RyneB

i give my baits away that i dont really use. I give them to my local high school bass team or donate them to a local animal shelter store that all the proceeds goes to stray animals. I have a plano box with some random stuff in it that i let my little nephew play with, hes already found out about the bait monkey. I will never throw away a hard bait unless its cracked. I remember when i was 8 i was fishing a river bank with my dad. A guy had walked by with a big box of lures. I asked him what he had. He let me look through his tackle (i was obsessed with lures). He ended up giving me a few Little Cleo spoons,a Rattle Trap, a couple beetle spins and inline spinners. They were all worn out and used, but they were the greatest things ever to me.

i have had nothing but great things to say about them. I heard about the hookup ratio but i never had a problem. I was on a fishing trip recently and the wife wasnt catching anything. I tied her on a VMC spinshot/drop shot with a black trick worm. She almost doubled my catch. She had no prolem hooking up and she has only fished 4 times in her life. If she can do it, anyone can.

i bought one 3 years ago and never really liked it. I didnt mind it, but then i bought a Revo S and most of my BPS reels didnt see much use. I have all Revo Ss now, but still have my original BPS reels i bought when i first started bass fishing. I have an Extreme, Rick Clunn (blue one), and Pro Lite Finesse. The Pro Lite is my favorite and the Extreme is my least. When i purchased it i got the swimbait reel with the extra wide spool and i think thats why im not a fan of it. I can honestly say the reel has had no problems at all, it just doesnt feel as nice as my Revo Ss. But for price, you cant go wrong.

I was throwing a crank at my local river a few years back. Reeled in a hologram purple looking Xcalibur crank. The hooks were rusty and the bait was kinda mucky. I soaked it in simple green and swapped out the hooks. Havent caught a fish with it, but it is a cool looking bait and havent seen any like it.

i absolutely love my Veritas. I noticed the other day that the middle 3 eyes were bent slightly. Thats not the rods fault, i have a gaggle of rods on my front deck and they kind of get abused. I bent them backand have been fine ever since. I can say that the Vendetta has impressed me more than i thought it would. I would have a hard time choosing between my Vendetta and Veritas.

i have never tried there hard baits. But i am a huge fan of there mouse and baby frog.

and a drop shot

i like to use a flutter spoon in deep water. If the structure doesnt allow that, ill throw a C Rig

i used Seaguar Red Label and i have been more than impressed with it compared to other fluoros i have tried. It does have a bit of stretch, but the knot strength is above what i expected. It is by far the most manageable fluoro i have used and it wont break the bank.

rage craws Zoom trick worms (if i had one cast to catch a fish, i would have a black zoom trick worm rigged up) a couple spinnerbaits (i started out using 99 cent ones from wal mart and they caught fish as good as my strike kings or war eagles) rebel Pop R hollow body frog Rage toads a few jigs (you can use the rage craws as trailers) These are all good starting points.

i have fished a lot of southern illinois lakes. Kinkaid is my favorite. All the lakes you mentioned are decent lakes. Shelbyville is a drive, but its a lake full of white bass if the largemouth arent biting.

have you ever seen a chartreuse spinnerbait fish? Or a living black trick worm? No, but they both will catch fish in most places were bass inhabit. Throw your craw baits, they will get bit.

My buddy had a twin turboed 800+ horsepower Trailblazer SS with a mean sounding cam in it. It ran low 10 second quarter miles so it had to have a roll cage. The looks on peoples faces as we sat at the ramp were priceless.

Ike also breaks rods and kicks sonar units, but im not going to.

Nice looking jigs, i have been experimenting with round rubber. What is the easiest way to wrap it? Right now im pulling every strand apart and tying. But it is so time consuming that i reallly dont like doing it.

my local strip mine is full of baby yellow bass this time of year. those Barfish would kill them. Good looking baits.

Thats hilarious, when i looked at the picture, thats the first thing i noticed.

Vertically? that would look somewhat odd.

i have no idea what that thing is. But the picture above looks just like it. On to the sarcasm. I hope you had a good net man so you could land that beast.

I started doing that when i started fishing the W & M skeet rods, then i bought a Abu Veritas on sale and now i have been buying nothing but Veritas. Now my deck is all yellow and white rods. My favorite rod is my Duckett though, but i cant afford all new Ducketts. I have 4 skeets, 6 Veritas, 1 Duckett, and 1 BPS extreme for the wife. Eventually id like to replace the skeets with Veritas or Ducketts, but i dont want to commit that much financially to it. Its wierd, theres days where i only feel comfortable fishing the soft tip skeets, and then theres days where i cant believe i fish such a soft tip rod and only use the veritas. Im wierd

btw, i always tie on a power swivel. Not because it makes the action better, but thats how i started fishing them. Thats what i have confidence in.

this technique is my little secret on the strip mine i fish. Everyone else is throwing spinnerbaits and plastics. But the flutter spoon is absolutely deadly.

looks good. But with this twin tail bait, and the shell cracker. Couldnt you have made a legitimate rage beaver? I like the shellcracker, but it reminds me so much of the warmouth (and i hate that bait) that im kind of worried. Just take this twin tail and put a beaver body on it. That would be my ultimate bait.

the thing i have found with plastics is sometime a bait will work at one body of water, but wont get touched on another. The baby brush hig is that bait for me. It gets hammered on a local lake, hammered on a lake i fish up north. The strip mine i fish the majority of the time, it has yet to land me a fish. Baits that work on the strip mine, sometimes dont work on the other spots. Confidence in a bait is the most important feature a bait can have. If you have confidence in a brush hog, you are going to throw it a lot more than say a rage craw. Therefor, you will have a better chance of catching fish on a brush hog. Often times ill throw on a plastic, throw it for about 5 minutes, then switch back to a rage craw. Ill fish that rage craw for hours even if i dont get a bite.

I see money being spent in the near future. I can already see my conversation with my wife. Wife: do you really NEED those Me: yes, theyre new and i have to have them Wife: well they look like everything else you have Me: not at all, these baits have (i go on for 10 minutes why these are the best baits ever)