smalljaw67

They will work!!!! I'd fish them for sure and I've been tying for awhile, nice job!!!

You have to adapt that rig for the area you are fishing, when I read about that it was nice to have a name for it but we've been doing it for years finesse fishing for low, clear water river smallmouth. They will get spooky when they can see you from the deeper pools so you stay back and throw either a half of a Senko or a 3" variet rigged on a worm nose, mushroom, or ball head jig with a size #1 or #2 hook and let it drift into the pool, it works when they absolutely don't want to move far for a bait. In the waters I fish it works better if you have clear to slightly stained, 2' visibility, any more stained than that and other things come into play.

The toughest and least amount of stretch I ever saw in mono is Cajun Clear lightning, it gets a bad rap because people put it on spinning reels and it wasn't designed for that, it even says round or low profile casting reels on the label. I saw this and it was cheap which gave me doubts but the stuff is so close to fluorocarbon that I stopped using it. I loved the fact it was clear and it was very close to clear as you can get, I'm talking almost fluorocarbon clear. Then it had almost no stretch, that is unheard of for mono, it has some but very little, again it is close to fluorocarbon in that aspect and the abrasion resistance was simply fantastic but it had so many of the characteristics of fluorocarbon that I stopped using it. Road Warrior is correct about the Big Game, I don't use it this time of year, now I use Silver Thread AN40 10# for jerkbaits, and Berkley Trilene XT Armor coated in 6# for my hair jigs and tubes, the Big Game gets stiff and the memory really gets bad when it is below 45 degrees.

Barlows tackle has stainless and one made from spring steel, you want the spring steel, the difference is the spring steel will close even when opened further than they were maeant to.

I agree with everything you said here but that is my point, Excalibur is the same company only it was revamped and changed to Xcalibur. Some here are asking is Exaclibur is a different brand and while the lures are different and the only thing remaining is the rotating trebles, it is basically the same company but I can see how you can differentiate. I guess it is like say Kentucky Fried Chicken is different from KFC, and that is what I'm saying, they changed the way the name is spelled and made it into a premium brand but it came from the old Excalbur brand, it isn't a brand new company that existed apart from Xcalibur.

Do a search and see what comes up when you look for Excalibur lures or tackle. The Excalibur that you see filling end caps or in discount bins is all old stock, I remember seeing the same thing in tackle shops and saw it at my local Cabelas. I was a little confused and actually emailed both Xcalibur and Cabelas and the answer I got was that they are indeed one and the same. The response I got from Xcalibur was that they were under pradco ownership and the name was changed to allow them to be the premium tackle brand to compete with the higher priced Japanese tackle that was becoming popular. Excalibur no longer exist in the pradco line up, it was replaced by Xcalibur Hi-Tek Tackle and it is Pradco's premium lure brand.

I always like Trilene XT for abrasion resistance until I tried the Berkley big game, I don't think you can get much better.

I love Silver thread AN40, it was my only line for a long time, it is very supple with good abrasion resistance and great strength, it does have a fair amount of stretch but not bad.

Lamiglas Excel II 7' MH-MF glass,$ 99.99!! This rod comes in to TW and within a week gets sold out, the reason is the blank, if you like the action of glass it is hard to beat Lamiglas. I have an old Quantum Tour Edition USA that was made in America with an E-Glass blank made by Lamiglas, it is an incredible cranking rod but the only drawback is when it was made they used the old Fuji reel seats that weren't blank through along with a large fore grip and large guides and at 7' with a MH power it makes for a heavy rod. The new Lamiglas I was told is much lighter than even the original Excel Glass rod which was also kind of heavy, so that may be one to look at as it is right in your price range with a lifetime warranty.

As others have said, you owe nothing but I'll tell you from experience, if you have the conscience and the empathy to give them more than they were asking, then you'll probably think about it every time you even look at that so do yourself a favor and give them another $50. You already did them solid but I know where you are coming from and what you are feeling and that is you feel you got a great deal due to someone else's misfortune and it is sticking with you and the only way you will feel better is by doing what you are already thinking of doing, I know and I feel for you as your mind is going in circles.

I powder coat and cure then use Devcon 2 ton epoxy over top of that. I tried a lot of stuff and Devcon seems to be the best as it is super clear and is very hard, the working time of the 30 minute epoxy is only 10 to 15 minutes max, but it is self leveling so even if you leave brush marks in it, it will level out and finish curing perfectly smooth and it is thin enough to appy easily but still thick enough that you don't need a drying wheel and it is great with just a single coat.

I can say with some certainty that the Excalibur brand is the same as Xcalibur, the difference is Pradco became the parent company and in order to separate the brand from Heddon and Bomber they changed the name slightly to Xcalibur and added the Hi-Tek Tackle to sort of let everyone know that this was their premium brand now and with it came higher prices but better quality lures. What gets me a little angry with Xacalibur is they have some great stuff that they discontinued, like the Xt3 Twitch Bait, the XS4 Jimmy and the EEratic Shad, the jerkbaits are still awesome and the Xt3 rivaled the Pointer 78. Oh well, at least I still have some of those baits and I still have the 1 knockers and square bills.

Fenwick Aetos 7'6" MH-M, it is rated to 1oz but it can handle 1.25oz no problem and if you cast carefully it will handle close to 2oz. There is also the Fenwick Elite Tech Bass 7'8" MH-M which is a little more stout but either will work fine, and these are graphite rods, I'm not sure if you are looking at composite. I put these out there because I have experience with the Fenwicks and I'm very happy with them and they are in your price range.

What you got is fine and I saw some decent prices on ebay. In the future if you find yourself pouring a lot you can go to Rotometals and buy 55lbs of pig lead or 5lb ingots and it is 99.9% pure lead, of course the more you buy the more you save. They now sell bags of reclaimed shot which is very cheap and a good deal, the only problem is you don't know how much antimony is in it but for the price it is hard to beat.

The Summit you are looking at is what replaced the Supreme I have, it was a $200 reel and then discontinued. The Summit you are looking at is a good reel, the problem is you won't be able to get a gear set or other parts if it fails and no warranty either since this is clearly old stock that was purchased by one of the ebay stores. If it was discontinued and being sold at say TW where there is a warranty I'd be all over it but not like this, and because of this you get that kind of price. If that reel came down to say $70 then I'd seriously think about it, if it was $65 I'd consider it strongly, and if it was $50 I'd be on it like a cheap suit!!!! IMHO it is too much just because it is a 2006 reel, and it may be NIB but it is still between 7 and 9 years old, that price needs to be lower.

I have a couple of rods with an extra fast tip, one is my pitching rod which is super stiff and full of backbone, the other is an old jerkbait rod, that has a lot of backbone but the tip portion is very soft, it will flex rather deep and look like the handle of a cane. I retired that rod as it was hard to work jerkbaits because the tip was too soft for my liking but both rods with the same extra fast action yet both very different.

As others have told you, just leave it in the pot, I'll give you some other tips to keep in mind. Moisture, that is what will cause an explosion, 1 bead of sweat in to a mold cavity caused a blow up that if I wasn't wearing safety glasses, well I don't want to think what would have happened. To get started pouring with your pot, put the lead you are going to melt inside the pot and turn the thermostat to 5 and place you mold on top of the pot, this will melt the lead slower but it will do so in a manner that will cause any moisture on the lead to evaporate before the lead melts so it will be fine, plus with you mold on top, it will be heated so that your pours will come out better right from the start as you have to have a hot mold otherwise the lead freezes to fast and you end up with an incomplete pour.

I hate fluoro but for that presentation I'd say it is a must especially if fishing deep. I tried it using mono from 10lb to 4lb and 6lb is what I settled on. My fishing partner ran his with 6lb fluoro and it held depth a lot better than mono and when braid was brought into the equation it killed the action even with a leader, I don't know why but it wasn't the same.

I think you are making a mistake, the swim jig is a very effective lure and just because someone is beating you with a bladed jig isn't a reason to give it up. The reason you are getting beat with a bladed jig is the conditions in which you were fishing, there are times when a particular bait will dominate, like wiggle warts on Table Rock at certain times of the year. Trust me, there will be times when the fish do not want a lot of flash or vibration, that is when the swim jig will excel, it happens to me every season, July comes and it gets hot and the fish are spread out and not chasing, we try to get some spinnerbait or topwater action before the sun gets up but the fish have been beat up with those baits by that time, that is when you break out the swim jig and you realize just how good that presentation is. Someone else also mentioned about being in the front or back of the boat, that will make a difference, especially if the fish are scattered or spooky, the guy in the front gets to the spot and catches one fish, there might be several in there but if the water is clear and shallow those other fish could be spooky and the thrashing fish hooked on a lure will cause the other fish to flee. If they are scattered then you only have one or two fish in a spot and the guy in front is hitting those spots before you get a cast into a productive area, this is what we call "back boating", not letting the guy in back get a shot at good spots. What you need to do is keep the swim jig and when the conditions are right, that is when you break it out, and the conditions I look for is any time a spinnerbait would be too much, like clear water but no wind to ripple the surface, that is when a smaller 3/16oz or 1/4oz northern style swim jig works, or if you have dingy water with a fair amount of weeds, the larger California style may be a good option.

The thing is, you'll lose a good bit of fish as you'll be pulling the hooks free unless you have a noodle rod. The braid you're getting is Omiflex I take it? If that is the case, it is a little heavier diameter than other braids so now you'll affect the action of the bait as well as risk losing more than the average amount of fish. I guess it seems strange to me since most of my cranks I'm throwing on 10lb to 12lb copolymer line, the exception to that is wake baits and large square bills and they get 15lb. I'm not a person that says something isn't right if I never did it, I use braid for heavy flipping and frogs, that is it but I did try it for most everything with and without leaders, and I used both mono and fluoro, and what I learned was I didn't like the braid for cranking at all, and I was using 30# power pro with a 12lb seaguar invisX leader that was 20" and after losing the first 4 fish I hooked I adjusted and was able to finally land them but the adjustment was going with a 6' leader which made me realize that braid wasn't working for me. You sound as if you want super strong braid to get your bait free should it snag, well that may be even worse because you may end up not being able to pull the bait free or break the line and being on shore doesn't allow you many options. In the end you do what you feel is right for you but realize we are not trying to be critical, just trying to improve your crankbait fishing as we don't know if you ever used that kind of set up with such heavy line before and we want you to know that there are many downsides to using a line that heavy for cranks, good luck.

When you get into big cranks with big hooks, size 1 or bigger, a cranking rod is no longer needed as the big hooks penetrate and you actually need more backbone to drive the hooks into the fish's mouth. That said, don't be afraid to use a heavy power rod with the magnum square bill.

I have a 7'2" MH-XF rod that I use to pitch jigs with, it is awesome but I'm not using braid, if I was using braid I'd have a fast or mod-fast as there isn't enogh give with an extra fast rod, you need some shock absorbsion and the fluorocarbon leader isn't going to provide enough. Go all fluorocarbon or copoly and you got a great jig rod.

A MH is what you want for square bills because of banging it in cover plus you have a little more backbone for moving fish away from cover. Larger square bills I find too big for medium power cranking rods, but it comes down to what your preference is because the best rod isn't any good if you don't like the feel of it.

You want to reel that bait just high enough that you feel it tick the weeds and then give it a good rip to clear the bait of the weeds. A high speed reel makes this a much easier task but if you have grass you got the right bait. Once you start catching them when ripping it off the weeds it becomes hard to put down, there is something very addicting about ripping that bait free from weeds and then feeling the line jolt as a bass hammers it.

I love the XCS Square bills and I wasn't sure the craw pattern XCS would be any good but I grabbed some when our local Cabelas had them for $2.99 and I got a few 100 series and I can tell you that in the ricver I fish, the creek craw and molting craw patterns have been very effective. The lipless cranks and jerkbaits from Xcalibur are awesome as well, I grabbed a bunch of the EEratic shad jerkbaits when they got discontinued, they had them on clearance at the local Cabelas for $4.88 and I grabbed a dozen, 3 each in 4 different colors, that jerkbait is a bonfide fish catcher and if you can find the Xt3 twitch bait, I suggest you grab them, they have been discontinued for a bit but some still pop up, they are right up there with Lucky Craft and that isn't a joke as I hold LC in very high regard.