smalljaw67

Part of your problem is they see you too, with no rain here the water is gin clear and the fish can see you so not only do you have to keep yourself from being visible but you also need to downsize the bait. 3" senk style worms on a split shot rig using a size 2 octopus hook is a great way to get spooky fish to bite.

Everyone has their own view of the "very best", so you may want to put a price range on what you are considering as G.Loomis, St. Croix, Megabass all have top end rods that for between $300 to $500 depening on the series and model.

I make my own which is a ball head with a flat eye hook and and a screw lock, the screw lock holds the worm better without tearing it up and the round head works around wood rocks and grass.

I use MH casting gear for smallies most of the time, the only time I use spinning equipment is when I'm fishing finesse jigs, tubes, split shot rigs, and 3" stick worms. When I use jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, crankbaits, and topwaters I use the casting equipment.

I'm cheap, but the hair jigs I make are either buck tail or rabbit or a combination of both so I have a basic 25 dollar vise. I will tell you that Griffin, or Thompson would be the way to go, the vise I have now is my second vise, the first one was also a cheap one but it did last over 10 years. I think when this one breaks I may get a good one but for now it works.

It isn't intelligence, it is instinct. What you found is a place that holds a small population of resident fish and since you have been fishing them on a regular basis the fish have now become conditioned. The way to catch the fish now is by using something completely different, if you haven't used any type of crankbait before, now would be the time to use it. I know of an area that holds fish and gets pressured to the point the fish are conditioned but if you make a long cast away from the 5 or 6 yard area they are positioned at, and then bring a jig or texas rigged soft plastic through the spot you can get bit but once you get one you need to leave as the other fish will spook and scatter. So try something you have never used on these fish, perhaps a shallow diving floating style jerkbait worked over them really aggressively.

Like $300 dollars for a 5 ball bearing reel...But it is the quality of the bearings. Actually I have reels from all other manufacturers except Shimano as my Symetre spinnig reels broke and the customer service got me a little upset but I will admit their higher end reels are good solid reels. I have a Pflueger Supreme casting reel that was discontinued in '08 and it performs well. A Revo SX that is super solid, 2 Okuma reels, a V system and an Induron both casting reels and both solid. A Team Diawa X that still performs like the day I bought it, a Cabelas Prodigy, the Diawa advantage model of the prodigy which now discontinued. And 4 Quantum reels, 2 Smoke, a Kinetic, a Catalyst, and a Kinitic spinnig reel along with a Diawa Tierra spinning reel. My next Reel will likely be a Lews Tourney Pro but you never know, anyway, those are the reels I have that get used on a regular basis and it shows I'm far from brand loyal. I tend to lean toward Quantum reels just because I never had any trouble and they perform for me not to mention I get the same features as other reels costing 100 bucks more like and aluminum reel that is less than 7oz. I had a bad experience with Shimano and there are those who had bad experiences with other manufacturers and so you hear good and bad from all.

Lets start from the beginning, Gary Loomis had nothibg to do with designing or building the blank, what he did was allow Temple Fork Outfitters or TFO to use tapers he designed, the blank material and building process is TFOs own. The first rods are 100 worthy but the difference is there are more and more manufacturers showing up in this price range so the price is staying the same but the rods are improving which is why some similarly priced rods may be better, remember, these came out around the same time as the Vendetta and were given good marks based on what was available at that price range but from what is offered now it seems these rods are far from being the best in their respective price range. The blank does feel "dead", but I think the reason for it is the series is using a good taper with a lower modulus graphite in order to keep costs down and still have a durable rod with at least some degree of sensitivity without it weighing as much as an ugly stick. I just used my friend's TFO Tactical series rod and it is head and shoulders above their first offering, in fact it is light weight, and the blank has a lively feel to it, if it wasn't for me liking the new Fenwick rods so much I would have got one of the tactical series rods but the Loomis signature rods, I don't care for those.

Take a look at the Fenwick Elite Tech smallmouth spinning rods, they are in your price range and are excellent rods. I think with a 2500 size reel and from the baits you wanted to fish I would say 6'9" M-XF, this is the perfect set up in terms of versatility as it does a few things exceptionally well but it handles most baits and techniques pretty good. The length is long enough that you can get good casts but it isn't so long that it becomes clumsy in small areas, and the medium power will handle just about any normal size bait from 1/8oz and up. The extra fast action is what makes this great for shaky heads, that and the fact that is is really sensitive, and the amount of backbone lets you get great hook sets when using tubes or texas rigged worms and small to medium sized jigs.

My way of doing things is simple, when I get home I put my tackle bag away and then I take my rods, back the drag off the reels and then put them in the rack and I'm done. The next day I go through my bag and reorganize the stuff I just threw in the bag and then replace hooks on baits that the hooks broke or bent, I throw away any plastics that are tore up and can't be used and then I''m pretty much good to go.

I think any of the 7.1:1 reels are great for jigs, I wouldn't use anything under a 6.4:1 as you want to get you jig into as many spots as you can.

Lews speed Spool, the Abu Garcia Revo S, the Shimano Citica, Quantum Kinetic PT, or the BPS Pro Qualifier, those are you best bets in the $100 to $130 range.

I rig them with a basic texas rig but I use a hook like the Trokar TK 100 HD worm hook, and the reason is the fluke likes to slide down on the offset and for some reason it does this a lot with an EWG style hook. The other way I rig it is nose hooked with an octopus hook, it isn't weedless but it will come through sparse grass pretty good.

Nice effect, however the sharpie will wear off quick. Use a CS Quick Coat Paint Marker, they come with 6 different tips so you can make anything from dots to thin lines to thick lines and the best part is you aren't using ink but realy paint that will not wash off quick.

I once had a single bead of sweat fall into the lead pot and thank God I had safety glasses on because it did explode and yes, it was a single bead of sweat. I would also tell you to never lend you friend anything again and I do mean anything, it takes a real rocket scientist to not only spray water on molten lead but on an electical device as well, that takes a real genius. If you have an outside outlet you I would advise you to use it and melt the lead outdoors and stay a good distance away, once it is melted leave it sit about 10 minutes and then unplug and wait until it cools it self, that way takes a long time but it is the only way to be sure the moisture is gone. I hope this isn't the case but you may end up having to get a new pot of at least a new element as there is a possibility the water may have damaged it, you aren't going to know until you plug it in but do so outside, because it there is a water pocket in the lead you don't want it inside when that lead melts, trust me, I saw what a bead of sweat can do, I could only imagine what a teaspoon of water would do. BE CAREFUL!!

I live and fish in PA and we have the Susquehanna, Juniata, and Deleware rivers here and of course lakes and I know exactly what you are going through. Fishing the river for smallies is a lot different than largemouth in lakes, even the smallmouth in lakes act different. The first thing you found out was in lakes the fish will go deeper than they do in a river system because the moving water has more oxygen and the temps are more consistant. Flourocarbon will get lures down deeper faster but you can get by without it, I do for the most part. What you need to do is find fish and apply the right tactics to the mood of the fish. In the summer if you are finding fish in 30' of water chances are that is where the thermocline is, and if the fish are that deep they are probably in a neutral or negative mood and while a deep crank may get the fish to bite if you got it down there, a better option would be a football jig if they are on the bottom or a flutter spoom if they are suspended and in that case you nrrd to vertical fish for them. The other option is finding cover in the 3' to 10' zone that would hold fish as there are a number of fish that do stay relativly shallow most of the year. I once won a tournament in August fishing with a Rattlin' Rogue in no deeper than 5' of water and the majority of them were caught in 3' of water so I know you can find them in shallow water. If you still are having a rough time you may want to bite the bullet and hire a guide for a day or two, you will learn spots and tactics on how to get them to hit and it will be money well spent and remember, it isn't just about the line but I will admit, using flouro and braid in certain situations is the way to go, I use braid for heavy cover jig and frog fishing but there are a lot of other times to use those lines but I'm not one to use super lines only when I really need to.

I agree with this for the normal skirted bass jigs but when it comes to hair jigs in cold water, well that is another story. Yes, I've caught bass on a hair jig that had the paint worn off but during side by side fishing with over 20+ trips me and a fried used hair jigs with a painted head along side jigs with no paint and in cold water with hair every single trip the painted head caught on average 2 fish for every one on an unpainted one. The reason we did this was to see if it was worth going through the trouble of painting the heads before tying the hair on, my friend insisted it had to be done while I was on the opposite side saying for our own use I will just pour and then tie, no paint. So for the first few trips I fished the unpainted ones so I could prove a point, and after 6 or 7 trips we were flipping a coin as I didn't want to be on the losing end and every single trip the angler using th unpained head lost. A few things to consider with this test is that it was in cold water and we were only catching an average of 7 to 8 fish per trip, the best day being 14 and the worst day 2 and that day I remember as I had the unpaited jig and I zero'ed and that was the trip were I said from now on we flip a coin. So when it comes down to a skirted bass jig, yes, the head for all intened purposes, really doesn't need to be painted, it just looks better to us fishermen, but when it comes to small hair jigs, well you can catch them with a plain head but I believe you will have better results if the head has paint on it.

I learned to use baitcasting reels before there was braking systems on reels so the spool tension knob is what you adjusted so I think I may be able to help. What the brakes do is they let you use the reel with a little less tension and it almost eliminates using your thumb if you dial the reel in correctly. Once you get it dialed in you can leave it at that setting and then just adjust the spool tension according to lure weight. Some guys will change their brake settings if it is windy or other things but I like to just use one setting and use the spool tension knob. Centifcal brakes are on the inside of the palm plate so you take it off and there are small pegs, pulled out, that particular brake is on, I adjust the brajkes on and off by gturning them off opposite each other, for example, if it is 6 pin brake system, most of the time I set 2 brakes on and the rest will be in the off position which is pushed down. Think of an ice skater spinning around, arms tucked in and the skater spins faster, arms out and the skater spins slower and the same for the brakes, pull it out to slow it and push them in to speed it up. The brakes I turn off will be opposite each other like I said, I believe it helps spool balance but I'm not sure it is just how I've done it, and what I mean by that is the brake that is positioned at the top of the spool is on, I'll turn the brake positioned on the bottom of the spool on and the rest will be off. I don't know if people turn brakes on right next to each other but I do it as I explained and it has worked. Magnetic brakes are adjustable from the outside and the function is to slow the spool down toward the end of the casts, these I usually have set to 3 or less based on 10 settings, the best thing about them is you will never get a backlash if you forget to use your thumb when the bait hits the water but they are pretty good with dual brakes as it is possible to set both centifical and magnetic up to a point were you can really sling a bait and not have to thumb the spool at all.

Fishing a super fluke weightless is great but they stay up high in the water column, in fact if you work them quick it becomes more of a topwater bait. The problem you are having is being on the shore you can't access better water to fish it and with high temps the oxygen levels are probably low so the fish won't be in a mood to really come up on a fluke. If you really want to learn to fish the fluke right now you are going to have to fish a worm or jig or something else and catch a fish, it sounds strange but by using a bait that you know you can catch fish on will help you get one and then you will know an area that is holding fish. Once you find the fish you can use the super fluke and find out what type of retrieves work best for the current conditions and you will also see how working the bait at different speeds and rod angles makes the bait act and you will know in the future how to fish it to match the mood of the fish. The other thing that will help you learn to fish the fluke is when you get a day and the fish are biting really well, this is the time to use a bait you want to learn, you will know what bites feel like and which retrieves got the more aggressive strikes and what depth and so on and so forth.

Stick with the spinning unless you want to get the baitcaster now and begin practicing with it. People try casting reels by going right out on the water with them and end up in a mess, so I tell everyone that asks about learning to use one to get it and spend a few hours a day with it in your yard or a field to get use to it before going on the water. A casting reel is a great piece of equipment if you take the time to learn to use it, but if work or other obligations make it hard to find the time to put into it then your best bet is to invest in a new spinning rod.

The bait you want for that situation is the Rapala DT Thug, it gets down to about 3' or 4' really quick and if you reel slow and steady it will stay at that level, but if you add just a little speed and it doesn't take much, you can get it down around 7' on 12# line probable another foot or so on 10# line. Anyway, I use it to fish tapered points where I'm fishing from 2' or 3' of water out to about 8' or so. I have the boat in 10' of water and I throw it close to the bank and reel, once I feel it hit bottom I slow the speed up so that every 3 or 4 cranks it ticks the bottom and as soon as I go a few cranks and it isn't hitting bottom I speed it up until I hit bottom again. Trust me, that bait was designed for fishing shallow out to deeper water, the very situation you described.

Mustad Triple Grips !!!

I think you did ok, if you are just getting back into it there are things you may just want to try at a later time like crankbaits because they are about the only thing you really would have a hard time fishing with what you have. It isn't that you couldn't fish a crankbait with those setups, it is the fact that you will lose more than you share of fish with them as the rod is a little too stiff, a rod with a deeper flex like a moderate or moderate fast action will be a lot better with most treble hook lures. A spinning rod an reel wouldn't hurt either as they are easy to use for finesse techniques like shaky heads and drop shots.

Floating style jerkbaits, to be specific a Rattlin' Rogue ARB 1200 series in clown, log perch, or silver shiner. 3/8oz spinnerbaits, double willow blades if the water is clear, a single colorado if the water is dirty and an indiana/ small colorado tandem if the water is just stained, which is usually 2' to 3' visibility. 3" and 4" grubs in white, yellow , chartreuse, green pumpkin. Tubes are also going to work very well, colors like black, green pumpkin, watermelon/red flake will all be good choices and the hard baits you have for largemouth will also work for smallies. A good way to fish the tubes is with an insider jighead, it is just a tapered lead jig that fits inside the tube and then you push the hook eye through the wall of the tube and tie on your line, it isn't weedless but it is a very effective presentation.

Go with the Revo S as the others have said, for 10 dollars more it is head and shoulders above what you are looking at especially the Caenan as it has a graphite frame.