hatrix

I had someone steal my stuff out of the garage a few years back. I lost pretty much everything and have been recovering ever since.

I think it might depend on presentation. If you fishing a fast moving bait compared to like a jig or worm I am not sure they get to much a chance to even see it. As of this year I have been using leader a lot just because why not give my self the best possible chances. Like others have said I also use them so I can break off and not have to actually cut the line. Although with a pair of gloves 65# braid and some muscle you can bend out the hooks on about any thing and get your lure back but not always. With a leader your gonna break off for sure so it can go either way for me.

I actually handled 3 chronarchs and all of them felt a little rough in the handle compared to the Lew's or Revo's they just did not have that buttery smoothness that I was looking for. I will say that just holding them and only making a dozen casts with them in a parking lot is not a absolute and definitive determination of the quality or performance of the reel. But from first impressions and actually getting to feel how it sits in my hand and every thing I was just not impressed. For the sticker tag of $200 I just feel you can get a nicer or equally as good reel for less money. I had full intentions of actually buying a chronarch upon entering the store but after playing around with it I can say that reel is not for me. I was going to just buy 2 Revo S but after a little debate I decided to wait since apparently the Lew's rep was just in the store like 2 or 3 days ago and they ordered all the new stuff for 2013 and soon I guess they will be ordering the new Revo's also. They will give me a call when the new stuff comes in so I can come check that out and then I will make my decision from there. After holding it and playing around with it in the parking lot I was just personally not impressed at all. To me it seems as if you can get better bang for your buck with other brands as opposed to Shimano. For me I would rather have 2 Revo S reels or some other reel compared to 1 chronarch. I just don't see the chronarch being worth it in my eyes. As for the Tournament Pro casting light lures. I have a few and it will cast whatever you want with no issues just match the rod to the lure weight. The breaking system on the Lew's work amazingly on all my reels. For the most part I hardly ever thumb any thing and I always have them set to free spool 100% of the time.

I was at my local tackle store yesterday for a while talking to some guys and playing with all the rods and reel in the store. Most off all I came with the intention of really looking at the cronarchs but I did play with every casting reel they had. I would have to say with out batting a eye of all the brands and models of each brand be it high or low on price Revo's and Lew's win hands down. I even went out in the parking lot and threw quite a lot of them I was interested in. All the other reel were no contest to me in smoothness and casting ability. Since cronarch is what your asking about I thought right from the start as soon as I turned the handle I was not a fan. It felt like someone just dug it out of a pile of sand and I actually laughed. Then we took it out and made some casts with it. That was also a joke to me in comparison to the cheaper and much nice IMO Lew's and Revo's. Maybe if you could get some older Shimano's I would maybe say go for it. But after playing around with all the newer models I wouldn't even let my dog fish with those reel. Sorry Shimano fans but they seem greatly inferior to what else is out there now a days and most everyone I have talked to have trashed them for other brands.

Actually... You can make one. I got a little creative a few years back and made one of mine own from a jitterbug and it worked great. You just need a bait with a screw in hook or whatever you want to call it in the tail. I know you said popper but if you can find one with the screw in the back like a jitterbug I don't see why it wouldn't work. I just unscrewed the hooks and cut the eye off of a straight shank hook and glued it in the tail part with jb weld. It worked awesome cause I could throw it anywhere and not just alone the edges. Well after looking on TW it seems as if only prop baits have the screw in the back. I suppose you could maybe heat up a hook and try sticking it in the end and seal it up with some glue. Who knows it might be the next best thing.

So I had thought about this a while back and was going to make a post about it but just never did. So my question is what do you do when you have a old bait that is just wore out. Like for example a rigged bait that you can't change the hook out on or the finish on a crank or something is just wasted. Do you just say ok this one is beat and throw it away? Do you donate them? If so where do you donate them or to who? I have bunches of lures that have just seen better days and now have super dull hooks so I don't really use them any more. There isn't really any thing wrong with them but the hook is dull. Do you ever try to sharpen a hook on something like say a chatterbait or a buzzbait. As for cranks I just change the hook out and even if the paint is wasted I will still use them. I have some red eye shads that are now "ghost" color. They are basically pure white and have almost 0 paint left on them but they still catch fish as good if not maybe better then when they were new. I will pick one of my ghost RES over a brand new one any day. I feel like they are almost lucky and proven fish catchers. I have given some old baits to friends who have less tackle then I do just to try and help them out. Other then that I just cant bring my self to throw beat up lures away. The only thing I ever really pitch is plastics since they really are garbage. Also what do pros do with there old stuff I would like to think they donate it somewhere to like needy children or something. I know those guys have to have razor hooks and new baits constantly since $$$ is on the line. I would like to think they give there used stuff away including rods and reels. Whats garbage in there eyes might be gold in another persons. One mans trash is another mans treasure.

As for ordering the Hudd's just go to the actual Huddleston site. TW is always out of the Huddleston's I want. I just ordered some not to long ago from Huddleston cause TW never has what I want. Also those ripple shads work pretty good as trailers for me. I use them if I am out of Big Hammers cause I can get them locally. I get the biggest ones whatever size that is and cut the head off behind the eyes and throw them on swim jigs or chatter baits. They almost seem to last forever unless a little fish bites the tail off. I have one still on a swim jig from last year that has cause at least 60+ fish.

About a month ago I went down to a friends house to fish for the weekend. We fished a couple places that get heavy pressure from people bank fishing (mostly cat fishers). Over Friday night and Saturday Sunday I gained 6 lures and about 8 or 9 sets of terminal stuff from people fishing the bottom. People were getting there cheap mono caught on rocks and breaking off but not me. I use Power Pro cranking the rocks and if I do get hung I will most likely bend the hook out and get it back either way. The best one out of all of them was my buddy got hung with a rage craw and cut the line on braid even after I said just pull as hard as you can. Any ways about maybe 15-20 min later I hooked up on his line and then I felt a fish on and even watched it jump. He came running over and grabbed the line but was slow about it and gave the fish slack and it got off. He did get his craw and keel weighted hook back though so that's cool since they were fresh out the pack. I kind of wondered though if the fish was all ready on or when I snagged his line and moved the bait that's what made him bite. I am going to go with the latter cause I think if it was all ready on it would of been gut hooked or something and probably wouldn't of come off.

Some people might disagree with this but if a fish misses your top water don't stop it. Keep doing your same retrieve or just do something besides letting it sit still. I get tons of follow up strikes by keeping the same cadence I was doing before or some times depending I will speed it up like its trying to get away. Same goes for me when I miss a strike on a crankbait. It seems like if I stop and let it sit a second the fish get a look at it and notice its not real. It's kind of a force of habit to want to stop but just keep it moving.

I agree totally with Capt. Bob. I think people tend to over estimate there casting distance. I would say with a medium/heavy 6'6" you do all average rod that somewhere around 30-40 yards is probably what people average. As for those spinning reels they need more line for sure and should greatly improve your distance. Sometimes casting super far actually sucks. Sure I can whip a spook and take my reel down to the backing but I will tell you I sure as hell don't want to be walking a spook back that far every time. If I am doing something like that once I reach a certain point in the retrieve I will just reel it back in and eliminate half of what I casted and only focus on the area I am targeting. BTW Capt. Bob are you getting good musky out of there? My buddy goes down there and has been trying to get me to go but I have yet to go. Also I guess there is some guy that uses total trash gear and kinda gets made fun of but he just slays the fish right in peoples face. He is like sorta of famous for it and I guess maybe slightly youtube famous. He makes videos or something I guess and everyone knows who he is. I don't know if your picture is the spot my buddy goes but he says they catch good fish out of there and firetiger baits are usually the deal for him.

I really only like hard swimbaits for top water. They make good wake baits. I think soft baits get more bites then a hard bait. If you could have the same bait in a hard and soft version I would put money on the soft one getting more bites. If you looking for easy to throw and use swimbaits check out the Huddleston Grass Minnow and Weedless Shad, they consistently catch me fish in any conditions really.

I think it happens to any one when you use walking baits for to long. A little over a month a go the top water bite was on big time and I was throwing spooks and frogs all day. It was all I threw for about a couple weeks the bite was so good and the one morning part of my left hand was asleep. The doctor said it was a pinched ulnar nerve most likely caused from doing a repetitive action over and over and it had bothered the tissue around the nerve and pinched it. My wrist was never swollen or any thing. I just woke up with half of my ring finger down to my pinky asleep. It is similar to guys who swing hammers all day. I don't care what shape your in your body is not made to be snapping your wrist like that all day and over time you will absolutely notice effects from it.

My favorite rod is by mine and probably any ones standards a POS glass spinning rod that has gotta be atleast 30 years old. I don't know what it is but I just love that rod. It just works so great for me using moving baits on braided line. With that slow tip and huge bend it has it really pins fish good. The top eye is just huge compared to how they make rods now but I think it enhances the action on my baits. You can watch it just bounce from side to side like crazy compared to my other rods. The wobble from even a little baby crank bait really gets that tip moving.

Really I think you can use any thing you want and it will work but probably with varying results. As for me I like to use swimbaits and I second the big hammer. They come in a array of sizes and colors and are cheap to top it off.

I eat bass out of my lake at least a few times a year and we have fish fry's and invite some friends and family over. I have to cull fish every year to keep the population in check and continue to grow larger fish so why not eat them. The fish i keep are generally 12"-16" since that is usually about the average fish size and they are excellent tasting in my lake. IMO though lake Erie perch is about as good as it gets. I have been eating perch my whole life since I am from Cleveland. You can find perch in the grocery store around here depending on time of year but they usually want a pretty penny for it since its so highly regarded. You can buy crab or lobster for the price of perch and apparently people pay that all day or they wouldn't be charging so much.

I guess everyone is different but I would assume most people keep there reel free spool once they get comfortable with there gear. Don't worry to much about whipping it as hard as you can right from the start and try using somewhat heavy aerodynamic baits that can be worked fast so you can fire off as many casts as possible to maximize your time on the water casting. You can still make a pretty long cast by putting minimal effort in your cast as opposed to trying to really fire it out there. Also I don't know if any one mentioned but the line you use also makes a difference and some line might be more prone to backlash then others. Getting some line conditioner can really help keep the line from springing off the spool once the smallest backlash starts and can help improve distance by making it a bit more supple and removing memory (temporally).

I just recently learned of this knot and it is far superior to a double uni when attaching a leader to braid or maybe any line. I always thought a uni was the way to go till some random guy I meet showed me how to tie a grinner and pointed out the flaw in tying a uni to connect a leader. It took a couple tries to get it down but know I feel more confident in my connections and it is supposed to be a 100% knot. It's like a uni and clinch in 1 knot and if your looking for a new knot might be the way to go. From know on this will be the knot I use for any line to line connections I make unless I find a easier 100% knot someday.

Pretty much any guide or How-To for setting up a bait caster will say to set the tension so the bait slowly falls and only does 1 rotation when it hits the ground. That's perfectly fine and a great place to start when learning to first use a casting reel. But for me personally I NEVER add any tension to the spool. When first starting I did and when I backed it off I basically had to learn it all over again. It will reduce casting distance and take more effort to cast a bait. If any thing I would turn all 4 pins on and maybe crank up the mags to max. Then when you get a good feel for it back off your brakes and you should have no problem. Thinking about it most of the time I never really thumb the spool except to stop it before it hits the water. You kinda get a sense for when it's a bad cast and you need to control the spool with you thumb. Generally I never have to unless it's human error or the wind blows all of a sudden or maybe your bait helicopters. The reel should do pretty much all the work for you.

I see some people talking about adjusting the tension knob and mag brakes for setting up your reel. I have a few lews and keep them all set the same 2 opposing brakes on and mag set at 1 or 0. I might go as high as 4 or 5 if it's blowing super hard. As for the tension knob I would keep it set to free spool but tight enough so there is no side to side play. You can turn the tension up I guess to learn but I think it will only make it more difficult on you when you decide to turn it off. If you tighten it up so it makes resistance when you crank that kind of defeats the purpose of a smooth reel IMO. As for backlashes I can't remember the last time I had a real one. Two days ago I showed a buddy how to use one of my rods and by the end of the day he was whip casting spinner baits with ease. Good luck and tight lines.

Mend-It works ok but there is no substitute for hot metal actually melting it back together.

I have had a BUNCH of defective baits to the point that I thought I should e-mail them. I never even got a reply or as much as some kind of acknowledgement that they even read the e-mail or actually even care. It's unfortunate since they make some of my favorite baits but there QC has been very hit or miss for me. I just noticed your from the Cleveland area and so am I. Maybe they send there defective baits to our stores

What kind of braid are you using? It's like all I use and I fish as much as possible. With a good reel you can whip it and hardly if it all have to thumb the spool.

I don't own any of those exact rods but I do have a crucial and a convergence that are above and below the compre. I like how there's no threads to wear on my finger from the way I hold it and think the both handle well and are plenty sensitive.

I'm on the move for the most part. I make enough casts to cover the area with what I think should work. They might be there and eventually you can catch them if you throw your whole tacklebox or wait long enough. But I'm looking for the ones that right to bite right now.

That's like the perfect answer. The same lures and the same techniques work exactly the same. As for what's harder that depends on the population and fishing pressure. If your pond is highly pressured it might be harder cause actually all those fish have seen that lure. Just on a lake your lure wasn't going by as many fish with each cast.