smalljaw67

I don't fish many tournaments anymore so I'll use the stock hooks until they break or bend which, when you hang a good 4lb smallmouth, it usually 1 fish. If I happen to fish a tournament then stock hooks are out of the question except for a few different baits. As far as KVD, well you are talking sponsorship deals, Strike King doesn't care because his name sells baits and most people don't replace the trebles, all you need to do is go to yard or garage sales and look at the old tackle boxes for sale, filled with strike king baits and others with broken, bent, and rusty hooks. The cheapest bait I have that didn't need hooks changed out of the box is the Storm Twitch stick, $5 bucks with VMC black nickel hooks, and they seem to be the 1X strong cone cut which is a very good hook, and after that is it the $8 dollar Rapala baits with VMC hooks.

I almost forgot the flat sided crank, the KVD 1.5 flat, the Rapala DT Flat 7, and of course the Rapala shad rap #5 and #7, the shad rap #5 is the only crank I throw on a spinning rod and it is a killer in cold water.

Finesse soft plastic swim bait, Gene Larew sweet swimmer, Keitech easy shiner, swing impact, River Rock Baits RR Striker. All of those are between 3" and 4" and work great on a jig head, the same for hollow bodied swim baits, I prefer the Bass Magic as the come in a 3.5" and a 4.5" which I like to use as 5" seems to work better in warmer water, around the upper 50s. I use a jerkbait but I've had a lot of luck using swim baits when the water gets over 48 degrees, however a friend of mine just sent me pics of smallmouth he caught on a swim bait in 42 degree water . If I wasn't going to throw a jerkbait then I'd go with the swim bait.

If you have a lot of weeds like that, look for irregularities like a place where there is wood within the weeds or even isolated. That said, winter is good for jigs as it is a slow presentation, you also have to realize it isn't a numbers bait but it can be in the right situation. When I teach someone how to use a jig I try to hit ponds and if the fish activity is high that is the best time. What that does is it allows you to get some confidence and you learn to feel what a bite is like and that is what you need to do. Take some jigs with you when you are on the water and if you get a day that the fish are active try a simple black blue jig with a trailer, 1/4oz is the starting point because the smaller jigs will get you more bites most of the time, for grass and weeds you want a bullet or cone style head, those come through grass better, good luck.

All molds have you insert the weed guard first but there is a thing called a base hole pin that you put in the weed guard slot and then pour, after you pour you take the jig out and pull the pin from the jig and it leaves a hole for the weed guard to be glued in later.

You want to wear safety glasses as a minimum, a full face shield is preferred, long sleeves and no open toe shoes, the same long pants also. Make sure your area is dry and moisture free, if you are sweating, walk away from the work area and wipe your brow and put on a sweat band. Make sure your shirt and pants are 100% cotton, the reason being is that manmade fibers can and will melt which will stick to your skin and cause burns. Use cotton hot mill gloves and make sure your work area is well ventilated and do not smoke or eat while working with lead, it isn't the breathing of the fumes but ingestion that is the big concern, lead doesn't vaporize until well after 900+ degrees and it melts at a little over 600 degrees so keeping an eye on temp will limit exposure as well. Once you are done, wash hands thoroughly before putting anything in your mouth.

I fish similar areas and when the basstrix craze got started I held off but then Berkley came out with the hollow belly and I got some to try, like you I had no success at first. It took awhile but I would throw them when the fish were active and hitting spinnerbaits and cranks and I would get a follower or the fish would just swipe at the tail even after changing colors, I didn't know what else to do. Then one day 4 years ago we were fishing in the spring, it was right after trout season began and the water temp was in the upper 50s and we tried spinnerbaits and some lipless cranks and I was going to move out to the first drop and fish a flat sided bait when I thought I'd throw the hollow belly again just for the heck of it. It was game on and it has been ever since, the same conditions that the hard swim baits work. What I learned is here in PA they are a niche bait, there is a window in the spring and the fall in which they out produce anything but after the water gets warm I do better with a solid soft plastic swim bait. Water temps from mid 50s to low to mid 60s, in the cooler water I found if you fish them around drops in 8' to 10' of water with a 3/8oz to 1/2oz jig head they get bit often, the bite is pretty consistent as well, and then when the fish move up look for weedbeds or pad stems starting to get going in the 3' to 5' range, I slow roll them rigged weedless with a weighted hook with the 1/8oz being my favorite. Clear water seems to be key just like jerkbaits, and I have caught fish in the early summer but I went with a bass magic in a 3.5" and fished it on a 1/4oz jig head and fished it faster than what you normally would, you can pick up reaction strikes like that but other baits work better at that time. I guess pretty much, look for the same conditions as a jerkbait with slightly warmer water and that is what I would call the perfect condition for those in PA and the surrounding area.

I see a lot of anglers that use oversize hooks on their plastics and they can help but it all depends on the type of soft plastic it is. For example, on a 4" fluke jr. I like a 2/0 worm hook but I have fished it on a 3/0 and I've witnessed guys using a 4/0, on a bait like that the larger the hook, the less action, the same for straight tail and ribbon tail worms, the further down the worm the hook extends, the less action you will get. I think an easy way for you to decide which hook to use would be to take your soft plastic of choice and you hook brand of choice and look at the bait and divide it up in 3rds, lay out a 2/0, a 3/0, a 4/0, and a 5/0 hook next to the bait and see where the hook bend falls. If it falls in the upper 3rd then you can probably go a little larger, if it falls in the bottom 3rd then you may want to go a little smaller, but ultimately you want it to be in the middle 3rd, that is where most of us start at, where the difference between anglers is some will want that to be in the upper part of that middle 3rd section, and others will want to be in the lower part. Try out different ways of rigging with different size hooks, as it was already mentioned, a 3/0 to 4/0 will work for most plastics but there is no standard. If you really want to know how much difference there is on hook size, ask the question of what size hook you use to texas rig a 5" senko, my bet is you'll get answers from 3/0 up to 5/0, for me I use a 3/0, the point is there really is no right or wrong as long as you catch fish. Good luck.

The BPS cranking stick is an under rated rod, I consider them to be very good rods so it would be a good choice. That said, the reason why you see fast and even extra fast actions listed on them is because you are getting the rating of a fiberglass rod, the cranking stick is also a composite meaning it is made with both fiberglass and graphite so they tend to run heavier than an all graphite rod. These composite rods will have a fast action meaning the same as a graphite rod, that it will flex a few guides down before the backbone therefore when tension is relieved it will rebound "fast" to the original position, the difference is that the composite rod will flex past this point more than an all graphite rod. I know it is confusing but fiberglass and composite rods are different than their graphite counter parts. The other reason these composite rods aren't good for worm or jig fishing is they aren't as sensitive as an all graphite rod with a fast action, there are worm and jig rods with moderate fast actions that flex more but they are designed that way for use with braid as the rod will give a little bit as the line doesn't stretch but that is another discussion. If I were you I would look at a 6'6" to 7' medium powered rod with a fast action, that would still make it stout enough to rip lipless baits out of grass but be a little more forgiving when fighting a fish but if you do want to add the cranking rod then the cranking stick would be a good one but remember, the KVD model is a composite and it on sale for cheap, it was $160 just a few short months ago, good luck on your purchase.

There isn't a lot of love for them, I have 2 smokes along with a Kinetic and a Catalyst and I have no problems as they work well and are work horse reels. That said, I'm not a loyalist, I have an Abu Garcia Revo Premier 2nd gen. a Daiwa Advantage, a TD-X and a TD-S, a couple of Okumas and a Pflueger. Out of all my reels my favorites are my Smoke 150 HPT and my Lews Tournament Pro TP1H but every reel has a use. If you are looking to find some love for Quantum reels you won't find it here, most are Shimano, Daiwa, and Abu Garcia, all are good companies and produce good reels which is why I won't be loyal to any brand and I try reels that others don't like for my own results.

I understand that you are learning, and I don't want to see you waste money on something you may not get a lot of use out of so I'll try to help out with some things. Most cranking rods are going to have a parabolic action meaning the rod will have a deep flex where as a fact action rod the flex will be around 4 guides down when it won't flex much after that point, a cranking rod will flex through the blank down to the last 2 guides toward the butt of the rod. Because of this parabolic action it is had for a fish to get leverage, think of it like this, if you hook a lure on a log and you pull back hard enough one of 2 things will happen, you will either pull the lure free or you will break it off. Now hook a lure onto a whippy tree limb and then pull back hard, what happens? You pull back and you can't pop the lure free or break off because the whippy tree limb bends and flexes, that it basically thae same reason we use cranking rods, when the fish surges the rod gives to keep from pulling small treble hooks free. There are certain baits I call "tweeners", these are the square bill, the jerkbait, the lipless crank bait and topwater treble hook baits, these are baits that are treble hook baits but because of the fact that they are either brought through cover or require more backbone to work better so a lot of anglers fish them on medium power fast action rods, sort of a compromise, you keep the fast action for the added backbone but you go with a medium power which is more forgiving so you get a little added flex to help fight the fish. I do think a cranking rod would be great for you to add but if you only have 1 or two other setups you may want something different as most cranking rods flex too much to use for anything other than cranks or open water spinnerbaits so you have to watch and being that you need to be under $100 means your choices are few but as I told you, there are some good deals but this is basically going to be a one trick rod so you may want to get some more cranks in addition to the rod. The other thing is fishing from shore, you didn't mention it but if you fish from shore, you may want more versatility, something you can fish a rattle trap with as well as pitch a light jig next to a dock, if that is the case look for a medium power rod with a fast action.

If rattle traps are the only cranks you are throwing and you also want to skip docks then you don't want a cranking rod. Yes, rattle traps with a cranking rod are great in open water but if you like ripping them off weed tops then you will need a little more back bone. The same thing with skipping docks, the tip isn't as important as the motion you use, I like fast action for skipping, you want that tip back before the bait hits the water, that isn't going to happen with a moderate cranking type rod. Now if you still want a dedicated cranking rod, Tackle Warehouse has the Quantum Tour KVD cranking rods for $70-$80 depending on which model, these are great cranking rods but they are composite made with E-glass and graphite, they are a little lighter than an all glass rod but heavier than an all graphite rod.

This is great advise, remember it. I tried all kinds of swim baits and put them back on the shelf for awhile and every now and again I would force myself to keep using them and I found so things that may help you. One thing is soft plastic swim baits like the 3.5" to 4.5" will work most of the season but I found there is a great swim bait bite in colder water, just as Megastink said, 55 - 65 degrees is optimum. I found that prespawn is the best time for the hard body baits, I have a 4.5" Sebile Magic Swimmer and a 5" Storm Kickin Stick and I thought they were useless until one day when I was on a good jerkbait bite and I wondered if the swim bait might work, guess what? I was killing them on both baits and both were getting bit by a bigger average size fish. So, you get a cloudy day in late April with water temps hovering around 58 to 60 degrees, don't hesitate, that is the perfect time for it.

Labor cost, pure and simple. We pay for our own heath insurance, the Chinese don't, we live where we want and pay bills, Chinese workers are stuck in housing units, it is only those that begin to get real money that get out of that. The average wage in China is approximately $12.00 per month for the working class, you can't afford to live here on that but here is the thing, companies are slowly coming back because the pollution is so out of control there, cost for clean water is 15 times as much as it is here. Also, since labor is so cheap other countries have been using Chinese labor and as a result the workers are now demanding higher wages. With the cost of what corporations pay to the government and the workers in exchange to use their labor, a small increase of only $2.00 dollars a day in wages make it too costly do continue manufacturing. Most corporations pay the Chinese government a fee to use the slave labor, instead of paying U.S. taxes they pay a percentage to China so they can get someone to make their product for $1.61 per month (Apple), but the rising cost of fuel and basics like clean water are making it very hard to stay in China and and increase in wages will result in a lot of manufacturing coming back. That said, Ardent had outdated designs and engineering, that's all, the reason Daiwa and Shimano have flagship models that are super expensive is because of the Japanese labor which is as costly as our own, but a lot of companies make a good product in China because they use materials from the U.S. and the only real bad you see you see is when companies use Chinese materials, their steel is far weaker and the plastics aren't anywhere near the quality of what comes out of the U.S., but labor is the driving force.

I agree, it sounds very much like the old Poes cedar flat sides, they were the first flat side baits I ever used and were killer in spring.

Right now there is a sale going on at Tackle Warehouse, $80 gets you a 7' medium heavy Quantum Tour KVD Cranking rod. Maybe you don't like the name but these are decent rods, however they are composite meaning they are a blend of graphite and fiberglass so they will be heavier than a graphite rod but lighter than an all glass rod. If you want an all graphite cranking rod then there is none better than the G.Loomis CBR series, they are the best graphite cranking rods I ever used.

Floating style I like the Smithwick Rattlin' Rogue, for suspending it is a 3-way tie between the Rapala X-Rap XR10, the Pointer 100, and Smithwick Super Rogue. I know it sounds strange and I like just about all jerkbaits and I have a collection in which most will get used but the ones listed are constant producers, the Megabass 110 is a great bait and when it is on it can't be beat however in the waters I fish, others will be better most of the time.

I always used short 6'3" rods for jerkbaits but the last 2 years I've been using a 6'10" rod them and it took a bit to get used to but now I love it. As for your situation, if it is between the 2 rods, go with the Kovert, the reason is 2 fold, first off the glass rod is going to be much heavier, using a jerkbait rod that is heavy will wear you out over the course of a day. The second reason is the moderate action, it is good for cranks and treble hook baits in general but you really can't work a jerkbait correctly with the moderate rod, at least I can't. The Denali Murphy signature jerkbait rod is too soft in my opinion, I think the Kovert you are looking at will be fine for what you want to do but it is a much better choice than glass.

Color only matters when it matters. I never really thought about colors and custom paint and figured it to be a waste of money, just get a color to match the forage and you are good to go. Well, I believed that until I was fishing with a good friend, we were on a body of water that was known to produce when using white lures, I was using a Manns baby one minus in grey ghost and bone with orange belly and were fishing over shallow weed flats. My friend was using a custom painted Manns baby one minus, I knew he had these as this particular bait is killer over these weed flats in early summer here and he had paid a good bit to get these painted and I thought he was nuts. This lake we fish gets moderate pressure, the shallow flats get bombed with baby one minus baits all the time as everyone now knows about this pattern, well within an hour I had 1 fish, he had 9 on his custom painted bait. I was changing baits after he would catch 3 to my zero, and at the end of the day I had 3 fish, all caught on grey ghost, he caught 21 on his custom painted bait, why? I believe that on pressured waters a bait or color that hasn't been seen by the fish will make a difference, the fish get conditioned and a custom paint job just might be the trigger.

Spend a little more and you won't be sorry, especially if you ever decide to try tying hair jigs. I have a Griffin Odyssey Sider Vise, it is a true rotary vise meaning you don't have to take you jig out and turn it around to get at the bottom ot top of the jig depending on how you had it in the vise in the first place. It has a lifetime warranty and is made in the U.S.A. and the best part is it only cost $85 bucks. I know it sounds like a lot compared to $15 but trust me, I tied on a cheap AA vise for a long time, had I known what a difference it was to tie on a better quality vise with a rotary function I would have got one in a heart beat.

Very nice!!!!! You are going to really like fishing a swim jig if you haven't done it, around my waters the bass haven't got bombed with that presentation and it is actually doing better than my favorite lure, the spinnerbait. I also like the ripple cut skirt material you added, I use it and it gives off a different look and effect in the water, on bottom probing jigs the ripple skirts have the illusion of movement even when sitting still, it looks awesome and I'm going to have to try it now on a swim jig, thanks for the idea!!!!!

I use a medium light for fishing winter and early spring and I use it for light hair jigs and small tubes but that is the only time. The reels you are looking at will be fine but I do have a concern about where you want to go with a rod. As I said, medium light at the cold water period but in the summer, no, I have watched a guy kill 3 solid smallmouth that were all close to if not, 4lbs because he "preferred a fight" and while there is nothing wrong with fishing light tackle, ultra light and light is too light. In the warm water period if it takes you more than 3 minutes to land a bass, there is a good chance it will die, with a light and ultra light you are going to struggle bringing in a 2lber in that amount of time and you will never play out bigger fish in good time without some kind of luck. I see this happen a lot in a local lake that stocks trout, the guys going after trout with 4lb line with ultra light set ups and they hook a decent bass and it then takes them 5 to 7 minutes to land it and sure enough a few hours later it is floating belly up. try stepping up to at least a medium light, you'll be more equipped to handle a bigger fish and you will still have to fight the fish.

Thanks for the pic, I know what the Arashi 3 and 5 look like but I wanted to see the flat 7, I love the Rapala DT Flat 7 baits and I was afraid the Arashi flat 7 was just a Storm brand DT Flat 7 but it is different and now I got to get a few. For those that aren't aware of it, the flat 7, and flat side cranks in general, are great in the spring in cooler water but they are also a nice change of pace for summer bass that seen it all.

a 7' MH cranking rod should handle most of your shallow to mid depth cranks, I like mine for cranks that dive down to 12' to 14'. I have used a DT 16 and it worked ok but I was only doing it for an hour, I would not want to use it all day. So, if you aren't going to be cranking any deeper than say the 12' mark then the 7' is fine, if you plan of the 16' + then you will want a minimum 7'6" with 7'10" to 8' being a better choice.