Spankey

St. Croix for plastics, Abu Garcia for crankbaits.

I don’t remember how old I was when I first started fishing. Was at the river park. Zebco closed face, sunfish, bluegill, bullheads, small channels. My people really didn’t fish per say. I’ve always have been the black sheep. When I was about 10-11 years old up until I was 14-15 I’d work for this farmer During the summer, he was a retired guy from the electric company. He taught me the ins and outs of trout fishing. I loved it. Still do to this day I love it. Trout fishing always brings good thoughts and memories to me. It’s sort of my Own life’s version of “a river runs through it”. I fished with some decent stuff as a kid for trouts. Farmer Walt used to like to stop at the bait shop. Place is long gone. Was like a gas station and a general store wrapped up in one. I still have some of my stuff that I used as a kid. When I was about 16 yrs. old I remember my buds and I went trout fishing on a Sunday morning. I remember driving there to one of my favorite holes. Plenty of room for as to sprawl out. I remember having a few trout on the stringer. Then switching over to some brand new Mepps Spinners. Had never thrown one until then. They were sized slightly larger than the Rtails and panther Martian’s I’d been using for years. I started hooking into smallmouth bass in that stream. One after another. My buddies were watching me throw them back and thought I was releasing trouts. They came up to where I was. At a small spillway the width of the creek. I showed them what I was catching. I lined them guys up across that spill way. I stood back and watch them pitch everything they had and watched them catch them. Worms, minnows and CP swings. I was hooked on bass from that day. My school buddies never got into fishing as we got older. At my last class reunion they brought it up. One wants me to take his grandson. I sure will. I’m not a great fisherman. It’s just a big part of my life. I’m passing it on to my grandsons now. Can only hope they have a little of “a river runs through it”.

I would think every cast should have the PB name on it. Hope. Hope is what keeps us going.

I fish quite a few SC rods for my soft plastics. Filled a size void recently by picking up the Avid 6’3” ML- X Fast. Will be a great addition. Shorter than normal for me but it’s not that short. Ready to pull the trigger on a reel but waiting for a sale to kick in shortly.

Jimi Hendrix Stones CCR Neil Young Buffalo Springfield Crosby, Still and Nash Pink Floyd Marshall Tucker The Band Pure Prairie League Van Halen ** All Southern Rock Bands ** Even though they don’t need Neil Young around.

That sand color is a great color for Smallies on the river. Especially when water gets real Gin clear in August and September from lack of rain. I fish it in a worm with a straight or pointed tail but color wise I like it.

That’s about the only jig I use. Because it is small. I have a real phobia about big baits. But in my old age over the last few years I have stepped things up to some bigger baits. I did pick up over the winter a few of the Iaconelli micro jigs for the same reason small in size. I also mess with the Zoom stuff for trailers. What I find that works for me is I take a 4” Curly Tail worm, bite off part of the body and get the length I want to cover the hook under the skirt and fish just that soft curly tail. I fish the smaller sized SK buzzbaits also (same phobia) and use the same CT trailer on them.

Thank you guy. Hope you're right about K o P but my last time in there it was not that impressive. More than just DICK'S around anyway. To many other options if you need anything. Hope you hook a 7 lber at Belts

Hey guy you and I live pretty close and have more than our share of DICK’S. My big peeve with them revolves around shotshell. My buddies and I shoot a lot of sporting clay during a course of a year. We all reload but buying flats of their Remington Gun Club shells just soured us. I know I have my reasoning but would never discourage anyone to go there. Plenty of other places to by ammo and guns. And I’m a to each his own type of person. But anyway I recently found out from my trout fishing buddy that the Montgomeryville location is not decreasing but expanding the fishing and water sports sections. That’s a good thing to come out of a stopped gun department. But I was told that over at K o P they are totally doing away with both hunting and fishing. Drop me a PM if you have a hard time finding something you want. Maybe I have seen it somewhere in person or online. There are a couple of shops that you might not get in that might be worth going to that are local enough. We may even know each other to see from a ramp or two here at home. Good luck this season.

The best addition I made for throwing lighter to mid cranks was the purchase of an Abu Garcia Winch 7’ Med. / Mod. rod along with the Abu Garcia Winch Spinning Reel. I love it. But I understand to each his own.

I’ve been using Mepps Spinners for river bass for as long as I can remember. They do get the job done. Over the years they have taken on the roll of a change up lure for me or a lure on a day I can’t get a bite. On the side of trout fishing Panther Martian’s, CPs and RoosterTail since I was a kid.

I’ve never really walked away from mono. I can’t. Only braid I’m using is on frogging, pitching and flipping. Here’s been my thoughts on this for years. My better quality soft plastics rods are X-Fast actions and to use braids with no stretch I’ve always thought I was looking for a disaster of a rod breaking. Something has to give a little. Need a little bit of a shock absorber. But I could be totally wrong in my view. But I feel that I should stick to using a good quality mono.

The only thing I fish braid on is my frogging, flipping and pitching set up. I just can’t seem to make the change over. I’m probably too old and too much a creature of habit. I’m pretty much a diehard Berkley XT, XL, Big Game and Fluoro guy. But this past season have used some McCoy and SUNLINE. I like them. I’m working on another set up just for pitching and flipping. I think I’ll stick to braid there. My lighter fishing I think I’d better leave well enough alone.

The Rat-L-Trap is one of my favorite all season bait. Sort of old school. I’d go as far as saying it will score your first fish of the season and the last if that’s how you want to fish. I have only fished Lewis and Cordell traps in different weight sizes. I believe the RES, Rapala trap and the others are equally as productive. I can’t say more productive.

Very well put. Those sort of unplanned fish day are Mental Relief Days. Healthy for you. More than likely the day to day issues you left there the prior day will be waiting an unaddressed the following day when you return. If your job required You to do a scheduled kidney transplant that day I would hope you would reconsider.

I give no excuses. I follow their rules of making a call prior to my shift start (most time from on the water or in route to it). They can surmise what they want. I’ve broke my stones my whole life working. Hope to retire in a few years.

Guys over the last few years Mother Nature has upset the smallie fishing on my life long home on the river. I guess it will come back around. Things heal themselves. But I have to continue to fish, I had to move on. My new home is a lake these days and that has opened new doors for me. Frogging, pitchen and flipping, along with deeper crankbait fishing. My frog, pitch and flip fishing has a long way to come but I'm using a Bass X 7'1" MH F w/ a BPS Pro Qualifier 7.5:1 reel. trying to do it all with this one set up for right now. It balances pretty well and if it is weight forward it is only slightly. For deeper crankbait fishing I'm using a 7' MH Mod. Fast Fury 705cb with a Lew's LFS. That was a great rod purchase and would come highly recommended. I need to be at 13-20 feet deep at times. A lot of the cranks are 5/8 oz. plus. I'm pretty new to that slop and heavy cover fishing but was kicking the idea of another Bass X 7'2" or 7'4" mod./mod. fast. Just for the purpose of frogs. I'm not trying to be cheap maybe just practical for right now.

Berkley 4" Finesse PowerWorms, Berkley 4" PowerWorm Crawler w/ flat tail, Original Bandit Crankbaits colors and special run colors w/ G-loc treble hooks.

I've been satisfied with the Rapala stuff over the years. Have a good selection to handle almost any issue. And they do not rust.

The real kicker is you'll have a great pattern, killer pattern of something. The manufacturer will stop producing it or was a special run color. Would kill for a few old Bandits patterns that are long time not available anymore, same for a few Bombers as well. Bomber and Bandit could not hold a candle to what they use to be. Shame.

I store my cranks the same way. Purchasing a Brother Label maker was one of the best things I've ever none. I label the boxes all the way around and they are easy to find and pick out. My Plastics I stow up in Rubbermaid type containers. Label them as well. I store my plastics by brand and style for the most part.

Mo I associate Spring Craw color crankbaits to yellow. But true they have other color in the pattern. Brown generally. Outside of a yellow grub I may never have thrown anything that was solid yellow. I just picked up on a new Spring Craw crankbait pattern put out by Googan. They call it “corn pop”. Spring Craw pattern works all season on the river. Thought I’d be a bad boy and pick up something they put out. They had a solid black version of a pop r with a chartreuse tail that looks to work out well on the river also. I don’t care about their name, status or YouTube presence. I believe 100% those two baits will produce fish for me. That’s all I care about.

Great question. Can’t see putting in the drive time only to not get what you want.

Just an FYI you can pick up crankbaits that are of this real image design. Look real as heck. You might like them. They may work out great for you if that is a direction you want to go. They are not for me. I’m a Rapala Freak, one of my favorite patterns is the original Rapala bluegill. On A few models it works great. That real image bluegill of Rapala came out and I was all over it like white on rice. I have never done well with it. Got a few. But soured me from anything real image. Shame, I see a lot of nice RI baits out there but I’m not gonna bite.

Back some years ago I use to go and take the run on down to BPS for the Spring Classic. It was fun. Did make a good time of it. Tried to not impulse buy. Think I did pretty good in that regard. On the way down I would stop at a bass shop on Rt. 40 on the upper part of the bay. My main reason to go on down. Those boys were bass guys and rod builders. Felt more at home in their shop. I keep somewhat of an ongoing short list of what I need to replenish or want to try a variation of. I just order from TW or another site and locals. I guess I really have more than I need anyway. I’ve been trying different mono’s and Flouro’s the last season. Gonna try a few more this season. I’m growing to like McCoy and the Sunlines I’ve tried. I’m not a big fan of the BPS Branded baits. Mostly not a desire to try them. But they (BPS) are not full line dealers of the name brands they carry. Oh well big business I guess.