Bluebasser86

It isn't always the big bass that will try to eat a muskie bait either.

The brake should be off since the plastic piece is no longer there to cause any friction to slow the spool down. One of our more experienced reel techs may correct me but I believe that should be the case.

Congrats on the PB! Do you know the weight and just want people to guess or did you not get a weight and want some estimates? I'm guessing 3lb 11oz.

I hate fishing flukes and very rarely have more than moderate success with them. Their subtle action does not lend themselves to being very successful in our mostly stained to dirty waters and if I am fishing somewhere that the water is clear enough the wind is usually howling and drags my line all over if I try to fish one.

I don't get too crazy, sexy shad, chrome sexy, and orange belly craw cover pretty much all my needs.

The one I caught on my 8.0 at Cedar Valley Thursday was barely bigger than the crank and he knocked the fire out of it! I thought I missed the fish until he started skipping across the top.

This was my first swimbait fish. You caught it on a swimbait, it's a swimbait fish.

They're miniature carp, approach fishing for them accordingly.

The KVD 1.0 on a spinning rod and 8lb test cast a mile and covers lots of water to find active summer smallies for me.

I fish mine on a 7' 2" MH/F Shimano Sellus with a Mettle reel and 17lb Pline CX xtra strong. It's a big bait with big hooks so I'm not quite as worried about pulling hooks as I am with a smaller crank. I've caught some fish with mine and had a toad on but she jumped and tossed it, bad part about a big, heavy crank like that, lots of leverage when they jump.

I would wait and get something higher end for shakyheads.

Drum love bladed jigs, I've been disappointed by them several times. This one got my squarebill Thursday. I caught a much larger one on a 5/8oz brush jig the same day but unfortunately didn't get it on camera.

For that 10-15 foot range the Strike King Series 5 and 5XD get the call for me.

Like others have said, the Ol' Monster is considerably larger than the Mag II despite it only suppose to be an inch longer, it's just a much beefier bait. I love the Plum Apple color.

Most muskie baits are still around the same price as lower end swimbaits though? You can get a 168 or 200 S waver or Savage Gear Glide swimmer for very reasonable prices if you want to get into big baits for bass, and they work!

Check out the new Zman Razor Shadz, that's what it was designed for.

It's a bigmouth buffalo. The smallmouth buffalo has more of a sucker mouth because they feed off the bottom instead of filtering like a bigmouth does.

All the baits I've fished, I've lost 2 68 Hudds. I've snagged up countless times, but my telescoping lure retriever has always come through for me.

As a responsible, bait monkey obeying fisherman should!

Wait until you have all those Strike Kings, and you've caught so many dinks you don't care to catch them anymore, then those outrageously priced swimbaits might not seem so crazy anymore. I fought a heck of an internal battle to finally get myself to spring for a Slammer and S waver, bargain prices in the swimbait world. Then I fished them and saw the way fish reacted to them, and fish that I never would have guessed even existed in my lakes started showing themselves. It's been an eye-opening experience that I've really just begun.

Oh, it's the big Shroomz head, not the finesse Shroomz head, I got you now. So it is a lot of hook for that little bait but hey it's obviously working for you! One nice thing about the little hook is you can usually straighten them enough to get them back if you get snagged.

The Zman baits will float above grass with the right size hook. I've used them in grass with pretty good success on a C-rig.

That mayfly looks really good! Love the way those legs quiver while it's falling. Could really see some big smallies gobbling that up.

Flier Sunfish #4 #1 & #2 are juvenile green sunfish #3 is an adult Green Sunfish

At $250 you're almost halfway to what some of the most expensive swimbaits cost. I have several that retail for over $100 if you want to pay full price. I didn't, but what I paid is still seen as outrageous to a lot of anglers who won't spend $15 on a Pointer. The R&D and craftsmanship that goes into those expensive baits is incredible, the pulling power of those big, finely detailed baits has to be seen to be believed. It's more outrageous to me to spend $7 on a 10 pack of Senkos that I'll be lucky to catch 2 fish per bait with versus buying a big swimbait that could potentially last for hundreds of fish. Good thing is, nobody is forcing me to buy Senkos, and nobody is forcing you to buy swimbaits