Fishes in trees

I am in more money than I care to count in the search for the perfect spinner bait rod. Years ago, when All Star rods were make in Texas, they made a 6'8" Zell Rowland Special Spinner Bait Rod. (They also made a 6'4" version). As All Star evolved, they kept the same number, but stopped labeling it the Zell Rowland Special, but it was more or less the same rod. These were, in my opinion, great spinner bait rods - excellent back bone for setting hook & dragging fish out of stuff with a little more tip than their worm rods. Then they got sold, quality declined and I eventually broke/ wore out the rods I had. Turns out - years later - Academy Sports has purchased the All Star brand and is now the exclusive distributor. They make several different lines in several different colors. There is the original charcoal/black color, a purple color, a chartreuse color and last time I was there they had some bright red ones. Anyway they had some of the purple ones on close out - they were 6'10" and labeled spinner bait rods and they are very similar in action to the old Zell Rowland special. I think the only difference is an inch longer handle, but I could be mistaken. Anyway - I got one on close out, tried it & liked it and went back and bought the other 2 they had. o clue how they handle lighter spinner baits, but they throw half ounce spinner baits great. Putting a Curado DC on that rod got me an extra 15 feet or so on an average cast with the same amount of effort. Anyway, that is my current spinner bait set up - and the rods were relatively cheap at around $50 each on close out. We'll see how long they last. On the made in Texas All Stars, it seems like they skipped a little bit on reel seat quality a little bit and I wore out a couple of reel seats after a few years. I have 5 of the old blanks, all with a little something wrong with them - a busted guide, worn out reel seat. It is in the back of my head to some day have them rebuilt, but for now they are wrapped in plastic in the busted rod bucket in my fishing shed.

You can buy or make a secchi disband then keep track of the variance in water clarity where you fish. I have one. My issue is that I often forget to bring it along and when I do I forget to use it. Where I do most of my week to week fishing ( 200 acre or so Missouri Dept. of Conservation Lakes ) you often get different secchi disc readings depending on where you are in the lake. Mid lake, 100 yards off the dam will read different than half a mile down lake much more often than not and half way back in a large cove will read different than all the way back in the same cove - more often than not. The secchi disc is a handy tool when you remember to use it. I've had mine for at least 9 years. The first few years that I had it I was fairly religious about using it and basing soft plastic color choices on my interpretation of the readings. My problem these days is that I will look at the water and make assumptions based on past secchi disc readings I've taken elsewhere. You can be deceived if you rely on memory for water clarity. Just sayin . . . A previous post reminds me that I have, somewhere in the bowels of my fishing shed, a Color-C-Lector that worked when I used it last. I should maybe find it and give it a try sometime this year. As I recall, using the Color-C-Lector, some colors that are popular now weren't even available when the Color-C-Lector was first marketed. I'm thinking of green pumpkin, regular pumpkin and various watermelon shades, as well as other currently popular shades like June Bug & Redbug. I don't think that glitter, colored glitter and bi-color and tri-color laminated baits were a thing either, when the Color-C-Lector was first marketed.

I've been using home made jika rigs for a few years now. My first thought when I saw some one else's version was that they would work good on the edges of deep weedlines. The few times that I get to fish major Ozark reservoirs, (LOZ, Truman, Table Rock, Stockton, etc) I've had decent success throwing them anywhere I'd throw a jig. As far as throwing them in grass goes, I ought to do it more. Most of the time, when I'm throwing to holes in grass I'm throwing a tail weighted stick bait. As far as baits go, I like some kind of creature bait first, then maybe some kind of lizard. First choice is a brush hog, second choice is the Netbait Mad Paca, next, I've had the best luck a few different days with the YUM Zellemander. I think this bait is discontinued, but I'm not certain. They went on close out at Rogers in Liberty and I bought 30 bags. I've had almost no luck throwing straight tail worms, like a trick worm on this rig. As far as hooks go, best results for me have been using a lighter weight 3/0 Gammy round bend worm hook. Haven't experimented with wide gap hooks all that much. Weight wise, most of my home made baits are around a half an ounce, more or less. Rather than using the skinny cylinder weights, my home made baits are made using back to back worm weights with a colored bead between them. Instead of using a wire dropper, I make droppers out of 80 or 100 lb fluorocarbon leader material. So buy droppers tend to be 3/4 of an inch or so longer than if I just used a cylinder weight. I use jewelry drips to keep the weights from falling off the dropper and to make a loop to attach to the split ring. One of these years I'll learn how to post pictures.

Like lots of other guys, I won't buy a rod without touching it. There is a tackle shop in San Francisco - Hi's Tackle Box - which advertises itself as a boutique tackle shop. The guys who run the website Tackle Tour, speak highly of it from time to time. I'd go look there for a high end jig rod. You're inPleasanton California and that isn't that far from San Francisco. When the guys on Tackletour mention that tackle shop, they are never talking about low end or mid-range gear, generally high end, "enthusiast" level stuff.

If you're fishing a spook with dull hooks - shame on you. If your grandpa's old spook is "special" and you don't want to spoil it with upgrades - just put it on the shelf and get a better walking bait. This is just me, but my strike/landing percentage is much better on a Lucky Craft Sammy compared to a spook. Other than that, I don't know what to offer, for me a Sammy is a much better walking bait than a spook is. Should you decide that you're going keep the spook in service, either sharpen the hooks or put on new ones.

It would seem to me that first you have to create a demand. Drug dealers do this by giving away free product, then getting folks addicted, then they have a captive market. This business model can apply to marketing soft plastics. If there are any influential fishermen in your neighborhood, give them some free baits to test, then see if any demand happens. Any bait shops in your area? Give them some product at extremely attractive prices, in return for prominent display space. What is it about your baits that makes them "special". I recall in the mid 80's, I worked for a time at a tackle/gun shop in Columbia, MO. A guy cam by one day and offered us a decent deal on soft plastics - home made ribbon tail worms, sickle tail worms & sickle tail lizards. Allegedly they were "Indian made" and "drenched in Lunker Lotion". Turns out it was a basement project by a couple of guys who were a quarter Cherokee. Who knows what "Lunker Lotion " was, best I could tell it was an olive oil, anise oil and garlic salt mixture. We sold out our purchase in a couple of weeks, but no one returned to get more - mostly because the worms were nothing special. Inconsistent plastic - some were too fragile, some didn't wiggle enough, very few in each sack were perfect. They were really slimy and they stunk, but no one thought this was a great idea. This was 5 years or so prior to Powerbait hitting the market and after that, a Missouri company did do well with a garlic formula that really stunk (Chompers). At there time, the only scented worms that any one knew of regional were the Mann's flirt flavors, and they smelled good. So, there is a way - just find a way to create demand and a way to identify your baits as "special".

Back in the day, when I was a meat fishing bush hippie specializing in ponds and small watersheds, day in and day out, a Brewer Slider Head, either the flat one or the spider slider head, a quarter ounce with a 4" worm, fished low & slow was the ticket. Of course, some days, a buddy throwing a spinner bait might keep up with me or beat me by a little bit, and I remember a couple of epic days when the Smithwick Rogue ruled, and I caught more fish than I could carry, had to make 2 trips back to the car (a quarter mile or so each way ) However, much more often than not, a Brewer Slider, polishing the rocks like Charlie Brewer said to, was the ticket. I'd polish anything - sand or much bottom - bring that bait back a few inches above the bottom. Any kind of weeds - fish the bait low & slow enough that every so often you touched a weed. If you never touched a weed you were going too fast. If you got hung up you were fishing too slow. My second favorite bait, when snags were less of an issue, was a 1/8 oz crappie jig (red head, chartreuse chenille body, white feather tail ) with either a black or brown Uncle Josh twin tail or split tail eel. That was my late 70's - early 80's version of the Ned rig. I'd try to swim it slightly off the bottom, just like the Brewer Slider. To be fair - those days I only occasionally had access to a boat, I didn't really know how to fish a spinner bait and I didn't understand lipless cranks at all. But I did understand low & slow and that worked for me most of the time. Mind you, these experiences were in Central Missouri - your experiences might differ.

What brand of reel is it? Other than the gear ratio, how does it work? Do you get decent distance considering the amount of weight you're throwing? How much does it weigh. Is it "comfortable" to throw. Does it fit your hand ok? Does it feel ok in conjunction with the rod you've chosen for it? These are the properties I'd consider before I worried about the gear ratio. I like a slower ratio reel because I've always found it easier to speed up retrieve if necessary rather than slow down I have a few 5 something to one reels and I use them for reaction baits - lipless cranks, divers, square bills, spinner baits, pretty much any reaction bait. My 5 something to 1 reels are mostly Calcuttas, they are a little heavy, but they handle 20 lb test and 65 lb Braid well and I use them for purposes mentioned earlier, when I need to throw a little heavier line. A 200 TEGT and an older Diawa 7'MH rod & 20 lb line makes a sweet set up for throwing magnum square bills. Great distance pitching, greater distance when I choose to go 2 handed overhead of side arm and I think 5 to 1. is a great ratio for square bills. I have a couple of Curado DC reels and I wish they came in a 5 something to 1 ratio. I got the 6.4 to 1 ( the slowest available) and they throw spinner baits well - HOWEVER - they don't handle 20 lb as well as I'd like, so I dropped to a 15 lb co-polymer. The jury is still out as to if I like that line or not. They do handle 15 lb line great and I appreciate the extra distance I get with the very non-aerodynamic spinner bait, with more or less the same amount of effort on my part. Most of my "feel" reels, for jigs, worms, etc are 6.4 to 1 or better, not really by choice but when I decided to go lighter ( 50 sized Curados and Chronarchs) that is the ratio they came in and yo couldn't get any slower.

I'd get on the phone and call up All Star, see what they tell you. I might be mistaken but currently I think that All Star rods are exclusively distributed by Academy Sports. I know they make several different lines, besides the All Star Classic & All Star Team. At Academy Sports, I've bought some purple All Star Rods and a lime green All Star rod, they have some bright chartreuse ones, but I wouldn't have one of those, just didn't like the color.

That is a neat BPS fishing chair, a little bit of overkill, but kinda neat. By the time you've purchased all the parts, considering also shipping & your time- to re-create that chair I suspect you will have more than a c-note into the project, so go ahead and buy the chair - or don't. As mentioned in a prior post, a piece of pvc pipe, can be attached to the chair you already own with duct tape or zip ties - problem solved. Should you decide to re-create the chair - don't just stop there. Go ALL OUT. Think about adding a radio & antenna, a phone charger, built in thermoelectric cooler, integrate a solar array into your umbrella to power it all, and/or get one of those high tech gel cell batteries, like they have on the space station. Maybe inflatable cushions on the back & seat, should the stretched out polyester get uncomfortable. Maybe some kind of flexible selfie stick, so you could mount your tablet and stream a couple of movies between bites (you're going to be there for a few hours anyway) You've got a chance to go all Tom Swift on this chair - don't pass it up.

Those baits, with the longer arm and the twin large Colorado blades, were for a technique known as "bulging". It was similar to throwing a buzz bait, except the idea was to reel fast enough to make the blades bulge the surface, without actually breaking the surface plane of the water. You could use any number of different trailers on those baits, I preferred the old Zoom twin tails. Back in the day, I had a few days when bulging was the ticket, if you cracked the surface of the water, might as well reel in faster, because that cast was spoiled. I've seen days when bulging worked big time and buzz baits didn't work at all. At the time this style of fishing started ( as far as I remember hearing about it) most guys who threw these kinds of baits were using pistol grip rods and 20 lb mono. Popular reels for this technique were the old tear drop shaped Lew's Speed Spool or, the cool guys had the narrow spool Ambassador 4600. High water around drowned bushes was probably the most successful area to use this bait. Some place where it was a little too snaggy to throw a lipless crank.

I generally agree with the notion of whatever makes a good spinner bait rod for you will make a decent chatter bait rod. That being the case - a couple of years ago I was in a pawn shop in Warsaw, Mo, All the fishing rods available for sale were stuck in a 5 gallon bucket with a bungee around them to keep them from falling out of the bucket. Most of the rods were clunkers but I found a mid 90's Diawa Light & Tough model 7', worming & jigging model. Cork handle, silverish color next to the handle blending into white for most of the blank. I bought it because it was relatively cheap and buddies that have owned or still own rods like that like them. In my opinion, that rod is a terrible worm rod - way too much tip and not near fast enough action for my tastes. I tried it out as a chatter bait rod and was very impressed, the too much tip that makes it a terrible worm rod, makes it a great reaction bait throwing rod, with ALOT of back bone. I put an older Curado D on it ( the wider spool version of the Curado, but smaller than the 300 E by a lot) and for now my chatter bait issues are resolved.

The real question is do you get the extended distance long enough (time wise), to make it worth it, given that sooner rather than later you're going to get a wind knot have have to cut maybe up to 20 yards of line off the spool? Me, I fill spools up to what I think is "right" and every so often I still get a wind knot. I've found that the lighter the braid, the more often I get wind knots, especially when I'm throwing cross wind or quartering into the wind. I've found that the "right amount" of line varies according to how many IPA's I've had when I'm in reel spooling mode. That is unlikely to change. I've realized that I am very positive and optimistic about how much line I can put on a spinning reel after a few Boulevard Single Wides.

My personal rule on "budget" bait casting reels is that you get what you pay for. My experiences with "budget" bait casting over the years is that I'm 0 for 4, as far as being reasonably well satisfied with the performance of said reel. Maybe 2 for 6, because I used a couple of Quantum IR4 CW round reels for 3 years for throwing lipless cranks & diving cranks because I couldn't afford anything better at the time. The disappointing thing about those Quantum reels is that they wore out. I have a couple of Calcutta I bought in 1998 and 3 more that I bought in 2004 and aside from numerous surface scratches, they still work fine, maybe better than new because they are broke in now and have been professionally cleaned & lubed. I truly hope the original poster has better "luck" with "budget" reels than I did.

I remember back in the day when I was fishing BFLs and I took several trips to southern Missouri every year to fish Table Rock, and farther south to fish Bull Shoals, I heard about guys making flies for drop shot fishing. One shop in a little town close to BullShoals had a small section of "drop shot flies">. I bought a couple. They looked similar to the ones posted, except they were feathers rather than rabbit hair and they had a relatively thick mono weed guard. On my way back home I stopped at Bass Pro and in the fly fishing shop they had an assortment of "clear water drop shot flies" and I bought a few more. I was never able to make them work and I tried several times, in pretty clear water. I didn't lose any of them, they are still in a box in my fishing shed somewhere. Based on my experiences, I'm pretty skeptical of the whole concept, but your experiences might b e different.

Concerning the Pocket Rocket baits, I'm not a big fan of fishing them wacky style, one, because I think that there are better wacky baits out there and two, because as mentioned earlier they are kinda fragile. BUT - last fall Academy put a bunch of them on sale, so of course I had to buy some - just a few bags, of each color available on the close out aisle. I got the larger size, would have gotten the smaller size also, but none were available. The most success I've had with this bait is throwing them on a Brewer Spider Slider head, the pro model which has a slightly stouter hook. I clip a quarter inch or so off one end so that they snug up better to the back of the jig head. I haven't gotten around to trying this yet, but I think that they would work ok trimmed down some on a ned rig.

The correct size o-rings for a senko are 3/8" o.d. (outside dimension) x 1/4" i.d. ( outside dimension). You can get o-rings with a larger outside diameter, but I don't see the point because they don't stretch as well, and you need a little bit of stretch to get them positioned properly. The last time I needed o-rings, (and I'd run through all the ones my local hardware stores had in the proper size at 18 or 20 cents each, I found a web site called 0-rings.com. I went there, and several stops later I got a supplier on the phone in St. Louis who would sell me a minimum order. A minimum order was 1000, the guy on the phone apologized for the high price, but he had to sell them to me for a penny a piece. Shipping was a few stamps. That was in 2005 and I still have many o-rngs left

I'd go to the horses's mouth for this one. What does the Shimano web site say? If there was any ambiguity at all, I'd call them up and ask.

I carry a finesse drop shot rig and a bubba drop shot rig in the boat nearly all the time. I've never had a monster 50+ fish day using either the finesse or bubba drop shot technique. I have had the drop shot turn a bad day into a decent days

MY sonar units are older ( circa 2007 ), what I do is install them when I get to the lake and when I take out I remove then and put the units in padded cases and store them in the fishing truck.

I've never used the fish head style. I like the football head style. I fish them like a crank bait that stays stuck to the bottom all the time. Throw it out - hit the bottom - keep it moving on the way back. My best results have been bring it back kinda slow ( not dead slow), using the reel and not the rod. Using the rod would give it a stop & go action, using the reel keeps the speed steady. Slowish & steady is what has worked the best for me. I think any crawdad type bait will work with this head. My best results have been with the Zoom Z-craw.

My experience is that any piece of metal will rust/corrode over time if you don't take care of it. I used to have an issue with losing my needle nose pliers. I solved that issue by getting several pairs and leaving them scattered around my boat, so there is generally always a pair near where I need them. This approach, while handy, lead to a couple of pairs of Rapala needle nose pliers getting corroded, because they sat in a crevice of the boat too long. I use a similar approach these days, but after each trip I put them back in the tool box. I have 1 nice pair of needle nose, made by Rapala, it doesn't have the split ring tip on the nose, and I don't know where I got them and haven't seen a similar pair in a long time. Harbor freight has decent needle nose pliers, but they will rust quickly if you don't take care of them. I take care of mine by hosing them down with silicon spray a few times per year and that works ok.

The story I heard is that the Beaver bait is called a "beaver" because the owner of the company, prior to the company being formed, won the FLW Walmart Open on Beaver Lake in Arkansas a couple of years in a row using a prototype of that soft plastic, and that is what inspired him t for the company and begin marketing baits. I believe Andre Moore is the guys name, but I'm not sure about the name or the story.

Every so often you lose a rod, not every season, but, for me, a couple of time a decade for sure. It is never on purpose, always an accident, the saddest thing is that there is generally a decent reel attached to that rod. I think that the appropriate phrase is - pay to play. Losing a rod every so often is part of the dues that you have to pay in order to be able to get out fishing and be away from people from time to time.

Here are a few options for you. I don't throw deep diving cranks alot, because the lakes I usually fish really aren't conducive to throwing them. On lakes where deeper vegetation isn't an issue I have several rigs that I switch around on. I have an older Curado D, 5-1, that holds alot of line, a whole bunch of 10 lb line and it works good. If you like a round reel, the 10 ball bearing Calcutta TEGT throws good for me, I generally choose that one over the Curado. If it is going to be really windy - I think that spinning gear is better, for throwing at an angle or into the wind. 3000 or 4000 size Shimano spinning reels work ok, either throwing 10 lb mono or better yet, 20 lb braid. I also have an old Diawa 2600 spinning reel. It is more of a inshore reel. It holds a ton of line - great drag. Down side is it is kinda heavy. The design hasn't changed since the late 80's, basically because it is a tank and doesn't need to change. It is perfect for what it is. I've even put 30 lb mono on this reel and with a stouter rod, used it for catfish. Bank fishing with a 3/4 or 12 oz weight, it can throw 30 lb mono as far as you need to. So there are a few options.