smbrule

Ted Chodor has a very large variety of jig heads, painted and unpainted ( and some complete jigs) available at reasonable prices. He does not have a web site but does have an catalog in PDF form that he will email. His email address is: chodor@sbcglobal.net .

Fishing Lilly Pads in northern waters if I'm not using a drop bait will go to a frog or spinner bait. Want to try swim jigs this year in the pads. In the past if I used a swim jig I would fish the coontail and cabbage on the outside edge of the pads and my swim jigs range from 5/16 to 1/2 oz with relatively heavy hooks on bullet head shape . There are bullet head swim jigs, and heads that are some what like a blunted arrow point and other shapes. Also, some will have small fine hooks that appear to be 1/0 or 2/0 and others with heavier 3/0 or 4/0 hooks. For fishing over pads where one is crawling the bait over the pads and then letting it drop down what type of swim jig and/or brand seems to work thru the pads the best. And what weight predominates. I would assume to get the jig to drop a typical weight would be around 3/8oz? Does any one particular head style avoid getting hung up on the pads? Thanks for any suggestions.

Mono for me 95% of the time except I use Power Pro or similar for: Carolina rigging Slop fishing with frogs etc Spinning rod open water fishing primarily for smallies and crappies

Chatterbaits are my go to bait for smallies shallow in rocks on Canadian shield lakes when it is really windy. They cast well into the wind and retrieve with less resistance thereby permitting more casts per unit of time.

I've got the 200E7 and the 50 MG. Sure you could probably throw trick worms with the 200E7 but accuracy would suffer. Pitcing a Gary Yamamoto 9 series Senko which weigh 0.385 oz. accurately is much more difficult than when using my 50 MG's Spool weight of both reels when spooled with 14# mono is significant as per below. The Curado 200 E spool has significant line capacity. A key to casting light lures is spool weight. The spool of the 200E weighs 13.8 grams empty and 24.2 g filled with 14# mono. For comparison the spool of the Chronarch 50 MG weighs 12.3 g. empty and filled with 14# mono 17.7 grams. A significantly smaller increase in spool weight.