Nibbles

Sportman's Warehouse closed a store her last year. I bought a "lifetime" supply of GYCB products for $1.00 to $3.00. My point is that things can be bought on sale with a little patience. For me, unfortunately, I'm not sure spending a few hundred dollars counts as "saving!" Overstock Bait is selling some GYCB plastics including their Ikas, Fat Ikas and Big Ikas for like 2.40 a pack right now. 8-) 4.20 for a 20 pack of Hula Grubs too. Pretty darn nice IMO.

Does anyone know whether any big lure companies still produce decently priced balsa cranks? As much as I'd love to support custom luremakers, I doubt I'll be able to continue dropping anywhere from 15-25 bucks per crankbait at the rate I lose them. I shore fish a lot with cranks, so lure retrievers don't always work. So far I've managed to find the Bomber model B's and the Strike King shad series.

Rage tail craws and space monkeys. I've fished them multiple times with no bite. I have caught bass on the Rage chunks and Rage Baby Craws though.

Girlfriends You lookin' for jail time buddy? ;D

It's the main lake. Small is relative I guess. There's a channel that runs through the lake into the dam near the boat rental place - tons of bass along that channel hiding in the vegetation. There's a nice deep point along there too that I caught one fish on.

If you look around the net a bit, you can find Daiwa Cielo 6'3" dropshot rods and Cielo 6'6" MHF Worm/Jig spinning rods for 80 bucks shipped. The Cielo rods are made from the same blanks as Steez rods, if I recall clearly. Granted, they're discontinued so I doubt there's going to be a warranty, but 80 bucks for such a nice rod is worth it without the warranty IMO.

Sounds like a lot of fun, wish I could come! :-[ Unfortunately I probably can't miss class for a whole week without bringing my GPA down something like a full point.

Give Line Butter a try. X2 By far superior to L&L in my book. I don't know the chemical make-up but I don't think it has any petroleum-based products like alot of other conditioners. Doesn't weaken the line. L&L isn't petrol based either. It's polymer based - essentially when you spray it onto the line it dries into a thin slippery polymer coating that is intended to reduce friction.

1/8 and 1/4 mostly. I like Picasso Shake E football heads and the megastrike ones a lot, but also use owner ultrahead finesse ball heads for their EWG hook. Worms that have worked for me include roboworm zipper worms, Jackall Flick Shake 5.8 and 6.8" worms (ridiculously soft and wiggly), and the Netbait 5.8" Slim Shake worms. My favorite are the netbait ones because they're really thin and give a ton of action. They're almost as good as the Jackalls, but at about a fifth of the price - right around 14 cents a worm, which is pretty darned good.

The old ones cast lighter lures better probably because they use magforce V instead of Z. Z engages at a higher spool speed, which really doesn't help when you are pitching or throwing very light baits where you might benefit more from some braking even at lower speeds.

Are you talking about the new PX68 versus the old yellow orange and red pixies?

Been busy with Work, School, and Deer season Thanks for all the replies guys, man this is why I love this site! I will try all of these. Our water is roughly 60* right now in the morning and worms up to around 65-68* depending on the weather. The water visibilty is ~3feet or so. I am using the green pumpkin just because it is a natural color and have good luck with it at our lake when the water is clearer North Star Baits really have my eye too, I like their jigs (from the looks of them). I really want to find something for the fisherman at my lake to really catch some cold water fish, I gotta be able to do it first to teach them though lol I would check out GMAN's jigs at Siebert Outdoors as well. His round rubber finesse jigs have phenomenal action. I remember throwing on a green pumpkin rage craw on one with a dark green rubber skirt and caught fish after fish after fish just by yo-yoing it like a rat-l-trap.

I suggest trying 10#. I have it on one of my Alphas and I throw 1/4 oz jigs and 1/8 oz. shaky head rigs with it. In fact, I can skip 3/8 oz. arky heads all day with it without ever backlashing. 1/4 not as consistent, but still, the line performs quite well. The 10# has a breaking strength of some 20+ lbs, so strength is not really an issue.

Never went fishing with a guide before so I had no idea tipping was customary. Good info here. Although I will have to say that if I drop $300-$400 for a day of guide service, my wallet's gonna be pretty empty when I reach in there to find money for a tip. ;D Oh the joys of being an undergrad who gets paid $10/hour.

I heard one guy's insurance company refused to pay out after his high dollar gear got stolen out of his boat because there was no sign of forced entry.

Not sure if it will work for everyone, but what I've learned through observation and trial and error is: If you're fishing fast use a high-action trailer, and stick to brighter colors. The idea is to imitate an injured or fleeing baitfish of some sort. IMHO, most flapping chunk trailers like rage chunks, beavers and twin tail grubs do not imitate crawdads AT ALL except for their rough profile. The flapping motion resembles the tail of a fleeing baitfish way more. If you're fishing slow use a bulkier trailer without as much action, and stick to duller colors. I personally like LFTL Pig Claws.The idea is to imitate a crawdad crawling along the lake floor completely unaware of predators. You can add a couple of hops if you like to imitate a fleeing crawdad - the jig skirts should provide enough action for the bass to notice something small but bulky trying to move quickly away from them. Jigs with skirts made entirely of thin round living rubber work exceptionally well with trailers that give off a lot of action.

Magforce V. Makes life easier when I'm throwing 1/8 and 1/4 oz baits. And when I'm skipping light jigs.

If I were you I'd get a customized plastics or jig rod before a crank rod. High priced rods are more sensitive, hence the higher price. Sensitivity usually isn't the first thing that comes to mind (or perhaps just my mind perhaps) when fishing a crankbait. Fiberglass rods are not very sensitive, yet many use them for cranking. Just my 2 cents. Also, I would check out TackleUnderground. I think they got some people there as well who have the know-how regarding rod building.

LOL, thats how I use to do it and lost alot of jigs. I also have found techniques to get most of them back that are wedged in rocks and hung on rocks. 12 is an estimate but it has to be close. I dont know if you fish out of a boat but that helps retrieval also. Typically if you get behind the jig and pull it opposite the way you got hung it pops out of the wedge. When one gets hung as much as I use to and sometimes still do you learn tricks to get stuff back. ;D I don't own a boat, but I do tag along with boaters from time to time. I don't really lose a lot of jigs on a boat because I can pull from different directions, and because I fish on a boat on larger lakes that are far less treacherous than the local park ponds I shore fish from in terms of hidden crap that I can snag on.

The engineers at Falcon also named a 6'7" MHXF 10-20# line rod the "Weightless Worm Special". I guess what I was trying to say was that the Falcon Original rod might have a little more backbone than is necessary for plain old worms and senkos.

It's not ideal but it should work fairly well. And at $40 it's a no brainer.

Owner Mosquito Hooks are hardly "cheaply made". The same can be said for Gamakatsu Splitshot/Dropshot hooks. I've never had a problem with them not being sharp enough to hook a bass or not being sturdy enough to pull a large fish out of the water. In fact, I've pulled out numerous 15#+ hard-fighting river carp out of very fast moving tailwater on a single Gamakatsu dropshot hook. These carp are used to swimming against extremely swift tailwater currents every single day to feed on food carried down to them from the dam so they are ridiculously strong. The only company with cheaply made hooks that I can think of is Eagle Claw. And they manufacture Trokars. And how the heck does an 18 year old have pockets deep enough to fish hooks that cost $2 a pop?

I've tried that. My problem is that I have a hair trigger and set the hook whenever I feel abnormal resistance. Half the time I get hung up real good because I set the hook right into the log or whatever thinking it was a fish. ;D

You only lose 12 a year? That's pretty impressive. I think I ordered upwards of 30 jigs from you altogether a couple of months back - they're all at the bottom of the local lakes I fish now. ;D The lakes I fish are chock full of hidden snags. Sunken branches, sunken logs, sunken trees, lost trot lines, flat rocks, heck I even pulled out a rolled up chicken wire fence once! Plus I shore fish on these lakes, so it's not as easy to shake jigs loose once they've snagged something. So every outing, I end up losing a couple. Some days I have really bad luck and get hung up with almost every cast.

I'm thinking about tying my own jigs, and ordered some skirting material and jigheads. These will be primarily for personal use. My question is, does tying a jig one way or another make any difference other than affecting the durability of the jig? I know that rubber bands fall apart after awhile, but the thing is that I lose around 2-5 jigs every time I go fishing, so durability isn't my primary concern here. However, if line tying or wire tying a jig affects the action of the skirt, I might contemplate taking more time to tie them rather than snap a rubber collar on them. Just wondering if it would be worth my time to hand tie all my jigs if their life span is only going to be an average of 2-4 weeks.