smalljaw67

Living rubber is round and it has to be separated by pulling it to create tension and then slowly cutting while under tension to release the legs. Flat line rubber comes similar to silicone tabs and there are pros and cons to each and a use for each. I'll make a list here that may help you make jigs. PROS Silicone - Has nice action and presents a full profile with endless colors that is made with textures and in fine cut. it can be used by itself or in conjunction with rubber, easy to use. Living Rubber - Very Buoyant with a distinct action and is now made with a printed pattern and can be used in conjunction with silicone Flat Line Rubber - Buoyant with a slow action, creates a large profile and displaces water and is usually used alone with less strands than thinner skirt material. Cons Silicone - Separates slower with less buoyancy and action than rubber when it is in the water. Living rubber - It is more difficult to work with, especially for beginners, only basic colors available, and can melt or clump together if stored improperly. Flat Line Rubber - Same as living rubber but it is easier to work with but is prone to being cut easier when being tied with thread.

Please don't take offense to this but it is possibly operator error, that reel has a dual brake system and this set up is hard for some anglers to get the hang of it. My friend is an old hand as casting reels but he can't cast my Lews Touney Pro to save his life, he either makes short casts or horribly backlashes it. I got it set up for him to make it easier now but dual brakes seem to throw some for a loop, what I would do is open the reel's side cover and see if the brakes are all on, and then set just 2 brakes to the on position which is out away from the spool, then back off the magnetic cast control to about 4 or 5 and set the spool tension as normal and try those settings.

They are about as weedless as any other spinnerbait and they do ok around sparse wood. I will say this, the beetle spin is one of the lures that will catch fish under most any condition during spring through fall, it is a bait I think every beginner should have.

They use a 30 ton blank, I'm thinking since Pure Fishing is their parent company, I'm guessing the Silver Hawk has a blank that is close to the Vendetta rod from Abu but what makes this rod is it uses Fuji Alconite guides, not many rods that go on sale for $59.99 that have good guides like that.

Is there a way you can get the weight of that rod? I really like the original Excel 705 but it is heavy as it is a straight up E-Glass blank but I think the new Excel 2 is a composite so it should be lighter than the original.

I have a 6'6" Tourney Trail spinning rod I got for my wife to use back in 2003 and it has been beat up and still works great. They aren't the lightest or most sensitive but they are a solid rod for the original price and at the sale price makes it a no brainer for someone looking for a value rod.

It isn't the side plates you need to worry about, it is the frame, most reels have at least 1 graphite side cover as it helps save weight. One of the reasons I purchased my Smoke reels before the Lews Tourney Pro is because the Smoke had an aluminum frame with both side covers being aluminum as well while the TP has an aluminum frame and graphite side covers. I have no problems with carbon or graphite side covers but if it is all aluminum then all the better but it is hard to make an all aluminum reel and keep it light without using some sort of carbon fiber. Side covers yes, frame no.

You may have picked up one of the E-Glass rods as the Tatula has 2 glass cranking rods which will be heavy compared to graphite. I know the Tatula rods I've handled were nice and light and not as you described, or perhaps they had one of those anti-theft devises attached which would make the rod heavy.

My favorite lure hands down is a spinnerbait!!! A close second is a jerkbait and I like both floating and suspending baits equally, I believe the floating minnow is an under utilized bait in warm water.

When you approach buying a rod, think of what you want to use it for and the types of baits, that will dictate the rod you are going to buy. For example, you are going after bass with Texas rigged soft plastic baits, for that presentation I'd get a rod that is between 6'6" and 7' that is a medium heavy power with a fast action. The 6'6" to 7' medium heavy power, fast action is what is typically known as an "all purpose" type set up, it will be good for fishing Texas rigs, jigs, spinnerbaits, and buzzbaits , basically any bait or technique that features a single, large hook. As for hard body lures like crankbaits and topwaters, or lures with treble hooks, you would want a 6'6" to 7' medium power, fast action or a medium power, moderate action, it gets a little tricky if you're new to fishing lures for bass but the concept is simple. Treble hooks aren't large enough to always penetrate a fish's mouth and instead it gets tangled in the flesh, so a rod that is stiff, like a medium heavy, fast action rod will often put too much pressure on the lure and it will pull the hooks free and the fish gets away. To keep that from happening we use moderate action rods that have a lot of flex so that it keeps pressure on the fish but when it makes a run or a sudden surge, the rod will bend keeping pressure on the fish but not so much the hooks get pulled free. The problem is these moderate action rods often lack enough backbone to drive large diameter jig and worm hooks through a fish's mouth good enough to not lose the fish so the solution is 2 different rods but that doesn't always work for everyone but there is a compromise. You can sort of meet in the middle by getting a 6'6" - 7' medium power, fast action rod, this will have enough backbone to drive all but the heavy flipping style hooks home through a fish's mouth and it will be forgiving enough that it won't pull the hooks out of the mouth all the time but it comes with a sacrifice. This medium power, fast action rod will limit you in that you will have to fish sparse or moderate cover with smaller baits as you will only be able to fish like 1/4oz to 5/8oz lures but when it comes to jigs and spinnerbaits you'll be looking at 3/8oz because the skirt and trailer aren't included in the weight as you only get the head weight. So figure out what you use more and go from there, I hope I didn't confuse you.

You could use that and it will give you an idea of the range the water is in. 20 years ago my old Jon boat didn't have a temp gauge but I had an old Minn Kota portable water temp gauge with a probe attached to a 10' long cable that you would lower into the water and then get a digital read out of the water temp, it was accurate + - 1 degree F. I think a place called Nu-Temp sells something similar but being on the bank you really don't need it. Late fall, winter and early spring are the times when water temp can be critical,

For guys that fish for big river smallmouth, the Big-O is a must have crankbait, something to it that the smallies love and smoky joe and chrome/black back are 2 colors that seem to work all the time. A friend on mine had a saying when the bite would be tough during the post spawn period when the water was clear and the fish would be scattered, he would say, "the Big-O will make them go" and it is true to this day.

I think what you are looking for is the Lindy Fuzz-E-Grub. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Lindy-Fuzz-E-Grub/1306890.uts

Do you have to have a graphite cranking rod or can it be glass? I just noticed that Tackle Warehouse has the Lucky Craft, yes, Lucky Craft glass cranking rods for $99.00!!! These rods got a best value and editors choice award on Tackle Tour because they were supposed to be $350 but then ended up being $150 and now they are $99.00 simply because they are glass and not many know about them. I have a glass rod that covers the heavier end of the spectrum but I keep looking and if it wasn't for the fact of needing other stuff, I'd be pulling the trigger on one.

The sport of fishing is like any other hobby, you have the ones who have two rods and reel with a few packs of hooks and they sit on the bank tossing chicken livers for cats or dunking worms for whatever bites. Then you have the bass or walleye specialists who have 50K boats, enough tackle to last 10 years without ever buying another bait, and a plethora of rods that cost as much as a college tuition. It depends on what the individual likes and how they treat the hobby, some treat is as a simple pass time while others live to hone their skills and techniques to become great at it. This goes on in a lot of other hobbys as well, look at golf, if you say golf is a sport and not a hobby, well so is fishing, they are in the same category and they even end up the same when it comes to equipment. You have the once in a while golfer who maybe has a cheap set of clubs or rents them at the course when he goes 3 or 4 times a year, and then you have the guy who have at least 3 full sets of clubs plus special drivers and putters along with a ton of ball markers and personalized tees. What gets me is nobody ever questions why golfers have to have so many clubs but it always comes up in fishing as why we have so many rods. In the end I can honestly say that we have so many set ups because we want them, plain and simple, sure, I can go in depth and tell you why I need a medium heavy cranking rod and a medium light finesse cranking rod but the simple truth is because I want it, otherwise I'd make use of a spinning rod or something else but I like fishing and tackle so I have a lot of set ups.

I hear you, that is whay I make tackle, it really helps get through the winter. So far I've tied about 1000 hair jigs, poured 2000 or more heads, some get painted and made into bass jigs while others stay unpainted and are used for things like the ned rig. It is during this time when I learn a lot, like feathered trebles on suspending jerkbaits, I got a few X-raps and really liked them so I decided I'll tie a bunch of trebles up and replace the stock ones when they get beat up, well everyone I replaced messed the bait up, that is when it dawned on me that the weight on a suspending bait is critical. So I dropped back on thread size and instead of using 2 strands of Krystal flash, I only used 1, that little bit of weight, which was probably 1 gram or less, made a big difference.

I'm not talking about their power rating as in M, MH, or H, I'm talking about the lure weight rating in numbers, every Falcon rod I've had the pleasure of using is like that. For example, The 7' Medium power BuCoo cranker is rated 1/4oz to 1/2oz, now that rating is normally on the conservative side with most manufacturers, meaning that a rod rated to 1/2oz you can get away with throwing at least a 5/8oz bait but the Falcons I've used it isn't so, 1/2oz is it unless you carefully make a lob cast. The Cara T7 I used last year was a 7' medium heavy, it was rated to 3/4oz and at 3/4oz you knew the rod was at its limit, there was no going to 7/8oz. I also agree with you that they label their rods a power under, as their heavy power rods are more like medium heavy but the lure weight ratings are spot on.

The only way I add a feather treble to a jerkbait is if the bait came with one originally or if it is a floating bait. I tied my own to replace the one that was destroyed on my X-Rap and found the 210 denier thread gave it too much weight and it pull the back on the bait down during the pause which kept it from getting down unless I was working it fast. Now I tie those using 140 denier thread with a few less strands of Krystal flash so the bait balances it out, so if adding a feather treble to a bait that doesn't have one originally might have a negative affect on the balance and suspending properties of the bait.

The perch is the sacrificial lamb, if you get a rod that will not really overpower a perch you are going to your clock cleaned by a 25" striper, you need 2 rods at a minimum.

You can normally feel if the rod is overloaded, and rod ratings are different from brand to brand. Falcon rods are spot on, if you had a medium power rated to 1/2oz, there is no way you would even think of throwing a 5/8oz bait on it as you can tell the rod is at its maximum. Other brands like St. Croix that are rated to 5/8oz feel as if you can easily add more to it and so it goes with all the other brands as well. My advise is to see how it feels, tie it on and see how much the rod loads compared to a 1/2oz bait, and when you go to cast, make a side arm cast first with a short back cast and see how it feels, the may work on the retrieve but you may find you have to lob cast and so you'll lose out on distance until you get a rod that is more powerful. I find most medium heavy rods are more versatile when it comes to single hook baits just because they handle a wider range of lure sizes much easier than a medium power rod does.

That Daiwa Bill Dance rod has got be 30+ years old. I got into bass fishing serious in the mid 80s and I believe it was 85 or 86 when I saw an add in a sports afield magazine with Bill Dance and a Daiwa product and it wasn't long after he was using Quantum stuff. If that rod was in my possession, I would do some research and see if there is any collectors of Bill Dance stuff, if there is that rod should be highly prized as there isn't much left of Daiwa branded products with a Bill Dance association.

I have got some Arashi baits in both the 3' version and the 5' version and I really like them but I only have a few hours of fishing time with them. My favorites in the 0-3' depth range are the Bomber Square A in the 3/8oz size, the Rapala DT Fat 3, and DT Fat 1, the Cordell Big-O, and the Manns Baby X. In the 4' + range is the Strike King KVD 1.5 and 2.5, the Rapala DT Flat 7 (coffin bill), and the Manns C4- Elite. I like using a rod rated to 3/4oz or 1oz which usually falls in the MH category but it has to have a moderate fast action, it has to be able to be stout enough to rip the bait off of grass and brush and soft enough to effectively fight the fish once it is hooked.

Johnson silver minnows are great, especially around weeds and the Luhr-Jensen Krocodile spoon is a good option for open water. One of the best for casting from shore is the Acme Kastmaster, that is the simplest looking thing but it does a great job at catching fish. I have never used it for bass, I would use the 1/8oz version for trout and the rainbows would hammer it but in one creek I use to fish I couldn't keep the smallmouth off of it, if I was going to cast a spoon from shore, the Kastmaster would be it, 1/4 or 3/8oz for bass, 1/8oz and it will catch crappie, trout and all sorts of stuff.

Welcome back to the angling world!! I think DTack is spot on in his assessment of how things are now, there seems to be no secrets or very few left between manufacturers anymore, you can get some great rods without a ton of money now that are equivalent to lower end models from the premium rod makers out there. I was a big Loomis fan, I had a decent collection of them but then I got sick and couldn't go back to the kind of work I use to do, and so my income took a big hit and I feared I was doomed to lower end rods that I'd be sacrificing a lot of performance and they would be heavy clunky rods. Well that hasn't been the case, I tried out a new Fenwick Elite Tech Smallmouth rod and I was amazed at how light and sensitive the rod was considering it was only $130 and then they began to show up for even less and since then they have come out with a couple really good series of rods. I'm now a fan of Fenwick and I'm not a brand loyal kind of person but I found rods that have the perfect actions for how I fish and I believe you can do it while saving some money too. Right now the rod market is saturated with rods in the $100 to $200 range and in order to get attention they have to be pretty decent, what is happening is we are now getting rods with high quality blanks along with solid components for prices that you would never would have saw back in the day. My favorite rods right now are the Fenwick rods, the Elite Tech series along with the new HMG and Aetos rods but there is *** that have super quality stuff and then there is Phenix, Duckett, Kistler has come back strong with the KLX and then there is Powell and other brands that are just making really great rods, you really can't go wrong. What I would do if I were you is pick a price point, decide what length, action, and power you need and then go to Tackle Warehouse's website and look to see what you might like, the Abu Garcia Veritas rods get a lot of praise and even lower in price is the Vendetta that also gets high marks for being an inexpensive model. Go shopping and have fun, you now have a lot to choose from without sacrificing a ton of performance or durability, good luck.

To me it is more of a perch than bluegill and I'd use it on a spinnerbait or swim jig and throw in dirty water or when there is some chop on clear water.