drag Grease is a thick, sticky cosmoline based grease for drag disks (Cal's and Penn Muscle grease are similar). If you want your drag to work right for any length of time, use only drag grease on its disks. Drag grease can do double duty as a gear grease and is especially good if you have gears that are not meshing together smoothly. But regular grease like Superlube is slicker on good gears, IMO.

I don't mind throwing a crankbait into a laydown tree or just about any other cover except maybe a submerged bush with gnarly small stems. I've heard so many guys say square bills come through cover best that I almost believe it. But that won't stop me from using a Mann's Baby 1- or a D-bait with rounded lips, or any extra buoyant crankbait. I think what helps get a crankbait through cover more than anything is the way it is retrieved and the buoyancy of the bait. A buoyant balsa bait hits a limb, pauses, and by then has risen enough to continue on its way. Why do this? Because bass will almost certainly not have seen many crankbaits snaking through cover like that, and because a crankbait doesn't sink like most other "bush beaters", so you can retrieve it slower. And yes, ricochets off of cover do trigger bass to bite.

There's no bad time to fish rattle baits in grass. As the grass gets thicker in summer, you may get to the point where you can't fish it effectively though.

Just as there are different formulations of copolymer lines, and CXX is one, there are different fluoros with different stretch, etc. In terms of 'sinkability', fluoro is fastest, copolymers are next, and braid is slowest (and may float in fact). JMHO, if limited stretch is your sole criteria, you are better off sticking to CXX. But the same diameter fluoro would be more sensitive because it is denser than copolymer.

I most often use a 3/4 oz brass or steel weight. C-rig bites can be really subtle. Sometimes you feel nothing until you move the weight enough to tighten up the leader. Fortunately, fish will usually hold on long enough for you to do that but a very sensitive rod is a big plus. Sounds to me like you have a good setup with braid mainline and mono or fluoro leader. That's what I fish too.

I'll usually buy painted bullet weights - green pumpkin usually. I've found that it's a PITA to paint bullet weights and the paint never stays on very long. Nothing seems to stick to tungsten except powder paint. Like some others here, I don't like to fish shiny lead bullet weights so I want them to get a coating of oxidation and turn gray before using them. To do that you can soak them in a solution of Oxyclean detergent for an hour or two. After they turn gray, they work as well as painted weights have for me.

I peg when I'm fishing cover where the weight can separate from the bait, like wood, rocks, or weed mats. If the bait comes over a piece of wood, the weight can slip up the line before the plastic bait comes over the wood, making it more likely to tangle or snag cover. The same can happen when punching a weed mat so you want a peg to keep the bait and weight together as a compact package that will penetrate the weeds. You could peg plastics all the time and many guys do. Tooth picks were the "original pegs". The rubber T stops that you thread through the weight and trim off came next, Lately, silicone bobber stops have become popular. They all work. I find bobber stops easiest to use. I don't peg if I'm fishing submerged millfoil beds but since I usually fish various kinds of cover, I usually go ahead and peg the weight.

Most will argue against using snap swivels on crankbaits because it can alter the bait's performance. Most crankbaits come with a split ring on the line tie. Tie the line directly to that split ring or remove the split ring and use a Norman Speed Clip or a crosslock snap (without swivel). The clip or snap allows you to switch crankbaits more easily. I use swivels on Carolina Rigs. Some guys use a small swivel on their dropshot rig. The swivel is useful on baits that will naturally spin during the retrieve; otherwise, I don't see a reason for them.

I leave mine open. Why not? Better safe than sorry.

Wires in the plug, wires in the plug receptacle, and wires to/from the foot control are the things I check first. In your sonar's setup menu you'll find something like "depth offset" which subtracts or adds depth to the sonar readout depending on how deep the sonar transducer is mounted under water. I can never remember whether the offset is + or - on a TM transducer but if you are in shallow water you can just dip a rod in the water to find how deep the water is and adjust the offset to agree with that. Then set the offset on your other sonar to agree with that depth too.

Stew, the thermocline shows as a horizontal band across your sonar screen. If you have a least medium quality sonar, you should be able to see it - if it exists. Turning up the sensitivity a little may help. If you can't see a band but are marking fish suspending at a certain depth around the lake, you can infer that a thermocline is just below them. The water below the thermocline is colder and is depleted of oxygen, so fish suspend just above it to enjoy cooler water but still be able to breathe. Thermoclines are very common starting in spring and last until the fall turnover when all the water in the lake mixes. If your lake, stream, or river has current, no thermocline may form except in coves or creeks that have little water flow. But it's useful to know if one exists and if so, how deep it is because it shows you the depth beyond which you are unlikely to find fish.

A set of jumper cables. If you're 5 miles from the ramp and find your cranking battery won't crank the motor, you can jump it off one of your trolling batteries. If the electric trim on your motor runs through 2 relays as most do, have 2 spare relays on hand. They're cheap, easy to replace and can keep you on the water or get you back to the ramp.

Best conditions: moving water. 1-3 ft visibility. At least a slight chop on the water. Square bills are fine in shallow water but you also need baits for mid depths 5-12 ft, and deep 13-20 ft. You want your crankbaits to hit cover whenever possible - bang them off rocks, wood, tops of submerged grass because the deflections will trigger bites. Which rod is a matter of preference. Fiberglass rods have lots of bend that helps keep fish pinned on treble hooks. Graphite is lighter and allows you to feel a crankbait better as it is retrieved. I like a medium power graphite rod with a soft tip section.

I think you need to acquire at least one other presentation: a shaky head jig or a dropshot. Both of these work when you need to downsize your presentation to get bit. And if you can fish a T-rigged worm, they are mostly just a matter of buying a few pieces of terminal tackle.

If you aren't used to working on reels and have a new reel that just isn't working right - the best advice is to take the darned thing back to the retailer for a refund or an exchange. I agree with DVT about what MAY be wrong but without an experienced reel tech tearing it down, suggestions from the sidelines probably aren't going to help in this particular case. And a guy who paid $129 for a new reel should not have to become a reel repair expert to enjoy his purchase.

After looking at the "premium" sunglasses companies, I decided $300 was too much to spend and got mine at the Walmart Vision Center. You can get a pair for $100-160 depending on polarization, coatings, mirroring, etc options.

Sorry, didn't comprehend that we're talking balsa baits. I just can't believe a Lexan lip on a balsa bait would not last longer than the bait itself! BassAssassin85 has a good idea to check out some of the online parts stores that sell lips as part of their lure building inventory (lurepartsonline.com, Janns Netcraft). Good luck with removing the old lips. Often, you can work the old lips out of the bait with pliers. If you have to cut them out and are left with over-size slots, I suggest using an epoxy putty log to install the new lips. Completely fill the lip slot with putty and then carefully push in the new lip. You have a minute or two to adjust the lip and wipe away the squeezed-out epoxy before it hardens.

Putting the Senkos away just to try something different? Job #1 = catch fish. If the Senko is doing it best on a particular day, that's what I want to be throwing.

Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw and Netbait paca craw trailers.

If your lips broke and were molded as part of the bait (as most are), they were plain plastic and not Lexan (aka polycarbonate). Lexan is much tougher stuff than plastic. I use 1/16" thick polycarbonate or 1/32" thick G10 Garolite circuit board on lures and have never had a lip break or crack in 15 years. Of course, if your lure does have a molded-in lip, it can be tricky to remove the old lip and cut a slot for a new lip because you are probably cutting into the interior cavity of the crankbait. Would I try it on a $15-25 bait? Yeah, what do you have to lose. On a $5 KVD? Nope, more trouble than it's worth.

Epoxy can be a great topcoat, but only the slow cure 30 minute type, such as Devcon Two Ton. 5 minute epoxies don't level out well and will turn an ugly brown pretty quickly. You don't see than in a golf club head but painted on a crankbait, yes. Nice looking bait!

High sticking isn't lifting bass into the boat with the rod. It's playing or lifting a bass, or really any loading of the rod with it held vertical which places unnatural stress on the rod's tip section.