smalljaw67

This is hard for me as I really like the one knockers, both are good and the Xcalibur really shines when ripped through weeds but I like the clackin' rap better for cold water applications like yo-yoing or verticle jigging.

I'm throwing a jerkbait for smallies in spring most of the time but post spawn fish are spread out and so one must cover water and for that I'm using the Rapala shad rap, eithera #5 or #7 and if I'm around wood or rocks it is a Rapala DT Flat 7, I use it as a finesse crank when the bite is tough but it also works great when using it like a square bill. The DT Flat 3 is my secret square bill, it doesn't have the wide wobble of the normal square bills, instead it tracks straight but with a very tight shimmy that gets the attention of fish suffering from lockjaw.

I'm a loomis fan and I was planning on getting into the NRX series this season but over the winter I have heard so many stories of split cork, reel seats coming unglued, epoxy on guides being cracked that I really was afraid but I was still going to try one but what ended it for me was hearing these same complaints on replacement rods, some anglers going through more than one replacement and still having issues, that did it for me ever having one.

Thats tough for me since I have a favorite color for different bodies of water. For the river it is hands down green pumpkin, for the lakes I fish that have clearer water I really like watermelon/red flake, which is what I voted for since most of my plastics are this color. And for the the lakes I fish that have darker or dirtier water it is a tie between black and black/blue, I like the black/blue combo with jigs and with senkos and tubes and t-rigged worms it is basic black.

This is a bluegill, if you see red dimpled on the sides and a thin red line behind the gill it would be a pumpkinseed. Red ear sunfish look like pumpkinseeds but instead of a thin red line behind the gill it has more of a red spot and a small red spot on the end of the blue make on the gill. The bluegill in the picture could also be a green sunfish but I doubt it just because of the bright colors you described, green sunfish are probably the least colorfull of the fish we call sunfish which are the bluegill, the pumpkinseed, the red ear and the green.

I've been using them a lot the last two season especially last season, it is an incredible bait when you fish actively chasing baitfish. As far as the lips busting, well I haven't run into that problem and I bang them off of rocks a good bit since the river I fish them in is shallow and extremely rocky. The lips breaking is usually a complaint of the x-raps and most of that can be because you tend to fish them in cold water and every bait is suseptible to that as I have had lips break off of LC pointers. I don't think it will double as a topwater the way the original floater does because it is a slow rise bait, part of what makes it deadly as a jerkbait or shallow crank. I usually don't use my floating rogues until the water temp gets above 60 and that is were the flat rap comes in because it rises a lot slower than my rogues I use it as a transition bait were instead of using a suspending jerkbait and a slower presentation and a floating jerkbait for a faster presentation, the flat rap gives me an intermediate presentation, faster than the suspending model and slower than a floater, a really good bait to have.

How many here use this lure? I got a few at Walmart and it got me thinking about these as they aren't cheap but I don't know of many anglers besides myself that really use them. I like the smaller FLR 8 when the fish are spooky or if it is a tough bite and I use it anytime I see any type of baitfish activity and it has really produced for me. The winner is the FLR 10, I used these along with my rogues in the river 2 years ago when the Flat Rap came out and the results were fantastic. I was using them with my rogues and I can still remember switching to the Flat Rap as the fish were only following the rogue. I was using a color called purpledescent which is a pretty natural color and in the water I couldn't help but notice how much this lure looked like the darters I always see. Well I guess the smallies thought it looked like darters also as they were killing the flat rap! Since that rip I have done well on both sizes, the best colors in clear water have been purpledescent, pearl grey shiner, and silver and if the water has a bit of color I found the chrome, clown, and hot tiger work well. The nice thing about these is the ease of use, my grandson caught a few bass on one and he doesn't use it like a jerkbait the same way I do, he basically just reels it down and lets it come back up and before it gets to the top he reels again and just keeps repeating the same pattern and he gets fish to hit it so it does work a couple different ways.

Vintage rogues look like the new ones, that is the beauty of the lure, they really haven't changed much except for a few more models and some different colors. If you want to see them look at the floating model, shallow diving rogues. These end up being found by familys who have a loved one pass away that fished and has a few or they ened up left in a home that was sold and get sold at yard sales, if you're looking for one it is probably because you heard some hype about someone using one to win a tournament or something. My advise is get a new one, it will work as most anglers throw expensive Japenese style hard jerkbaits most of the time so the fish don't see the rogues too often. Rogues are my favorite minnow style bait has they have a different, almost unique action to them. While they have a side to side movement like all the others do, the rogues have a roll also and that roll makes the bait have a distinctive flash as well as a sound.

I'm glad I read this thread because I hit Wally world today and took a quick walk through the sporting goods section and to my amazement there was a full box called the Rapala Treasure chest and everything in it was $4.96. So I dug through it and what did I find? I got myself a few Rapala Flat Raps, and not just any but the FLR 10, the 4" 3/8oz ones I use but are harder to get and the best was they had them in a color I wanted but wasn't carried by either my local Cabelas or BPS, and that is Yellow Perch, not to be confused with the Perch color. No, the Yellow Perch color is more subtle and not too bright, these aren't cheap, TW has them at a better price but they don't have the bigger size but even the smaller one is $8.49 and Cabelas wants $9.49 while another site has them for $8.99 so I came away a winner.

I have 3 of them and a spinning rod also so you can asume that I like them. They are all 6'6" MH-F and I use them for different things but they ae a great all purpose rod not to mention they also have the lifetime warranty. EDIT: of the 3 casting rods, 1 is a dedicated spinnerbait rod, I honestly think that is wht they invisioned the rod to be used for because it works perfectly with that type of bait. The 2nd one im my big spook rod, this is what I use for 3/4oz spooks, and the Storm swimbaits, again, it is a perfect MH, 1/4oz to 3/4oz rating and it works great for those baits. My 3rd is for jigs, actually I should say swim jigs but I do use it for football heads and casting jigs in shallow water. While I can use just one for all of those things it is better that I have them rigged instead of tying on a different bait and since those types of baits make up most of the lures I use during the summer it is only natural to have the multiple rods of the same kind so I can switch presentations without any trouble. I got these rods when they came out in '07 and after I got my first one I got the others as that rod was a perfect fit for me for the way I fish and the feel I like and when I found a rod that fit me really well I made sure to have more than one, the same feeling I now have with the Fenwick Smallmouth rods.

Any kind of a ripple on the water and I'm throwing the spinnerbait and if the water has any stain to it would also have me use a spinnerbait. In all honesty I have at least one rod with a spinnerbait tied on from the time the water gets above 55 degrees and it stays on untill it falls below 55 degrees. I probably use a swim jig differently than most, a lot of anglers like paddle tails as their trailers and I use them like that sometimes but more often than not I use a Rage Tail craw, it has a ton of action and lets me fish the bait 2 different ways on one cast. I like to fish the swim jig around visible cover like laydowns, lilypads and weedbeds and what I do is make a cast and swim it right by the cover, if this doesn't get a strike I make the same cast and swim it up to the cover and just stop it dead, now I have a jig with a trailer that has a craw profile and I can't count how many times I've had a fish not commit to the jig swimming but grabbed it when it hit bottom.

The rods you listed are all good, for the reel look at something a little better but not much more expensive. Reels like the Shimano Ctica E can be found for less than 100 bucks, the first version of the Quantum Kinetic is on sale at Cabelas for $69.99 and was priced and performed the same as the Citica E, and the BPS Pro Qualifier along with the Lews Speed Spool. Try to avoid baitcasting reels with graphite frames if possible as the aluminum ones will on average last longer.

I fish a jerkbait a lot and I too use a medium powered rod with a fast action. BTW, I like rogues a lot and one thing you really have to look at is the fish you caught, how were they hooked? By that I mean were they just barely hooked with the tail hook, or did they have the front two hooks? Like I said I love my rogues but you are fishing ponds and the rogue is a long bait, from the fact that you actually felt multiple taps tells me these were either small fish attempting to eat a bait bigger than they are, or these are fish that are interested but something isn't right. If you catch fish on a jerkbait that are barely hooked or you get some that just follow the bait it means you are using the right presentation as you have them interested but something is off, a lot of times it is just a matter of switching colors or size but sometimes you need to switch both color and size in order to make them bite. Also, the side sweeping type hook set is the best way to set a hook while using a jerkbait.

Cotton cordell made a lot of different lures, which ones were you looking at?

They are the same except for some minor cosmetic differences. They are for Takahiro Omori (sp?) instead of Rick Clunn who went to Luck E Strike and the baits were so popular that they just made them for a different pro rather than scap them altogether.

If you used Devcon 2 Ton epoxy and it yellowed over time, how much time? I use it all the time and I have white and pearl spinnerbaits coated with it for 2 years and they haven't yellowed. The reason I use Devcon is it dries clear and stays clear as almost everything I've tried yellows. Now, I will admit that the Devcon 2 Ton 5 min. epoxy does yellow but I haven't had the problem using the Devcon 2 Ton 30 minute. I've been making tackle for over 15 years and Devcon has been the best I ever used but as I said, 30 minute is good, the 5 minute will yellow. Also, if you are putting eyes on something that has recessed sockets for the eyes to go it, you can use a small drop of loctite super glue gel, just put the drop on the eye socket and put theye on it and let it dry, that will hold the eye without having to put anything over it.

The legend Tournament has K-series guides with ALCONITE inserts, and if you don't think that makes a difference you're wrong, and I'll tell you the difference, had St, Croix put K-series guides with SiC inserts on that rod it would retail well over $300 yet Cableas is selling one with those guides for $199.99. I will agree that St. Croix Legend series rods are a great rod but they out source and still charge a lot for an inferior product. Take a look at the Rage series, made in Mexico using cheap components selling for $150, The Platinum ZX with the same guides and reel seat of the Rage series would probably sell for $79.99 so you need to watch how you pick things apart. And for all that anyone knows, St. Croix may be making blanks for Cabelas, after all, G. Loomis was the blank provider for Cabelas for a long time up until Shiman o bought them. I give Cabelas a lot of credit because the XML and XMLTi rod series were pretty good for the price and now the fact that the same blank is being made with the 3M nano resin shows they want to make the rod better and then they proved it by putting top notch components on it. Putting top of the line components on some rods is like putting lipstick on a pig but not in this case, look at the weights of the rods, the 7' heavy powered rod comes in at 4.6oz and the others come in at barely 4oz. I think it deserves a look.

2 blades of grass is cover in a body of water with no grass. It sounds to me like you need some general rules to give you a starting point in choosing worms and weights and I believe I can help. Generally you want to use the lightest weight you can get away with, for example, if I'm fishing a submerged weedbed and I want my worm to fall through to the bottom I will look for the lightest weight to accomplish that and sometimes it won't be enough and I'll have to go bigger but it is trial and error. You will also use a heavier weight, 1/4oz to 1/2oz when the fish are feeding, the reason is the heavier weight will make the worm fall fast causing the fish to react to it rather than the worm being in its face for a long time making it bite. I use 7" power worms for ribbon tails and found this is about as perfect a size you can get, it is big enough to attract big fish to bite it but it isn't so big that it will turn most other fish away so it gives you the best of both worlds. When I fish ribbon tails or curly tails, basically any worm with an action type tail I'm going to use a heavier weight with those as I generally fish them in cover or deeper water and the other meber gave you a good rule, peg your weight when fishing cover, leave it free is you are fishing open water.

The spinnerbait is my favorite lure, and yes they are super versatile and a lot of what you heard is true but you only got part of it. I remember watching Jimmy Houston in the '80s, and his big thing about fishing a spinnerbait was to fish it deep enough that you could just barely makit it out but that was the most important thing, that you could still see it. I believed it for a long time until I proved it to myself that you can catch them even when you fish them deeper than you can see them but that is another story. If you didn't own any spinnerbaits and want to try them I'd tell you to get 4 of them all in a 3/8oz, 1 will be chartreuse and white with double willows, 1 will be chartreuse and white with a tandem indiana/colorado set up. After those two you would get 2 more but in a natural baitfish pattern, one with the willow set up and the other with the tandem indiana colorado, these four blades will cover everything you need.

I have found the use of scent does help, not in attraction but it does keep them holding on to the bait longer. I had a day were scent saved it for me, I was getting bites but as quick as the fish would pick it up they would spit it out. I was fishing a jig with a zoom super chunk and it was getting bit, but either the fish were really spooky or something they didn't like was on the jig because they didn't even let me attempt a hook set but that all changed with a little scent, I put some on and the first bite I got the fish was hooked pretty deep, if I would have waited a second I believe he weould have tried to swallow it.

A good medium powered graphite rod should be as light if not slightly lighter than an ultra light fiber glass rod, and sensitivity isn't even close. If really could't make out any weight, and sensitivity difference from the old fiberglass as compared to graphite, well you must have used a very cheap graphite rod. A friend of mine swears by glass for his cranking needs and keeps telling me I'm missing the boat but everytime I pick his glass rod up it feels like it weighs 2 or 3 times as much as my current cranking rod. If you tried a good modern stick, you would understand as it isn't even close when it comes to being light weight and sensitive.

Go with a 6'8" to 6'10" Medium powered, fast action rod, this will give you the a little extra length for making longer casts with weightless plastics and still be within a good jerkbait length without getting too long.

If you look on Amazon you can find the Fenwick Smallmouth Elite Tech spinning rods for a little over $80, it is a fantastic rod that is a great deal even at full retail. The 6'9" M-XF would work as it has an extensive range in lure weight from 1/8oz to 3/4oz, it handles small baits as if it was made for it but I have thrown 6" Slug-o baits with it and it has a ton of power, in fact those 6" baits weren't any problem to throw on it, like sometimes to use a bigger bait on an underpowered rod you need to lob cast the bait to keep the rod from breaking, well not so with this rod. I believe it will give the best of both worlds as a rod that can fish finesse techinques with small jigs and tubes to throwing 3/8oz spinnerbaits and heavier texas rigs. Check it out.

The explaination is vague but essentially correct. The smaller blades have less drag so you can reel them faster and less drag means less torque so the baits won't roll at higher speeds like a lot of store bought spinnerbaits do. Same thing in reverse, the bigger blades have more surface area so they natually have more drag and more drage means more torque so the blades spin at slower speeds. The depth works off the same priciple, the smaller blades don't give much lift to a bait so it can stay deeper at a normal pace were the bigger blades have more lift so based on the same speed the bigger bladed bait will lift higher in the water than the smaller bladed bait. I hope this explaination makes sense to you.

I do occasionally paint blades but I do it for others, I haven't noticed a difference with more or less fish using painted blades but in certain circumstances I believe it helps. I power paint my baits and the blades, the only thing I do is strip the lacquer off ot the ones with it on and after they are painted I'll put a thin coat of epoxy over the blade to help keep it from chipping. I use both solid and metallic colors and here are some samples.