webertime

Looks like one "big" one in the track. Two "big ones" locked in place on either side of the front hook (one in front one in back). Three little Bob's in the chamber created by the hump in the weight transfer track.

Carolina Rig. If you're a co-angler (I seem to recall you are) and your boater is drifting over a reef or hump, you can very easily do really well just dragging. Just watch the electronics to see that the boat is moving at roughly .8-1.3 MPH. A fat Ika with a nail weight and a swimbait on a football jig are great as well if you are working deep hard structure. Drop shot as well. If it's not too choppy I've seen smallies CRUSH spooks and Popper's in 30fow. Laker and Salmon guys on champ regularly get huge smallies down 30-50 feet. They're just out chasing Alewives. Those obviously aren't fish you'd target in a tournament but it goes to show if their out suspended in that depth, 20' isn't that deep.

Boil the rear end for a bit more kick?

It's a substantially larger profiled bait than a jig of equal weight with the same trailer. The bait tends to take more of a horizontal position than a jig/trailer when at rest. Not really good or bad, just things to keep in mind.

Keep your Mend-it away from them. I had just used some, wiped my hand on my shorts and went on fishing. I guess I didn't get it all off and about 5 cranks of the reel noticed my finger was sinking into the grip... I melted a hole in it. Aside from that, maybe it's just me but no matter what reel they were on (citica b/e, curado e, zillion, Cardiff, pq, advantage, revos, or c3) they always slide inboard and sort of jam things up.

Lake Morey as well. St cath and Bomo "lost" their bite last year according my local buddies. But they are in there if you can find them.

So dump 50 gallon drums of cymbalta in my pond and I'll get a bunch of impulsive overeaters?!

It's not something that needs defending. And it's true.

Check sierra trading post or campmor and see what deals you can find. Julbo, Native, Smith, etc. I got a great pair of Smith's for $50 (reg $200). Win win situation cheap and quality (and great warranties.)

Scratch it on pavement until you could put a straight edge on the top of the nose and it would touch both the line tie and the scuffed up lower lip.

Easily the best $10 I've spent on fishing stuff in the last year.

Green River Res is sick. Arrowhead is cool. Harriman Res down south is nice. Spring smallie runs up Lewis creek, otter creek and the Laplatte can be epic. Waterbury LATE in the season can be ridiculous. Berlin pond has nice smallies too. Small lakes in the NEK are worth checking out.

I've used tufline products for the last 4 years, the stuff is great from Flipping Junk to spinning with Ika's. The regular braid is very soft and smoother than comparable PP. It fades to a nice grey/green color (like the grey in desert digi-camo). Holds knots well. I'm going to grab a spool of this stuff too.

What depth? What weight were you using? A bunch of locals (including some tournament studs) use standard offset worm hooks, not ewg. They feel when the fish do their tap taps, they are trying to crush the bait on the bottom. Since ewg's hang lower they cause the bait/hook to rotate when they get smacked on the bottom, goofing up the "geometry" and hook up. In colder waters we go with 4'+ mono leaders.

I use a 6'3" MH Daiwa S-Rod. It's rated for 1/4-1oz. I think a shorter rod (6'6" is fine) works better for TW (Poppers, sammies, etc.) It's not really about slapping the tip in the water, although that is certainly a benefit. I find that the longer rod moves more line (well duh) and often times I was "over working" the bait, and throwing more slack into my line, causing missed strikes or screwing up my cadance. The shorter rod eliminated that issue. I also love the short handle, it's nice being able to avoid smacking the rod butt into your arm and messing up the cadance. It's also a great jerkbait rod. I got my rod for a song, and they are out there for well under $100, I think you can find them for $120 new. The Fenwick Elitetech Smallmouth line has a similar rod as well that can be had for ~$100.

Reed's has had them on sale (buy one for $100 get one of your choice free and get a hat).

Phenix Recon 715 with a Daiwa Zillion HSLA spooled with 16lb Sunline Sniper. Soft swimbaits, jigs, bigger jerkbaits (pointer 128), spinnerbaits, 10" senkos, small wakebaits, T-rigs & flukes. I love this set up.

Reels: Shallow spools for 200 B/D/E/G series reels. More Lefty cranking reels below $200. Rods: More rods with no foregrip or exposed threads in front of the reel seat. (Uplocking, a reel foot standard, whatever works) A cleaner way to balance rods (Carrot Stix did that right!)

Paycheck nosejobs. Let's put something in front of a perfectly good bait that makes it just spin.

They're great reels. That price is very good! What rod are you thinking of?

Sign up for the Huddleston Newsletter and you'll get a heads up about the 68's and the 8" weedless. That being said it seems that he had 3-5 68 sales this year and there are enough out there now that you can get them for basically retail now, as opposed to $50 just last year. The ROF is what is important with the Hudds. So even though a 6" ROF 5 weighs 2.4oz (from memory) and the 8" ROF 5 weighs 4.2oz, they will still sink at the same rate regardless of the ~2oz difference. If you are fishing 5-15' and are doing the Hudd-drag then a ROF 12 should be what you are going for. OR if you are comfortable with modifying an expensive bait people have taken ROF5's and slipped in nail/mojo weights in their belly/bum and created custom ROF's to suit their needs.

That's exactly what I was thinking of doing.

Guys that toss the 5.8" model on swimbait hooks... what size do you prefer?

Wait for the flyer to come out (a week or 2 from now) and see what's going to be scheduled for seminars, etc. at the Foxboro store. You can get there ~2 1/2-3 hours tops, from your place. If you have never been there it's quiet the shock to walk in and see a whale look small. I'm planning on making the trip just to get a bit of a fishing fix.

EXACTLY, with the exception that the spool on the 150H I believe is deeper than the Tierra and HSTA. (might be the other varient though)