smalljaw67

Most people believe bucktail is hollow, only a small portion of hair at the bottom of the tail is hollow. Deer belly hair is hollow, and bucktail has very little action, it is only the tips of the hair that really move. The main reason bucktail is loved as a hair jig is because no matter how you tie it, when it is in the water it creates a perfect minnow profile. Bucktail will move when fished aggressively but it isn't as fluid as other materials, craft fur and marabou tend to have a breathing or pulsing type action as the material tends to flare out when stopped. I just wanted to put that out there as it is a common misconception.

I'm a fan of all different kinds for different reasons but if I had to choose it would be the Xcalibur one knockers which is now Booyah and I have used them since they changed brands so I don't know if they are the same.

If you have an area with good ventilation you'll be fine. The way most people get lead poisoning is through ingestion so don't eat, drink, or smoke while working with lead and make sure to wash your hands. The melting pots used will get your lead to about 900 degrees when turned up full but 5 or 6 is usually what is need and that will get the lead to around 725. This temp is important, the reason is that a lot fear of breathing in lead, it isn't going to happen because lead has to reach well over 1200 degrees to vaporize and become airborne, so if you use safety glasses, hot mill gloves, and have a good ventilated area to work in you should be fine. I also recommend cotton pants and long sleeve shirt, cotton won't melt if you accidently splash hot lead on your clothes, cotton blends with synthetics can, and will melt and stick to your skin.

I use mono with 2 exceptions, the first is heavy flipping in dirty water and for frog fishing and they get braid with no leader. There are good monofilament lines now, some with less stretch than fluorocarbon and better handling than fluorocarbon and abrasion resistance that is as good as fluorocarbon. There is only 1 advantage to fluorocarbon that I can actually see, and that is the fact it sinks allowing you to get down deeper with slightly less weight but for the most part I don't feel disadvantaged with good mono. I'm a "don't knock it until you try it" type of angler, I've tried braid and fluorocarbon extensively and it just wasn't for me, I don't like having to tie leaders and I hate the knot strength of fluorocarbon.

The reason the crankin' stick is a "fast" action is because of where the flex of the rod is. The cranking sticks are fast but they are a glass composite so it is still very forgiving like most other cranking rods. The major difference is where the rod is going to hit the backbone, it will be fast for a glass rod but believe me, if it was a graphite rod it would be a moderate to a moderate fast action.

The Supreme is a magnesium framed reel with a sealed drag, it is a better reel. That said, the President is the only graphite framed reel that I would recommend because it has stood the test of time, I swear every guy in our club has one that is 10 years old and still working well.

http://fish.shimano.com/content/sac-fish/en/home/customer-service/warranty-info.html Read the line that says "Do I need a receipt to make a warranty claim with Shimano", it states that Shimano will not warranty products purchased through online auction sites. It says authorized dealers will have a brick and mortar shop, like American Legacy but independent dealers that only have an ebay store will not get warranty service as the origins cannot be traced. The reason why is because when the reels are deemed seconds, the product code located on the bar code of the box is removed from their system.

http://fish.shimano.com/content/sac-fish/en/home/customer-service/warranty-info.html Read the line that says "Do I need a receipt to make a warranty claim with Shimano", it states that Shimano will not warranty products purchased through online auction sites. It says authorized dealers will have a brick and mortar shop, like American Legacy but independent dealers that only have an ebay store will not get warranty service as the origins cannot be traced. The reason why is because when the reels are deemed seconds, the product code located on the bar code of the box is removed from their system.

Spinnerbaits are my favorite bait but in certain situations a chatterbait and swim jig have taken its place. I use to use downsized spinnerbaits in clear water, 1/4oz models with small blades and translucent skirts retrieved at a fast pace, but now a 1/4oz swim jig with a grub or small swim bait trailer can be reeled slower and produce more strikes, it is that scenario that a swim jig has replaced a spinnerbait for me for the most part. In dingy water with less than 1' visibility I would use the single large Colorado blade spinnerbait slow rolled to get fish to find and react but the chatterbait does a much better job, it is more compact and has more thump at the same speeds as the spinnerbait. Now normal stained conditions for me the spinnerbait still is the supreme lure, but when there are others throwing it or the fish are a little tighter to cover, well it is nice to have alternatives that work as well but are slightly different.

The GLX redesign made the rods better, the problem was they pushed the price right inline with the NRX. So if you wanted a GLX and had the money to drop that much on a rod, what is another hundred dollars or less if you catch sales?

I believe they made the mold the right way. I too think the heavier sizes are useless but there are so many anglers that want a heavy head with a heavy hook, I honestly never realized there were so many who don't know what finesse fishing is. That said, the hook the mold is based on is a great choice, the size 1 Owner 5313 is stout enough to hold up to heavier line without bending out while it is sharp and light enough to get a good hook set with light line. While I would have liked to see a smaller cavity in place of the 1/4oz size, I don't think it could have been done in that design with that hook, simply not enough lead but I really like the 1/16oz and 3/32oz sizes myself.

If you get a bad reel from BPS or Cabela's you take it back and get store credit or exchange, if you get a bad one on ebay you will have issues. As I've said in my previous post, my buddy got a bad reel from ebay, it was not the sellers fault but he told him to send it in for warranty work. Guess what? The warranty didn't apply because the serial number was removed from their system because the reel was found to have a defect or was returned, that was all that he was told and they did offer to fix it at a lower cost but he still had to pay for it along with the shipping and then it ended up costing him about the same as if he bought it at retail. I'd have no problem with buying a good reel for cheap on ebay but I understand that most of the time when buying from a store there that I'm getting a discontinued model, or one that was refurbished or blemished.

A few years back Shimano warned customers that warranties would not cover reels purchased on auction sites. A lot of regular stores run ebay stores as well, but you typically don't see the dramatic discount you often find and there is a reason. If you ever saw FFO, fisherman's factory outlet, you'll notice they sell both new and "refurbished" reels and rods and a lot of discontinued models at big savings, well a similar thing happens on ebay. A lot of manufacturers won't bother selling "refurbished" reels back to the public, instead they sell them to warehouse vendors who sell them on ebay at huge discounts, it doesn't mean the reels are bad but you are getting factory seconds, blemished reels or refurbished reels most of the time and if you don't believe me consider this. Brands like Shimano and Daiwa, off the top of my head, have what is called 'MAP" pricing, they do it so one dealer can't undercut another dealer to keep the playing field level, undercut and you won't get anymore product, simple, so how do the sellers on ebay get away with it?? They sell refurbished reels and because they buy factory direct "blind lots" meaning they don't pick and choose but just by a pallet of tackle as a "lot" they can get away with not having to say they are selling a refurbished reel. I asked a few people about the legality of that but I was told from multiple sources that the steep discount is basically telling you that you are buying a factory second or blemish, or discontinued item and because these vendors buy like they do and are not authorized dealers, they are allowed to charge whatever they want but it has to be at least 30% off in order for them to say the price is low enough that the buyer knows the reel is not a first rate. Those serial numbers are recorded and if you need warranty service, well you may find that certain brands won't honor the warranty, I know this first hand as it happened to my regular fishing partner. Now that doesn't mean private sellers who won reels or got gifts or came about the reel for cheap and wants to sell for cash, this is usually stores that run an ebay store that regularly sell all kinds of tackle and at huge savings, you are getting a good deal and nothing wrong with the reels but they were found to have problems and then repaired and sold off at auction. How do I know this you may ask, well my buddy's father-in-law has a stand at a flea market and he gets invites from warehouses that have product to sell, and they bid on lots that are set up as assorted tackle items, the items were purchased from the factory by the warehouse and that is what happens to returned product, when a reel goes back to the factory it gets repaired and then sold to a warehouse which sells on an auction site or it sells to small flea market vendors and that is how the price is so low.

I actually tie a jig I call a "pseudo tube" that works really well and I tie it on a 1/6oz or 3/32oz head as it is an ultra finesse presentation.

I fish a river that is know for the numbers of large smallmouth (river smallmouth are smaller than their lake cousins) and one of the reasons is the river is a crawfish factory. We have serval different species but the main one is what is called the "common brown" crawfish. They will get orange claw tip starting in late May or early June and the orange will get brighter as the Summer progresses. We don't see the blue craws like the one from the article but we do get them like the picture Fishballer06 posted, and that is the molting craw. When they molt they are an easy meal and they will get a blue tint and that is why colors like green pumpkin blue with a hint of orange often catch both numbers as well as big fish. The deal with that color pattern is timing, while craws all molt at different times, we find at certain times you have large numbers of craws molting around the same time, when we flip over rocks for a few minutes and find 4 or 5 craws that are in that molting stage, that is when a green pumpkin/blue tube or a finesse jig with the same colors will be the best color option.

The jig is the easiest lure to fish yet the most difficult to learn. The reason is because it isn't a numbers bait, it draws bigger fish on average and there are those days when the fish are keying in on smaller forage and the jig needs to be downsized. Here is what I recommend for anglers just learning jig fishing, start with a smaller jig or finesse style, a Siebert Finesse jig, Eakins jig or a Strike King Bitsy Bug. Stay within the 3/16oz and 5/16oz sizes and use a simple Zoom super chunk trailer and thread it on so that only 1/2" to 3/4" of the chunk is beyond the skirt at most. Fish it around light cover, drag it on rocky shorelines and fish it slow around boat docks or brush or any shallow cover that is available. The smaller size of the jig will garner more strikes but also attract big fish as well, and when you catch 5 or 6 fish in a short period of time you'll gain confidence in the presentation, you'll also understand what bites feel like and you will see which areas produced more bites and which areas produced bigger bites and it will give you perspective on jig fishing.

Great post!!! When I read in Bass Master that he preferred the Gopher heads because they use a size #4 and a #6 hook I'll admit that that shocked me. I like a size #2 hook, but a #4 is what I would consider too small and a #6 is pan fish territory. That said, I can understand it, but it just goes to show you how anglers minds work as the guy is out for recreation. That is the other thing, when guys say they want a head with a heavy hook because they want to use the rig in a tournament and so they need to bring the fish in fast, well that is the polar opposite of the purpose of the rig. While you can and will catch big fish on it, it is more because of the law of averages, catching more fish means you'll eventually come across larger fish but on average the majority of the fish you catch will be smaller that throwing a large bait in heavy cover. I applaud you for putting that up, we as anglers sure know how to take a simple approach and make it complicated!!

I used those!!!! It looks like the Burke Bass assassin, they worked like a jitterbug, not the same sound and a more subtle motion. They were around in the 80s.

The Pointer 78 and Luck-E-Strike RC STX in the small version. Those two work incredible in the upper 30s and low 40s, past 45 degrees I go up in size to the 100 models. I'd also include the Shadow Rap and Smithwick Rogue elite 8 for the mid 40s and up. I wouldn't go as far as to say the LC Pointer out produces any JB ever made, they all have different triggering qualities that have a time and place. As a matter of fact, I have used a regular Rapala X-Rap and out fished 2 friends who were both using Pointers, and it has happened more than once, and I happen to be a fan of the Pointer, specifically the 78 and the 100. They all have a time and place and I've witnessed cheap baits crush fish while high end models didn't get as much as a sniff and vise-versa, so having a variety they run the proper depth is a must.

I think most of their jigs have vertical line tie hooks, perhaps you mean flat eye or horizontal line tie.

Green pumpkin/blue, and black/purple.

I found 2 of the XCS100s in citrus shad at Cabela's 2 years ago and at $4.88 I bought both. I figured I'd use it as a stained water color but it turns out that it works really well in clear water conditions too!!

Mojo rigged worm or brush hog, it doesn't get much slower and gets through grass well and catches fish like crazy!!

The finesse type jigs like those and the Siebert Finesse jigs are killer to drag around secondary points and bare banks during the prespawn. Water temps in the upper 40s to mid 50s is the time to drag those along the bottom, especially bare banks with rock and sun hitting the bank. The shallows warm up which gets the craws moving and the prespawn fish begin cruising looking for them, that kind of tactic works well on my waters.

The Elite Tech Walleye is the rod you would want but if that is out of your price range I'd go with the HMG. I know a couple guys that use only high end rods that swear by the Elite Tech Walleye rods for fishing hair jigs and grubs, I was told the action is perfect for light wire hook but it has the backbone to deal with large fish. That said, I am a fan of Fenwick rods and the lowest model I like is the HMG, the handle is thinner than the previous model but it is also a touch lighter, if you are going with Fenwick and don't want to go past the $100 mark, the HMG is the way to go.