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These are a few that I have made recently for fishing different lakes in my area, they fall more into the pitching/swimming jig.

I have had good luck with the Bass Assault swimjig, I like these two colors in particular

I like this jig also, nice thin weedguard,, 30 degree hook, and a thinner skirt. This is what I think of when someone says swimjig. What trailer do you usually use?

A good place to start might be to understand where the swimjig was started and what it actually was in the beginning. Most of the jigs that we call swimjigs now are truly more of a pitching type jig that has been modified to swim also. There are stark contrasts to some of the originals. A good place to start your search in by reading about Brovarny jigs as many believe they were one of the originals..

Barter with the Korean's tell him it's too much, he will not take any offence to it, heck they never pay sticker price for anything, even in the grocery store.

Nice post and good information Nick.

Stretch is typically not considered a good quality in FC line, although as mentioned some FC line has a good amount, InvisX comes to mind. I think the best properties of a good FC line are its reduced visibility (subjective) it's increased abrasion resistance and it is a denser line making it transmit vibration better than some other lines. Being a dense line, it is not often thought of as a great choice for topwater baits, it tends to shine with contact baits where sensitivity and slack line feedback are important. Just as any other line there are drawbacks to FC, it is expensive when compared to some other lines, because it is dense it tends to break if it gets kinked, and if it does stretch it does not recover, it deforms the line and makes is very weak and useless in the affected area. I have tried several different FC lines over the last couple of years and I like Tatsu, it has a nice blend of the properties that I like when using FC line.

I use the 30 size Pflueger spinning reels for my needs and they work fine, I am partial to the Supreme MGX, for $99 dollars it has a magnesium frame and is as smooth as other reels that I have that cost 2.5 times as much. I had the President reels a few years ago, but experienced too much frame flex to continue using them.

Congrats, you will never do it again. A little grease on that pin and spring will help keep them in their place when you are working on your reel.

Might have lost the sping and pin in the top of the dragstar, they are small and easy to misplace. PN 2122 and 2123 on the schematic.

You will not be disappointed

Looks similar to a Cotton Cordell Boy Howdy, but I think the blades and body shape are slightly different.

D Depending on how deep you want to fish somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 IPT.

Your question might have provided better information if you had asked about I.P.T. rather than gear ratio. There is quite a bit of difference between one mfg and another in terms of IPT even when comparing reels of the same gear ratio. Spinning and casting reels cannot be compared apples to apples in terms of gear ratio also, as a spinning reel with the same gear ratio of a casting reels will almost always move considerably more line. If you are just looking for a standard guideline the information that has been provided is very typical of most anglers.

I think your confused, use whatever diameter line you want, the listing on the spools is there only to give you an idea of how much line you can expect the spool to hold when using that diameter. It is not a list of lines that you are limited to. Also spinning reels typically have a very high I.P.T. in relation to their gear ratio because of the spool size. If you want to use a spinning outfit to throw crankbaits, get one with a smaller diameter spool so your I.P.T. is a little lower, it will help the baits work properly in the water.

I use a couple of skirts that are made by Do-It and are ready to use, these work well unless you are looking for the satisfaction of making your own skirt. Here is a link to the skirts I use for TX Craw, colors 238 and 241. http://www.barlowstackle.com/-Stripe-Silicone-Fishing-Skirts--P774C115.aspx

Tie one on throw it out, if you catch fish the color is good, if not try something else. Seriously, there is no magic formula for when to change colors, the fact is that they are probably a lot more important to us than they are the fish.

I love the upgrade possibilities that are available for the LTZ, look like a fantastic reel. I love my IB, it is what a Revo should be.

I think your right, seems to me that the logical progression for the ABU's would have been to use the Gen 2 Premier platform and introduce IVCB type braking. I have one Gen3 Revo, a Winch and I like it, but not enough to get rid of my Gen2 Premiers and go all Gen3 stuff. There were other smaller upgrades they could have done like longer Carbon Fiber handles, more gear ratios and better finish on the reels and in my opinion had a winner.

I agree, I don't think that the Gen3 reels have been as popluar as they would have liked, but I have some Gen2 Premiers that are very solid. Most of the big Mfg's know that if they produce a less than quality product they will end up losing ground in the market share area.

Congrats on the new reel.

I had heard of it happening at least one other time, I don't remember what the combination of rod and reel it was. It was discovered that the reel seat was a little too deep for the reel foot and when tightened down, created a little flex in the reel frame. I think it was fixed with a shim of some sort.

Glad it worked out, did you try other Shimano reels when this happened?

As I recall you had almost immediate problems with the rod and reel combo that you were using at that time and contacted Shimano about the issue, did they get you a good fix for the problem you were having?

The time you spend learning to identify and fish off shore structure will def. not be wasted. Like others I use 12lb FC, Tatsu to be exact for fishing deeper crankbaits. Most company's produce a good deep crankbait reel in a lower IPT to help with the drag these baits create. A longer rod with a Moderate or Moderate Fast Action will be well suited to this type of fishing.