deep

Arizona.

This g man is not Mr. Swindle. He is a friend (and mentor and more) of mine, and many other swimbait chuckers.

Buy a jewellers scale. They're super cheap. Red/ pink/ blue/ whatever on the belly, feathers on the back.

Gamakatsu round bends.

Look who's on board!

Does it have the density of fluoro A-Jay?

300/ 301. 15-20# mono/ copoly/ FC.

"What Do You Do When You Can't Buy A Bite?" I go fish a different reservoir where the fishing is (comparatively) easier and get my confidence back up to where it should be. Tuesday: Scratched 4 dinks (and I do mean dinks) on a ned rig after a whole lot of time on the water. Thursday (Today): 15+ keepers in ~3 hours on a different lake I haven't fished in over a month.

Nope. 3/8 oz arkie jig (brown-green-purple) with a rage craw (summer craw/ watermelon red) on 12# Tatsu.

Graphite is a no-go for me. Yes, even if it's a Shimano. Maybe there's more to the "composite frame" though.

You're in luck my friend. I have a Citica E I'm trying to move. The way I see it, a bass spinning rod doesn't have the power and a bass sized spinning reel doesn't have the guts to pull a fish out of even moderate vegetation. You have to turn her head on the hookset and keep her moving until she's in the boat or the banks. There's absolutely zero finesse involved as long as the fish is anywhere in/ near cover.

A map would help immensely.

Swim jig/ jerkbait (depending on season) Jig and craw

Look up Jack hooks. ("If you are still tying Knots, You Don’t Know Jack!") At least it's probably a cheaper alternative.

The Castaic and now the Casitas. Wonderful!

Finding fish (spots) is primary (for structured reservoirs at least). Depth and speed (secondary). Vary these until you start catching fish. Every other refinement comes afterwards.

I'd rather fish at the depth where the fish are. On structure of course. Also, look up the slip-shot rig. No pinching of split shots or swivels between you and the hook. (Rod tip-> Mojo weight -> Bead -> Bobber stop -> Hook)

Well that sucks. How did they get off? Or did you not get them hooked at all?

Okay, so here's something Wayne posted on another forum long ago. I hope it'll help someone catch a few big fish. // START QUOTE My normal rat retrieve goes something like this: I like to start "hard" when the bait initially hits the water, akin to the panic a squirrel would have when falling out of the tree and realizing his ass is gonna get chewed. Quick twitches and short bursts of energy. As the cast gets to the middle, I imagine that little fool is getting tired of swimming and starting to fatigue. I'll slow down the cranks and the twitches become less and less violent. If I see a fish and the cast is coming to an end, I will almost deadstick with just enough movement to get the tail to send out some vibrations. This is in a perfect world. Most of my hits come within the first 15 seconds of the bait being in the water. Most times you'll see me cast, twitch, twitch, twitch, sit, twitch and then crank the bait down and get it back to the boat. They either eat it when it first hits the water or the rat taking off towards the boat means an easy meal is getting away and they attack it. I actually believe being a hunter helps with fishing these baits. All the time I spend in the woods gives me a ton of experience seeing how squirrels act when they are stressed. I've seen them fall from trees, get chased by owls and hawks and generally exist at the bottom of the food chain in the woods. I try to impart the same emotion and the feeling of that squirrel fleeing for its life. There is nothing subtle about an animal that knows it's about to die. Make sure you are fishing a bait with a floating tail. I think it helps keep the back end of the bait up and definitely adds to the action of it. I may come up with more random thoughts on this. I'll add them if I do.

Morning wood (cheaper), 2 piece PB (more expensive and harder to find). Speed is the authority on rats. Or at least he was, before he started going nuts with the slidey-glidey things.

Nope, I like both my Helium3 (with fluoro) and a BPS Cranking Stick (with braid) for jerkbaits. Both are 7'6" though. Actually I fished a little this morning from the banks; a Sammy 100 on the BPS rod, and a 112MR pointer on the Kistler. Caught fish too. Can I fish jerkbaits on the Loomis? Absolutely. But not if either of the other two rods are free.

Well, my 893C JWR isn't much good for anything other than- you guessed it- jigs and worms. I do like a fast action for jerkbaits and topwaters though.

No, but I have a question. How do you manage to fish 12# mono on a spinning setup?

You're gonna fish frogs and shakeyheads on the same rod?

nvm