Fishes in trees

I've messed around with wake baits some, but they never worked better than ok for me. I basically think of them as a buzz bait with treble hooks.

Start with what you got. Buy some jig heads, hooks & weights & soft plastic baits. Don't be in any huge hurry to get new rigs. You don't say where you live, but somewhere there has got to be a fishing tackle store near you. Drop by and see what they recommend for drop shot or shakey heads. Should they say "what's that ?" then you know not to spend your money there. Go into the archives of this category. I can recall several threads about the "best" and "best bargain level" of drop shot and shakey head rods & reels.

You should buy something that says "shimano' on the side of it. A Chronarch or a Curado or a Calcutta, something like that. Shimano reels last until you lose them or someone steals it from you. It is really hard to wear one out.

All Calcutta reels are great reels. The TEGT Calcutta reels are heirloom quality reels. If you come across one you should buy it. They can be used for just about any technique you can think of and with a modest amount of care they will last forever. Believe it or don't but all of my well used Calcutta reels are just as smooth or smoother than when they were purchased.

If you fish around any cover at all, it's just a matter of time before you catch a tip on a bush or a low handing branch or something. If you get it stuck real good, you might tip over the battery. How does the plastic in your boat react when you pour battery acid on it? How do your rods & reels and assorted gear react when you inadvertently sprinkle battery acid on them? I'm not an expert builder or anything like that, but I think a better design would be one that separated the battery from the rods. Perhaps find a way to stabilize the battery where it is and then anchor the rod pod somewhere in the middle, behind the seat. I don't know, solving one problem seems to create another. For instance, where do you keep the cooler in that boat? Anyway, an interesting problem. Please show another picture when you get to the final design. I'm interested.

Years ago, I was several hundred dollars into the search for a good spinner bait rod. Then I found an All Star Zell Roland special 6'9" spinner bait rod. It was a good rod and I bought one. The next year they upgraded the graphite (10 MX ??, I'm not sure) and so anyway, I bought 5 of them. That was 7 or 8 years ago. I'm pretty sure that there are better spinnerbait rods out there now, but I'm going to keep using these until I break them all. They work for me in all respects, i.e. they are sensitive enough and I get all the distance I need with reasonable accuracy. So, if you find one in a bargain bin somewhere, don't be afraid to spend a few bucks on it.

For a crankbait rod, I want a limber tip and a fairly stiff butt section. There are lots of rods, from many different companies that fit this description. Most of them are labeled as Medium. The rod that saw the most crank bait service for me last year was a BPS Extreme 7'4" model. It is several years old. It was originally sold as Woo Davis's pitching stick. For me, it sucked as a pitching rod, because its tip was way too flexible for me. Now as a crankbait rod, that flexible tip is a good thing. I carry a couple of them all the time. One for square bills and another for various crank baits. Lots of guys advocate using fiberglass rods for cranking. I've got a couple of then and I'm not a big fan of them, for a variety of reasons. Mostly I don't think my fishing reflexes are so finely honed that I can purposely use a less sensitive rod. When I fish by myself I carry 18 to 22 rods, rigged and ready to go. A fiberglass crank rod hasn't made the cut for a number of years. I have a few pals who fish cranks more than me and they can afford the LOOMIS crank rod and that's what they use. They tell me that a LOOMIS cranking rod will exponentially increase my confidence using crankbaits. I don't know about that. Maybe some year, soon.

Just another thought, If you're going to use a drop shot setup as a search bait instead of a Carolina rig, why not go all in and take a page out of a walleye fisherman's bag of tricks. By this I mean get some half or 3/4 ounce bottom bouncers and let the wind (with trolling motor assist) push you across flats, points, whatever. Just another thought.

I keep a couple of bubba drop shot rigs ready to go in my boat nearly every time I go fishing. I don't think it is as good a "cover the water" approach as a carolina rig is. I think where the bubba drop shot rig excells is where you've found specific stuff on the bottom what you want to put a lure around, but the cover is too gnarly for a more traditional 6 lb or 8 lb finesse dropshot approach. 99% of the time I'll use a half ounce weight... next season I'm going to experiment more with 3/4 and 1 ounce weights. I'll use 14 or 17 or 20 lb fluorocarbon line. I prefer the window sash weight style over the round weights, but really I don't think it makes much difference... If you aren't getting hung up every so often, you've not fishing tight enough to the cover. I use Gamakatsu hooks mostly, either the skip gap style or wicked wacky or the weedless finesse wide gap ones. Last year, I tried alot of different plastic baits. I got the best results on Chompers Salty Sinkers (Huckleberry color) and the Berkley crazy legs chigger craw. I used chartreuse dye on the legs and tips of the claws. I had a couple of trips where I got bit on a paddle tail worm. There were a couple of different rod set ups that worked for this style of Bubba drop shot fishing. I used a 7 1/2 Kistler Flippin/pitching stick with a Curado 50E or a 7'3" Quantum rod (MH tending toward H) with a different Curado E or a Calcutta 50. Lastly, you can go into the In-fisherman archives and there are several Rich Zaleski (I'm not certain I spelled his last name corrrectly) articles that go into bubba drop shop fishing in great detail. That's enough to get you started.

That 5% seems low to me also, but what do I know about stats? Over the last several years, I've caught a few 5+ lb bass every year. My best year ever I caught 12, my average is closer to 3 or 4 per year.

I've got both kinds, but I prefer the plastic shoe boxed with the attached lid. One less thing to misplace.

A slow sinking jig would drive me nuts. A weightless senko drives me nuts and I know that is a good bait in certain situations. All slow sinking baits drive me nuts. One of the things I need to work on during the upcoming season is to stick with a bait for more than 10 minutes.

You might want to contact Bassin magazine. It seems to me I remember seeing a dragon fly top water lure advertised in that magazine . Four or five years ago? Something like that. Definitely 21st century. Can't hurt to call & ask.

Every so often Walmart puts plastic shoe boxes on sale for a buck or so, sometimes less. Drop a $20 on this project to start. It works for me to keep over flow separated. In the boat storage, its hard to beat zip lock freezer bags, in the gallon size.

Buy a bunch of boxes. I use mostly the medium sized plano ones. The waterproof boxes are nice, I've got a few of those. Remember that if you put away any jigs wet, the waterproof boxes do a great job of keeping water in & stuff gets rusted pretty quick. Anyway, buy a bunch of boxes and sort your jigs any way that works for you. You can sort by brand, by size, by function, whatever. Me, I have a box of 5/16 Eakins jigs, a box of the 3/8 Eakins finesse heavy cover jigs, a box of the heavier Eakins jigs, (I forget if they are 7/16 or 9/16) Then there are several boxes of assorted jigs 3/8 and heavier. Several boxes of assorted jigs 5/16 and lighter. Football jigs get their own box. Once upon a time I got a deal on Terminator 3/8 ounce Finesse jigs - they get their own box. Swim Jigs get their own box. The same system works for Chatterbait style baits and shakey heads. Basically you can sort your tackle any way you want. I think having lots of different boxes helps. Be sure and label all your boxes and be specific on your labels. If you're lucky and determined, the bait monkey will let you drop several bills just on boxes.

I don't know. This seems odd. This whole notion of sorting through your gear, deciding what you don't need and selling it sounds very responsible to me. Are you on some sort of court ordered 12 step program and right now you're focusing on responsibility? I guess I'm as much a collector as a fisherman. I know I've got more than a few lures that probably won't ever see water and even more that saw water in the past and got crowded out by new stuff. I'm OK with that.

I'm with Way2Slow on this one. Call them up, explain the situation, box it up and send it in. More than likely, they will work with you. I'd get ready to spend some money on a discounted, upgraded unit, from Minn Kota. I don't know much about on board chargers, but I'd bet they are easier to replace than they are to fix.

How strange. I was motivated to go the Luck E Strike website, and there it is, their Upshot, a shad imitating bait. I recently got the 2012 BPS Master Catalog and even more recently the BPS Spring Angler catalog and it isn't in either of those. Go figger. Update - the bait isn't listed on the Cabelas or Tackle Warehouse website either.

Either one of those bags should work fine. When I was doing the co-angler thing, I found top loading bags were easier for me than front loading bags. I also found that 2 medium/small bags worked better for me than one large bag. I was always experimenting though, and I don't think I went two tournaments in a row with the exact same tackle transport system. For me, the most important piece of tackle transport equipment was a rod bag.

I can't imagine that it wouldn't fit, but if it didn't, you'd have a very logical reason for building a bigger garage.

I've got a Loomis drop shot rod, but I'm not certain what grade it is. I don't think the it is the GLX version. I've got the casting model and it pairs real well with a Calcutta 50 and 6 or 8 lb fluorocarbon. It also works good drifting for rainbows at Taneycomo.

There isn't any need to re-invent the wheel on this subject. This site has lots of articles dealing with seasonal patterns and different techniques to try. Read all those first. Go to the In-fisherman magazine web site and sift through their archives on seasonal patters and different techniques. That'll get you started.

All I know is that 3 different times last year I had "poor me" moments and had talked myself into buying a reel to make myself feel better. I looked at that reel 3 different times. Right down the reel case a little bit was a Curado E, for around $140. I talked myself out of the flippin reel and into a Curado E 3 different times. The flippin reel seemed "heavy" compared to a Curado. Given an option, I don't do heavy. Basically, I just couldn't justify a "one trick pony" and the Curado was more versatile. I think if I had unlimited funds I'd probably get one, but I don't so I won't.

A spinnerbait is a reaction bait, so I don't necessarily see a splash as being a bad thing. It could just as easily get a fishes attention as scare them. I think it is a good idea to be able to control the amount of splash and that is a skill that is acquired only through practice time on the water. You can control the size of the splash by via the size of spinnerbait used, i.e. a 1/4 ounce spinnerbait generally will splash less than a 1/2 ounce one. Like other guys on this thread mentioned, you can control the splash by what kind of cast you use, i.e. a sidearm or pitching type cast generally will splash less than a straight overhead type cast. Really though, you can learn to control any kind of cast. I remember back in the 80's, it was much more common to sit down and fish rather than stand up. I knew guys who, sitting down and using 5 1/2 foot pistol grip rods and original Lews Speed Spool reels, would make straight overhead casts with a minimal amount of splash 50 to 60 feet away. They had alot of practice. They were retired and go to fish 100+ days per year. I was just learning how to use a bait caster then and I never acquired that level of skill. I never got very good with a bait caster reel until I acquired a boat that was stable enough to stand up in. Even then, it took me a year or so to get semi-competent at pitching. Fast forward a dozen or so years, and it seems that I pitch most of the time I have the bait casters in my hands. Now go practice.

For the most part, wider and longer is preferable to shorter and narrow. Unless you have significant storage issues, a trailer is preferable to loading and unloading it out of the back of your pickup every time you want to go fishing. Wider + longer = weighs more. You might want to look at some kind of a pond boat, like a Water Buster or Pelican or something like that. They are much more stable and comfortable than a 12'jon boat.