smalljaw67

The Senko, that is what I break out when absolutely nothing else works, on the river for smallmouth I'm using a 3" version on a 1/16oz jig head with a size #2 hook. On the lakes I'm using a 4" or 5" depending on where I'm at and I'm texas rigging the 4" Texas style weightless with a 2/0 EWG hook and the 5" on a 3/0 EWG hook. I don't use the wacky rig when I need to make something happen because I'm going to put the worm in cover so it has to be weedless.

DT Flat 7 and the Flat 3 in addition to the #5 and #7 shad raps. The flat 7s are good in in the low to mid 50 range and are also good for banging around wood in warm water. The Flat 3 is my follow up square bill, if I get a follow or a barely hooked fish on a regular square bill, I'll throw the Flat 3 and 99 times out of 100 it will produce fish, the tighter action seems to be preferred at certain times especially during mid spring and mid to late fall.

I tie a lot of hair jigs, I use a few different head styles and weights but most are for bottom fishing like football heads and ball heads. The types of jigs he ties are what we use for smallmouth, the thing with hair is you have to know what kind of water and what depth. You can use them in stained water, 2' visibility is about minimum, I like using them in clear water. The ball heads can be fished by dragging but a short lift and drop is better, if I'm in water 6' to 10' deep I'll use a 1/8oz jig unless there is is fast current or wind, but some days I'll use a 1/16oz jig if I know the fish are in a spot and are just not biting, the slow fall of that size jig will often get hit on the fall. I use marabou, bear, deer, bucktail, arctic fox, and rabbit for most of my jigs but I also do a lot of craft fur jigs, those are really good as the synthetic hair moves really well in the water. If you have any specific questions about those jigs I'd be glad to help, as I said, I've been making them for a long time and I use them during the cold water period when it gets too cold for jerkbaits.

I don't know how the 2 piece is but they use a spigot ferrule for the 2 piece rods which makes it feel more like a one piece.

The River2sea dragon fly is a killer but hard to cast, and it will sound funny but it glides so well it is almost flies. The bait has a clear plastic bib like a jitter bug and it has a similar action but the wings hitting the water every time it moves back and forth make it look like a dragon fly that fell in. It only has a size #10 Daiichi death trap treble but the fish get stuck on it, I lost very few fish because they usually eat the thing, some ultra vicious strikes occur when using it but still very hard to cast.

This is my favorite as well, it is super comfortable to fish, sensitivity is great and I use it for hair jigs and small tubes this time of year and it handles them perfectly. I'm using hair jigs from 1/16oz to 1/4oz with 1/8oz being what I use the majority of the time and this rod handles them no problem. If you're catching 12" fish, you'll get a good fight but if you stick a large one you'll have enough reserve power to handle it, it is my most versatile spinning rod because in the warm water I use it for fluke Jr.s, larger tubes and shaky heads.

The minnow type like the Red-fin and the Bomber Long-A have been used as a wake bait for late fall, I actually used a rogue with some success reeling it slow just under the surface. I was told the first cold snap when the water temp went from the high 60s down to the upper 50s, that was prime time for the wake baits because that was when you would get a lot of stunned minnows swimming lazily near the surface. When the crankbait types of wake baits came out it, they seemed to work during the post spawn period and if you are getting fish boiling on your topwater but not committing, that is the perfect time to be using wake baits. My favorite is discontinued but you can still find them, the Manns Waker Elite, and I haven't got to try it much but the Storm Arashi Wake has a similar type action and I'll be using it next spring.

I keep it very simple when it comes to craw trailers, basically in warm water, 60+ I like a Rage Craw or Chigger craw, something with movement but once it gets cold I like the Zoom super chunk and super chunk Jr, colors are simple as well, black, black/blue, green pumpkin and pumpkin, and that will cover just about any situation.

It has the sensitivity for jigs and worms but that is one beautiful spinnerbait rod!! Spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, chatterbaits and swim jigs but you can use it for just about anything with a single hook, I love the length for spinnerbaits personally.

It looks like some old Bombers, they appear to me the oldest and probably worth the most. The Lucky 13s in there would be worth some money if they are wood versions but antique tackle has to be extremely rare to be worth any significant amount.

The shapes that are out have to do with conditioning, bass do get use to seeing certain profiles and I'm convinced of that. Color works the same way, they will get use to certain colors which is why you have days that an oddball color will work really well. Everyone has a theory and that is why we have so many shapes but whether the theories are true or not we'll never know. I'm convinced that smallmouth see shades of color and key on colors at times more so than largemouth and I've seen it happen a lot. In the river I fish, if you are using tubes you need to have a dark one, a light one and at least one dark and light with some kind of glitter, I had a day in which black would not get bit but black neon, which is black with red flake, would get crushed and vice versa. I wish I knew the reason as I would be a rich man if I did.

I use a River Rock Baits RR Striker which is 3.75" and their Mongoose Striker which is 5", both have a time and place but even the 5" isn't too big. I really like the Gene Larew Sweet Swimmer at 3.5" as well but anything around the 4" mark will work fine for smallmouth.

The coloration on smallmouth are very different than largemouth, the bronze color along with the vertical bars make them look awesome as well as different from their green cousins.

A crack in the epoxy normally won't hurt, if you are worried a small amount of 2 part epoxy over it will make it better but it really isn't necessary.

I liked the gap on the EWG style hooks but they would sliding down so I started using the Trokar TK-100 HD worm hook and I like it a lot. I was satisfied with that until I went to a flea markert and I found a bunch of packs of the Owner light wire twist lock hooks, now those are my favorite and what I think is the best hook if you're using lighter line. I like the 4" and the 5" flukes and for the 4" I use a 2/0 and a 5" I use a 4/0, even though it is only a 1" difference, the body is wider and a little longer in relation to the tail than the 4" model which is why a 4/0 works. I use River Rock Baits Jointed Jerkbait instead of flukes but they make them is the same sizes and while a 4/0 is good for the 5" model, I found that I can get away with the 3/0 and still have great hook up ratios.

The weight of a jig is the head, that is why you hear guys ask what weight jig can a medium power rod handle and the answer is mostly 3/8oz because with the skirt and all it is closer to 1/2oz.

We didn't average the fish Dale but it was up there, the smallest was 16.5" and the largest was 21.5" but most were between 18" and 19". Normally you only find those fish in wintering holes fishing slow but if you get lucky enough and get on them as stop during their migration you'll have a day like we had. The fish seem to travel in groups according to size, we got on another school like that but the fish were noticeable smaller with the largest fish going 17" and most in the 12" to 14" range. When the water gets hard I'll still be busy pouring jigs and tying hair jigs so by spring I'll have a box full.

I live in PA and right now is the time!!! I fish the Susquehanna river this time of year, the last couple of weeks have been awesome! I had 50+ day of smallmouths, we got into a migrating school that stopped to feed, water temp was 53 degrees and we clobbered them in one spot one every single cast with square bill cranks. The smallest fish was 16.5", me and my friend Bob tied for the most consecutive cast with a hookup, and that was 14 casts and 14 fish for each of us and then 2 casts with no hits, changed colors and it was back on. Last week it was the Luck-E-Strike RC STX jerkbait in the secret night color, the smaller one was the deal early and then late is was the larger one. Right now you can hit wintering holes and get some real nice ones on hair jigs, trust me, if the water is open here the fish are eating, you just need to know where to go.

570 is Eagle Claw.

I started "finesse cranking" this last year for the same reason you described. I could cast 1/4oz and 5/16oz cranks with my regular medium heavy cranking rod but distance was average and I could use the smaller Pointer 78s and the X-Rap size 8 on my jerkbait rod but it was lacking too. I kind of figured I was over powering the smaller cranks so I got a 6'6" ML-M casting rod, rated 1/4oz to 1/2oz to fish those small cranks but also fish the small jerkbaits and I love it and my fishing has improved a lot. The rod actually taught my a moderate rod is good for the smaller jerkbaits, they don't take as much to move but the Manns baby 1 minus cranks, the Bomber Square A, along with the smaller poppers like the Zell Pop and the Pop'R. If it wasn't for the jerkbaits I would have gone with a 7' medium but it would have been a lighter action like the Falcon Bucoo which is rated 1/4oz to 1/2oz or the BPS ML crankin' Stick.

There is a difference between the F2 and the old LPT. In the waters I fish, before I found River Rock Baits, there were 2 stick worms that really caught fish, the Senko and the Yum Dinger wer the best, the Yum Dinger didn't come close to a Senko when it came to fall rate or softness but the LPT scent, the fish just ate it and held on, other stick worms were too hard and the fish spit them super fast. When they went to the F2 formula, the Yum Dinger wasn't near as effective which made me go back to Yamamoto until I discovered River Rock, but the F2 is different and anglers around my area will pretty much all agree.

Rick Clunn W&M rods. They are all glass, and I'm pretty sure they are discontinued.

I love Rick Clunn but he has contradicted himself so many times it isn't funny. He use to say that he used only 7' MH-F BPS rods for every thing saying the feel never changed and then I heard him say at a seminar that no matter what period of time it was in his career, he always had a glass cranking rod on the deck of the boat. When someone asked the question about the 7'MH-F rods he claimed it was true but one of those 7'MH-F was a glass crankin' stick, so maybe that is what he meant but that is different in feel from the rods he claimed to only use. As for using a few different rods, well I like to use the golf analogy, why do you need all those clubs, can't you just go with 2? Casual fishing a single rod is great, if I'm going to shore fish for a few hours then I'll take a medium heavy casting rod or a medium power spinning rod and go with that and use baits that those rods work well with. The thing with 1 rod is when you use lures that are outside the rod specs, like I'm not going to throw a 1oz swimbait on my medium casting rod, or a 1/8oz shaky head on a heavy power casting rod. It is a hobby to some, a pass time for others and if you view fishing as a pass time then 1 rod makes perfect sense, but the guy who has it as his or her main hobby, well we tend to take it up a few levels. Take a look at RC race cars, there are some that just mess around and have fun, while others spend 5K to 10K on custom carbon fiber bodies, shocks, and suspension parts and compete all around the world, the same thing applies to fishing, it just depends on how serious you take it.

You already got the answer to the pork question, as for trailers on buzzbaits and spinnerbaits, well that depends but I very seldom use them but sometimes I will. I don't like trailers on spinnerbaits because I found over the years that they tend to elicit short strikes, the same with buzzbaits but if they are rolling on buzzbaits and you can't hook up, that is when I will put a trailer on, usually a grub or split tail trailer like the Rick Clunn trailers.

Quantum made a spiral wrapped Gary Klein flipping stick that was a 8' heavy power rod back in 2002 or 2003. I remember guys saying he was using a custom rod because of the spiral wrapped rod with green blank but it was his signature flipping stick from Quantum but not many took to spiral wrapped rods.