smalljaw67

I'll echo Bluebasser86, a high quality ball bearing swivel is expensive. A high quality swivel like a Worth or Sampo along with a high end finished blade alone can actually cost more than a finished jig.

I know I'm probably wrong but it may be an OK spring loaded lure from the 70s or a type of spoon called the "noweed spoon".

There are a lot of bladed jigs (chatterbaits) out there that are better than the original.

When bluegills are making beds until they are done spawning, my number one bait is the Livetarget bluegill crank in Matte finish. I like the 1/2oz shallow version, it gets to 3' on 12# line and you fish it right off the spawning flat, it seems that is where the bass hold waiting for passing bluegills. My second choice is a bluegill colored swim jig, and then a spinnerbait or chatterbait. If I need some finesse I'll go with a small swim bait rigged on a light jig head or a wacky rigged stick worm in watermelon with a chartreuse tail.

If you are looking G.Loomis then the Jerkbait series is perfect. I retired my 752C jerkbait rod when I started using the Lucky Craft Pointer 100, it could handle them but the 5/8oz weight of the lure made me have to take some care casting as the rod could be overloaded on a back cast. That said, if you are using baits in the 1/4oz to 3/8oz range the 752C or 812C would work great for both, but if you are using baits that are a little heavier the 753C or 813C is a good choice, what I like is the rod has the perfect tip, it is a fast action but the tip is soft but not too soft, you can work a popper or jerkbait pretty hard if you like and no tip recovery like cranking rods have but when you hook up the rod is forgiving in the tip section with good all around backbone. Another option if you like the 6'9" length is the Hammer rod in a MH, it is a mod fast action but it can handle smaller baits as well as something in the 5/8oz range easily and while it is a mod-fast in action it isn't too soft.

I'm a firm believer in their baits for the last few years and the swim bait just flat out catches fish. It isn't the same as the Rage swimmer, it is similar to a Keitech Easy Shiner in that it offers a pronounced side to side kick even at ultra slow speeds and a nice body roll. I like the Striker better as it is 3.75" while the Easy Shiner you have to get either a 3" or 4" and I like swim bait in the 3.5" to 4" range with 3.75" being like perfect. It has enough bulk as a swim jig and chatterbait trailer but a small enough profile for use as a finesse type bait. I've done real well with the River Rock Strikers in cold water fishing them slow along the bottom similar to how I fish a tube.

The cheaper imported 3D eyes work but the adhesive is really bad and will need glue to hold them in place. The best bet is to sped a little more and get WTP eyes, the adhesive is extremely good and will hold without glue or epoxy. Barlow's tackle, Jann's Netcraft, or Lure Parts Online all see the WTP brand eyes in all the different sizes.

You'd have to be specific with the brand and model of the swim jig. The reason why is because the eye size isn't standard, Dirty Jigs makes a No-Jack and a California swim jig in 1/2oz, but each has a different size eye, the California uses a 3/16" while the No-Jack uses a 5/32". So tell me what brand and models and I will give you a size to try, or you can contact the manufacturer. Better yet, if you can read a tape measure you can measure the eye socket, if the socket is 3/16" get a 5/32", if is 1/4" then get the 3/16", and please do not take offense, I know a lot of guys that can't read a tape measure. I asked a friend to help me with my porch, I held the tape measure where I wanted the new wood to start and he gave me the measurement where the old wood ended, 10 feet 6" and 1 line under 1/2 ??????? He didn't know it was 7/16" or anything other than 1/4", 1/2", and 3/4" so when I asked him where 3/8" was on the tape he asked me how many lines is that, and so I spent the afternoon teaching him fractions and explaining the lines are 1/16" apart, it is good I didn't have him reading the bottom of the tape that has lines spaced at 1/32".

That happens when the fish are slapping or swiping at the fluke. What works when that happens is to either rig with a treble or use a floating style hard jerkbait and work it fast, jerk, jerk, jerk, 1 second pause and repeat. I will also tell you that in my experience it happens more with the weighted version but in heavy current you sometimes don't have a choice. I use the Owner Twistlock Light, a 2/0 for the 4" version and a 4/0 for the 5" and it has been the best fluke hook I could have asked for but when the fish swipe at that bait it is very hard to get a hook into them, lately anglers have been putting rivet bodies in the nose of flukes and swim baits and then threading the line through the rivet body and then tying to a split ring with a treble hook attached. The treble hook will get a good number of those fish that are just swiping, but for me, a floating Rogue, or Bagley Minnow B worked really fast will get the job done.

Now I understand why so many have problems with bending hooks on jerkbaits.

Go to Tackle Underground and see if you can get help there. That is where you may find which colors and in what amounts you need to create that color. I'm guessing it is yellow and a little black or maybe a little brown.

What do you mean by "falling apart" ? Are the strands coming out or are they torn and pieces missing?

I will give you a different answer than the rest. It probably wasn't the head or hook that caused the problem because you did state you have decent hook up ratios before. I've run into this problem myself, I make my own shaky heads and I use them from 1/16oz up to 3/8oz with anything from a 2/0 up to a 5/0 but my most common size is 1/8oz with a 3/0 hook. The only time I use the 3/8oz is when we fish with big worms, 10" power worms and then it is the 3/8oz with a 5/0 hook, we fish these on points in 12' to 25' of water and it produces good fish but when my buddy showed me how to do this I would lose about half the fish I was catching. I switched hooks and even dropped down in size and no change, it wasn't until my buddy landed a fish that I learned what was happening. The fish he landed was hooked in the corner of the mouth, that was odd since we normally hook them in the roof of the mouth, that is when my buddy, who is a better angler than myself, told me that the fish didn't inhale the bait, it just picked it up off the bottom. I asked how he knew this and he told me it was the way it bit, with smaller worms they can inhale the entire bait but with large worms, especially when they aren't active, they tend to pick them off the bottom with their mouth rather than inhale so you either pull the head out of their mouth, or you don't get a good hook in them and you lose it. The funny thing to me was I always envisioned that they pick it up perpendicular to the hook but my buddy told me that they don't always approach the bait from behind, if they get it from the side you end up with the hook point facing the corner of the mouth rather than the roof of the mouth and if they get it like that you may not always get them, especially if they don't have the bait deep. So what I did from that point was to pay attention to how a bite felt, and when I would land a fish I'd see how it was hooked and if the bite feels different I kind of wait an extra 2 seconds to set the hook, it has really helped but you still lose one every now and again but nothing like it was when I started using large worms on the shaky head.

3.5" to 4" is what I like on the smaller swim jigs. I like using swim baits and it seems like on a 1/4oz swim jig a 4.5" bait makes it unbalanced and I miss fish and a 3" bait just doesn't have the right bulk to really draw the fish, it works but not as well as something 3.5" or 4".

I only use braid for heavy flipping and frogs and never felt the need for line conditioner. If you use fluorocarbon I'd say it is almost required and on certain mono lines the same thing applies. I've used reel magic and the KVD line and lure and to be honest I can't see how anything can actually be better than the KVD L&L. To be fair I have not tried the reel snot but with the way the KVD L&L performs I see no reason to switch but if the reelsnot works for you then have at it.

For me, for most of my square bill and shallow crank fishing a mod/fast is my choice. I do however like to "finesse crank" in the shallow water, especially post front and the dog days of summer, and for that I use a medium light power rod with a moderate action. Day in and day out though the majority of shallow crank fish is done with a mod-fast action as I'm pulling the cranks through sparse weeds and over brush and off of boulders and rocks so a little extra backbone makes it easier to get the lure through the cover.

Are you spooling with straight braid with no backing? If you perhaps the line is slipping on the spool.

I use a square bill and a spinnerbait as search baits. Electronics eliminates the need to use a lure to find fish in deep water but in shallow water it doesn't help a lot because you are seeing only small areas. Also, if you have pressure on your water an active sonar ping will shut the fish down, again, this happens in my home waters because of pressure and water clarity. Search baits help when you are faced with a lot of cover and are trying to find a pattern, like finding a backwater area with stumps, weed beds and boulder flats. The fish may not be actively chasing but a lot of times I can get one to turn on a square bill of boil on a spinnerbait and then I have an idea as to what cover the fish are holding. Sometimes they are just scattered and if they are eating the search bait I'll just stick with it. A lipless cranks works well during the post spawn period in my waters, it covers a lot of water but it also gets them to strike but just like fishing a topwater, which is also a good search bait, I have another rod rigged with a Senko or tube to fish spots that I had a fish react to my lipless crank. I understand electronics eliminates the need because you can see the structure, cover, and the fish but in my home water you won't mark fish because they don't school up in deep water, in the summer the oxygen levels are nonexistent past 15' so the fish ten to stay shallow and that means early on we use a search bait to identify spots the fish are holding and if they aren't really hitting those baits at least we have an idea of the cover they are favoring allowing us to pick those spots apart with a jig or worm.

I see a lot of anglers here looking for good tackle but are on a restrictive budget, and I include myself in this segment. I lost buying power after I became sick and was no longer able to do the kind of work I use to do, so in order to get the best bang for my buck I developed a little strategy to help. The very first thing you need to do is sign up for emails from all the major online stores, TW, American Legacy, another site, Fish USA, etc., you will get notice of sales before they happen. The next thing you need to do is pay attention to ICAST by watching the videos from here or places like TW or Tackle Direct and make note of the things you need. ICAST is important because when a rod or reel series gets refreshed you will find last years model being sold at discount at all the major stores. Once you start seeing the discounts on the things you need stay patient, often the first discounts will be small but as the new stuff begins arriving room will need to be made and the discounts will get very good sometimes more than 50% difference. The one drawback is you can wait too long and end up missing out but that only happens with certain items. Restrict your buying to sale times and make note of prices before hand, places like Cabela's will often have sale items that look good but in truth they simply made the original price higher to make it look as if it was on sale, I've caught both them and Bass Pro doing this multiple times. By saving your money and only buying during sale times and by watching ICAST you will end up with better tackle for cheap, every year I end up with at least 1 killer deal, a few years back I got a nice spinning rod from American Legacy, a Lews HM85, the retail on them was $199.99 and I ended up paying $79.99 because Lews was revamping the entire line. I've also filled up a lot of crankbait boxes with the same system, and this is why you sign up for the emails, yes you will get a few extra emails every month but it will be worth it. A lot of these places will get a lot of certain items, items that were hot and dsales have cooled down and you'll get an email about an impromptu sale, things like Lucky Craft square bills for $7.99 or the Xcalibur XCS when they were being discontinued and they were reduced to $4.99 in a lot of places. There are even bigger discounts at times but you need to have the money and be ready for when it happens and you do that by trying to avoid impulse shopping. Almost all of my rod purchases come in the late winter, when stores are getting ready for an increase in spring demand so some older inventory is drastically reduced. And I also buy at the end of summer, late August through September, this is when products from ICAST begin to show up so stores need room for new stuff and depending on the item your savings can be massive, to give an example one of my square bill boxes cost me $142 roughly to fill but when I added up the retail costs it would have been $400 and change, baits that are normally $8 - $12 that I grabbed for $4 - $8, and last week our local Cabela's had a sale on the discontinued Clackin' Crank from Rapala, the square bills were being sold for $3.99 when that bait retailed for $9.99 at one time, it was a great buy for those that at fans of that series. So that is how I go about purchasing my tackle nowadays, when I get a gift card or some extra cash it wants to burn a hole in my pocket but I put it aside and wait, yes it is painful at first but if you can resist you will be rewarded with more and better tackle, good luck.

The problem is 2-fold. The first thing is the density, the ultra steel and tin don't have the same density as lead so comparable weight sizes in those forms tend to be pretty large. The second is cost of raw material, I purchase hard lead through a place called Rotometals, lead is around $2.00 - $2.25 per pound most places, the tin/bismuth alloy that is often used is $14.00 - $14.75 per pound. Right there is a cost difference of 7 times as much, and buying in bulk only lowers it slightly and we all know Tungstun is better but that is even higher in cost because the manufacturing process is more involved along with material cost. So I hate to be the bearer of bad news but unless lead is banned in every state, or a majority of them, then there won't be many alternatives and the costs associated with them are still going to be high for quite some time. While there is increased demand the simple fact is that it isn't even close to be able to effectively lower the price, and my guess is that even is it would end up lower, it will still be a minimum 3 to 4 times the price of lead so having something even close to the price of a lead jig will probably never happen.

I'll echo some of the other sentiments here in that you don't need a rod like that for bobber fishing. Good quality rods offer distinct advantages like added sensitivity, and light weight performance but if just casually tossing spinnerbaits or in-line spinners and bobber fishing you won't realize much of the benefits of a good rod. If I were you I'd look into something like a Berkley E-Motion, it is a good rod that is $80, this will give you a good performing rod that you can learn how the advantages of a better rod can help yet it is still under $100 and if you start learning new techniques like shaky head, Texas rigging, or drop shot, the rod will fit the bill nicely and you won't need to upgrade just to get more feel. That rod is not the lightest or most sensitive but it will be good and then if you feel like you need better down the road as your fishing progresses you can upgrade. The thing about a rod like that is it won't be out of place fishing a bobber or a spinnerbait, I think it is the answer to your current needs with the ability to fish more techniques without the need to have to get a better rod until you really want to expand on your fishing.

I use braid only for heavy flipping and frogs and both have no leaders. That said, the frogs are on top and in weeds and the flipping is in heavily stained water so the leader matters not. Now, I know Florida guys and other parts of the county there is np problem with line shyness in fish, but fish for smallmouth up my way with braid and any less than a 2' leader you may as well try to catch them with your hands, you'll have more success. The same thing with largemouth in some of the spring fed lakes, these aren't large lakes but the stay relatively clear and get a decent amount of fishing pressure. In these waters you can't fish straight braid, even when the fish are aggressive it matters. The most success we have with straight braid is with fast moving baits and even then, I had my buddy 7-1, I had 21 fish and he totaled 3 in 6 hours, he broke off and lost his leader on his first cast and didn't bring any leader material with him and so we decided to see what difference it made. I got bit quick and established a patter so my buddy followed and we used the same bait in the same color, and my buddy tried changing speed, tried fishing a different depth and while he managed 3 it wasn't until we found a good spot. 7-1 isn't so bad but at one point I had 14 and he didn't get a bite, it was when we found a small stump field with weeds is when he finally was able to catch. That may sound far fetched but that wasn't a fluke, it happens all the time in the waters I fish, guys will be cutting off lures and tying on different ones and when that leader gets down to about 16" or so you really see a sharp decline in bites, and when you get to 12" the bite will almost be nonexistent and when you go back to a 3' leader it is like a switch flipped on, you will begin to get bit again. The thing I'm describing happens on pressured water that is clear most of the time and on waters with smallmouth that are also clear, I hate fluorocarbon but you can usually fish heavier fluorocarbon and have no problem but if I go over 8# mono my bite drops off just as if I was using braid. So depending on your water it can really make a difference, especially if the fish are pressured, the water is clear, or both.

I don't see any blades, in fact I don't even know what that is a picture of. I will say this, if you are bending a size #3 French blade by smacking it on the water, and yes I know how it is done, then you got really thin blades or your wire is heavy and you are really smacking it with a lot of force but I would think the wire would bend before the blade. Where did you buy the blades and are they Chinese blades purchased for cheap on ebay? I ask that because I have seen some really horrible willow blades a friend purchased there, extremely cheap but poor quality. Good quality blades are made from brass so they can be bent but being that they are able to move on a clevis makes it hard to visualize how the blade is getting bent unless it is extremely thin and that is why I ask about where the blades where purchased, I have blades from Hidebrandt, Hagens, Worth, and Lakeside and I could not see a size #3 French blade bending by smacking it on the water.

It all depends on the situation and water temp but the last 2 years black/purple and brown/purple has really been good. we caught a mixed bag a week ago and a small spring fed lake, 4 chain pickerel, 3 largemouth and 7 smallmouth along with a 19" rainbow trout. Yes, a rainbow trout hit a 3/16oz black/purple hair jig with a tiny paca chunk trailer, go figure.

a size 1 or 1/0 should work.