Bluebasser86

Yes, that's one of my standard 3/8oz on the right. It's either a 3/4 or 1oz head, probably 1.25oz all told and close to 2oz with a trailer.

Made some magnum bladed jigs for a member headed south of the border. Standard 3/8oz bladed jig for scale.

Pros are using them, winning tournaments, and singing their praises so everyone buys them looking for that "silver bullet".

A friend of mine has the 106 and has had it out in some strong wind and done well. The specs are pretty close other than the 1.5' difference in length. He likes it so much he sold his Champion and switched to just fishing out of his kayak. I haven't noticed any kind of play in the rudder in heavy winds. 106PDL Length: 10' 6" | 3.2 m Width: 36 in | 91.4 cm Weight: 76 lb | 34.47 kg 120PDL Length: 12' | 3.7 m Width: 36 in | 91.4 cm Weight: 85 lb | 39.46 kg I pick my kayak up and carry it to the water and pick it up to put it into the back of my truck. One of the other guys in my club helped me unload it last Saturday at the tournament launch and couldn't believe how light it was (he has a Hobie PA 14 FWIW so he's used to a battleship of a kayak).

I've had my 120pdl out in winds 30+. It's not ideal, but it handles it. I wasn't trying to fish out in it, but I had to cross a large area on the windblown side of the lake to get to and from my spot. Not sure what you mean by the rudder being stable when you set it and fish? You mean like it's not being turned by waves or anything?

Welcome!

I upload mine to imgbb.com, use the direct links option, paste the link, simple as that.

I ordered mine from Eco Fishing Shop and was happy with them. Delivery was $50 and it was completely wrapped in plastic, bubble wrapped, and inside a huge, thick box. You inspect it at delivery to make sure there's no damage also. They carry it by hand between trucks and loading areas, no forklifts to damage it. Right now they show November as the ETA for orders.

I got stuck out in a nasty storm last year thanks to a bad forecast. No chance or mention of any rain, let alone bad storms. I was at the wrong end of a heavily timbered 200 acre lake in my johnboat that only had a 30lb transom motor and a 45lb bow mount trolling motor. Literally about as far as I could get from the ramp when it first rumbled out of nowhere. I put my motors on high and headed back but navigating around all the trees was time consuming and it got to me when I still had a few hundred yards to go and the main lake to cross. It was not a fun experience.

Why are you using the leader? Best case scenario would be to eliminate it altogether. I don't use a leader on any of my casting rigs with braid but I don't have any issues with my spinning rods that have braid and micro guides with an Alberto knot.

I think you'll find the Old Town to be much more than a "holdover". Not sure what the supply is like now, but it took about 5 months to get mine, so might want to get on finding or ordering one soon.

Spoons built specifically to be flutter spoons are typically longer, thinner, and lighter than casting spoons of equal size, allowing for a slower fall since most bites occur on the fall. There's exceptions to the rules like the R2S Worldwide spoon that is actually pretty heavy and compact but it was designed to be used as a flutter spoon in deep dock stalls on the Ozark lakes so a faster fall allows for you to cover more water. Compared to a similar sized casting spoon like a 4 1/4" Dardevle spoon though, a 4" WW spoon is a full ounce lighter (1oz vs 2oz). The casting spoon needs the weight to keep it down during a steady retrieve whereas the flutter spoon only needs enough weight to get the appropriate action during the fall. More typical shaped flutter spoons like a Strike King Sexy Spoon carry less weight for their size, with a 5.5" version weighing only 1.3oz. Most flutter spoons don't have as much action on a straight retrieve because they're a narrower shape instead of teardrop shaped like a lot of casting spoons. Yes the 2 can be used interchangeably and they are similar, but they are not the same thing.

There were Chug Bugs made before Storm was owned by Rapala, just like with the Wiggle Wart. Similarly to the WW, they were made differently with different materials and can be more sought after. They don't bring quite as much money as a WW in desirable colors, but some of the popular Chug Bug colors still go for decent money. https://www.ebay.com/itm/174899602469?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28 The one my son found this spring was a pre-rap and sounds noticeably different than the current Storm versions that I have.

I just bought 2 50pks of Mister Twister plastics, but not the Sassy Shad. I used the Sassy Shad a lot as a kid, the 2" on a jighead with a jig spinner to catch about anything that swam in the lake or pond I was fishing.

Saw a post on another forum of a guy doing it on Table Rock and having very good results.

https://www.captainhookswarehouse.com/products/vmc---6317bn

I guess that's true. I never consider the store prices versus what it cost me to make them.

That's fishing a flutter spoon, you can do it vertically as well as horizontally. Flutter spoons sink like a feather falls, jigging spoons sink more like a rock.

I use the ST-36 hooks on most of my jerkbaits, they work great.

Jigging spoons and casting spoons are very different animals though. Casting/flutter spoons are thinner and larger and typically made of stamped or pressed metal, while jigging/slab spoons are usually just compact pieces of painted lead.

I stumbled onto a crazy blue cat bite while using a jigging spoon to target schooling bass and wipers once on a guide trip. The bass/wipers were boiling on shad on a big flat in an off limits area to boats so casting distance was a premium, making the jigging spoon a perfect option. Every time that the guy I was guiding would let his spoon sink for a second below the school though, a blue cat would engulf it. Not big ones, but plenty big to be a task on bass gear. We ended up snapping the spoons off the bottom for blue cats on purpose and just hammered them until we got worn out hauling them in. They'd missed no meals.

My last regular season tournament for my kayak club was this past Saturday. I was sitting in first for the AOY race and was hoping to stay there. I prefished the lake Friday and did not do well. I'd caught nothing much bigger than 15" and it was a struggle to get the few bites I was getting, so when guys started guessing it would take mid to high 80 inches to win, I was pretty concerned. From what I could tell about the lake, there was a lot of "dead water", and only a few areas that seemed to have signs of life. Not a great thing on a 400 acre lake when there was going to be 20 kayaks fishing but it told me I needed to pick a spot and milk it for all it was worth. I had one cove that was the size of about half a football field that was the only place I'd had multiple bites, so that's where I opted to start. Tournament morning, I was launching and talking with the other anglers and one of the other guys said he was starting in the same cove, which I assumed I wouldn't be alone on such a small lake. So we sat in the dark and swapped our strategies, what we were using, and told some fishing stories waiting for it to be time to start fishing. No other kayakers showed up in the cove and we agreed on where we were each going to start and wished each other luck when 6:15 came around. My first fish of the morning was a catfish on a Berkley J Walker, not a good start. As we were crossing paths in the back of the cove, I caught my first bass of the morning on a homemade EWG Ned head and a Mister Twister Poc It Phenom worm. Not big but on the board. Right when I started fishing behind where the other guy had been, I caught an 11.5" bass on a dropshot Zoom Z Drop. Then I broke one off on a deep tree on the drop shot, something I hadn't done the rest of the time. A few minutes later I caught a 12 incher on a Rage Bug. Right about that time, I got cut off about 20 yards in front of me by a bass boat that parked and started fishing a rock drop off. I watched them catch 2 nice ones while I was working a group of stumps. I caught a tiny 10" bass on the Phenom worm, and then an even tinier 9" bass on a Berkley Frittside. I had a limit, albeit a tiny one, it had me in 5th that early in the morning and I felt like the fishing was going to be as tough for everyone as it had been for me. I worked back through the cove, missed a couple on a jig, lost one on the jig, before the boat left so I went to try the rocks. Nothing on the drop, but I fired the J Walker across them and caught a 13.25" bass. There was a major point with some big stumps and a drop that fish kept blowing up on at the mouth of the cove. I was near them once when it happened and fired the J Walker through them. Had a very solid fish explode on the bait and just knock it way up in the air. The ramp wasn't far from the cove I was fishing and I wanted to make some changes to my gear so I pedaled over. I noticed one patch of weeds off the bank a ways and cast my J Walker at them but the wind pushed my bait over into the weeds. When I ripped it through, a big boil came up under it but the fish didn't hook up. After seeing that, one of the changes I made was tying on a spinnerbait. After I swapped out some rods and baits, I went back to the patch of grass and caught a 15.75" fish on the spinnerbait that looked like a 5 pounder compared to all the dinks I'd been catching. I pedaled back to the cove and started catching dink after dink, like 10-11 inchers. I'd switched from the Rage Bug to a Menace to get more bites. It was working, but I wasn't getting any size still. With 3 other kayaks and 2 boats in that little cove, I finally hit my breaking point and wandered around the point towards the ramp again. Flipping a shallow laydown that had been fished dozens of times already, I stuck another 15.75" fish on the Menace. With an hour to go, that fish pulled me into 6th place, but just 1.5" from first and a small fish of 12.75" to cull, I felt I had a real shot. I decided to make the short run to the bigger wood filled cove that I'd had some bites in during prefishing. I quickly missed one on the spinnerbait in some grass, then lost 2 in a row on the Menace. It didn't look like it was going to happen for me. I fished one side of the cove and was coming down the other side when I almost bumped into another competitor I didn't know was there, so I went back across and fished the same side I'd already fished. 20 minutes left, I switched from the Menace back to the tiny Phenom worm, cast next to a tree and a fish was on it instantly. It had me around the tree, with 8lb leader, jumping like crazy, never thought I'd touch that fish. I got so lucky, one to get the bite and two for that fish to ever hit the net, but in the waning moments of the tournament, I put a 17.75" fish on the board, the second largest of the day. Another fisherman made a good run and ended up with 80.25", I had 77", but my second place was good enough to claim the AOY for the club in my first season and if felt really good to do it in such a dramatic way on a tough lake.

Welcome!

Hasn't been much to cheer for as a Royal's fan this year, just hoping opposing pitching keeps throwing them low and away pitches to Salvy enough times that he can break the single season home run record for a catcher. 2 grand slams in 2 games, 5 homers in as many games, dude is raking. Not sure there's a more likeable character in the game either.

Sounds like my first experience with Keitech Swing Impacts with the "strong squid scent", sticker on the package. "How bad could it be?" My buddy asked as he opened the package in my truck at the beginning of a 5 hour drive to Bull Shoals from my house. Bad, really, really bad. Like someone had left a bucket of minnows in the sun for a couple days and then put them in the backseat of my truck kind of bad.