smalljaw67

I 'm probably wrong but the more I thought about this the more I believe it might have been a worm not many are familiar with. It was a regular worm with a sickle tail made by Luck-E-Strike in a color called firecracker, back then that Cpampany didn't have yellow in their logo, it was a simple white background with black or sometimes red lettering with the worm on the hook that you see today. There are a few places that have gone under or were bought out but I can still remember the Luck-E-Strike worms because Guido Hiddon and Rick Clunn were sponsored by them at that time.

I make micro jigs from 1/32oz up to 3/16oz and for the larger ones which use a 1/0 hook I like the Conquistador finesse pro craw as a trailer. For the smaller baits in the 1/8oz and under I like using a Venom lures Ron Yurko finesse chunk. I'm guessing you saw Ike's video on those, I didn't know there was one until I got a bunch of phone calls and emails of guys wanting micro jigs. So now that that is out there, there is another trailer that works really good but expensive because it is a Japanese deal, the Norie's Bite Guts, killer on my 1/16oz silicone and rubber jigs but again, very expensive.

That is the spawning temp in my area and when the water hits that mark, spinnerbaits and shallow cranks produce but the only two topwaters are a wake bait and a prop bait. A popper would be a good option too but something about prop baits when the fish are moving in to start bedding, I think the sound of the blades and the small commotion resemble a pod of small minnows taking off and it just drives them nuts. I've had fish swirl and not commit on the top around that water temp and then I'd throw a wake bait and it would get smoked!!! It would be almost like they hit it to kill it rather than eat it as this time so you do get violent hits but you tend to either miss, lose, or hook on the outside of the mouth more than normal during this period.

The Trigger X 5" Spade Tail Worm was a killer on a 1/16oz or 1/8oz shaky head in stained water and the Big Moe Lizard was one of the best C-rig baits I tried but not much experience from the other baits.

Both Gulfcaptain and WIGuide are spot on when it comes to cranking rods. A lot of what you use will be dictated by the conditions and water you fish. For example, when I fish square bills for river smallmouth, I know that I'm mainly going to be using 1/4oz to 3/8oz baits and I'll be bouncing them off of rock in fairly open water so I use my 6'6" ML-M which is rated 1/4oz to 1/2oz. Now when I'm fishing larger square bills that are 1/2oz and heavier and I'm ripping them through cover I use a 6'10" MH-MF because the bait will need to be pulled free from limbs and ripped off of grass so you need a little more backbone but still benefit from some extra flex in the rod to fight the fish. So I'd say that if you are throwing square bills and lipless cranks in open water, choose a cranking rod that works with the lure weights you want to throw in a moderate taper, if you feel you may need some backbone, try a mod-fast rod out. If you rip lipless cranks out of grass then the MH-F will work but you need to keep mind that the rod is stiff and it can cost you fish so you may want to loosen the drag after hooking up. The M-M rod will work with your other cranks, just make sure the rod you get covers the lure weight range you want to throw, you don't want the M-M if you plan on throwing 3/4oz and 1oz cranks or if you are fishing deep divers like DT 16s and DD 22s. For reels, I use a 6.3:1 and a 7.1:1 for most of my shallow and lipless cranking needs.

It was about 7 or 8 years ago I guess, I was watching an episode of North American Fishing Club and the lady angler, Karen Savik , or whatever her name was, came on saying her line choice for the technique they were using was fluorocarbon because it doesn't stretch and I laughed out loud. The reason I was laughing is that most pros and T.V. personalities were spouting this and it was only like a few days before that show was on that I went and hit a lake with my buddy after work for a quick fishing trip. We were on the bank and he just got some fluorocarbon line and he got snagged and I watched him tighten down the drag and then hold on to the spool of his casting reel and start backing up. He must have walked back about 4' and I asked him is the snag was moving and he says no, it is a stump, and that is when I saw his no stretch fluorocarbon stretch. I told him it would stretch, I had tried Seaguar Carbon Pro when I was on the boat and knots were a pain, it liked to jump off my spinning reels and it did indeed stretch to the point that I went back to mono and never looked back. The only time I see fluorocarbon as an advantage is when fishing deep and needing to get on the bottom, fluorocarbon does a good job with letting you use a little less weight, and I had 1 trip in which me and a friend were fishing and he was killing me. We both were fishing Erie Darters on a 3/16oz jig head and I was getting spanked but when I realized his bait was staying on the bottom because of the fluorocarbon, I switched out to a 1/4oz jig head and I began catching fish but that is a time when FC does work but for me I like mono.

I tie and use a lot of craft fur jigs, they work well but tying them is different. Some guys hate using it because of the under fur but not all craft fur us created equal. Have you tied with buck tail before? I ask because your jig looks good, very good wraps and you say you are using the craft fur to practice. If you haven't used buck tail before, practicing with craft fur will actually hurt more than help, you learn muscle memory and wrapping skills with craft fur but the material handles so much easier than buck tail. The hardest part for beginners with buck tail is they don't get it tight enough, I've taught a lot of anglers around my area to tie and the most common issue I find with the first couple jigs is I can pull the hair out easy, buck tail has to be tied a little tighter than other materials. Anyway, you're off to a good start but it does look like you've been tying a few jigs before.

It depends on you and what your needs are. I like the Plano soft sider 3700 series when I go in my buddy's boat because it lets me take a nice amount of tackle and keep it organized. Now if you don't have a lot of tackle perhaps a 3600 would be better but the "right amount of pockets" is something only you can figure out as we don't know how much or how little the amount of tackle you plan to carry.

I use 2 brands of mono now and I would try a new brand every season on at least one set up to find the line that I liked the most. The 2 brands are Berkley Big Game, and I use it for my cranking set ups and Spider Wire Ultimate Mono, not to be mistaken for EZ Mono. The Spider Wire Ultracast ultimate Mono is thin, the 10lb has the same diameter as 8lb Big Game and it doesn't seem to stretch very much and has excellent abrasion resistance and knot strength, really pleased with it and I'm sticking with it. I use the 6lb and 8lb on spinning rods, the line does say optimized for casting reels but I found in 6lb and 8lb line with a spritz or two of KVD L&L that it handles fine, I'm really impressed with it.

The prop is pretty loud, I too thought it would be quiet like plastic buzz blades. Metal props have a distinct "Frrrrpppppprtttt" with metallic sound, this polycarbonate blade has a deeper "Brrrrrrrrrppppp" with a loud "hum" is what I would call it. I remember the first pull my buddy gave to the bait, I looked at him and told him it is going to get smoked as I never heard that sound and it was louder than I expected. He gives it a quick pull-pull and it wasn't stopped for a second and WOOSH!!!!! What is neat is it will call fish in dirty water, but the translucent patterns, or prism colors as Yo-Zuri calls them, work great in clear water, I've been using in situations that call for walking baits with a high success rate but every fish has hit it to eat it so far.

So you know, the tapered tube jig has 2 molds that use different hooks, there is one that calls for the Eagle Claw 570 which is a 90 degree Aberdeen style hook, and there is a mold that calls for the Eagle Claw 410 which is a 60 degree heavy wire hook. Since you didn't specify which one of the tapered tube jig molds you are going to use, I'll give you alternatives for each. For the 570, you can use the Eagle Claw 570 Black Platinum, the 500BP lil nasty sickle, the Matzuo 9014, Mustad 32746 and 32756, Owner 5318 and the Gamakatsu 114, there are more but these are the most common. For the mold that uses the 410 you can use the Eagle Claw 786BP or the 111BP, the Mustad 32786, Gamakatsu 291, and the Owner 5304 deep throat. There are others but this is a list of the best of them, good luck with what you want to do. One last thing, if you aren't sure which mold you are getting, think of the tackle you use to fish your tubes with, if you use casting rods with 20lb braid and a leader then get the 60 degree heavy hook version, if you fish spinning rods with light line, 10lb braid with 6 or 8lb fluorocarbon leaders of straight fluorocarbon or mono in the 6lb to 8lb class, then the Aberdeen model will be better.

Which ball head jig? I have 3 different ball head jig molds and none of them will take that hook. The only ones are the collarless steelhead ball jig molds, the STL-8S-A and the STL-8M-A, other than those two molds the rest need to be modified. The reason is the wire diameter of the hook and the shorter hook eye length, take a look at your molds and I'll bet those are the models of jig you have, any others from those two will need to be modified in order to fit the 32833 hook. Or perhaps you mean the Mustad 32746 or 32756 hook, not that hook is a direct replacement for the 570 but the 32833 is a 2X strong hook, the size 6 in the 32833 has the same diameter as a size 1 in a 570, 3 sizes difference to get to the same wire diameter. The 1/0 32833 has a thicker wire than a 4/0 in a 570, so no, they don't fit without modification, I think you either have the right molds or you are mistaking the 32746 or 32756 for the 32833.

I got to fish with the Avid and Avid X side by side with the exact same models in each and I could not believe the difference between the two. In fact I called St. Croix customer service to find out if the blanks were the same and they told me they are the same. To me the Avid X feels more responsive, the action feels a touch crisper and I always thought the Avid was a nice rod but it wasn't better than my Elite Tech Smallmouth but the X, well that just doesn't feel or fish like the Avid. My buddy has a 7'ML-F Avid and he got the same model in the Avid X, I asked him why he had the same rod since the blanks are the same and he told me to try them out. When I fished the Avid for an hour and then the Avid X, I knew why he had them, it was like to completely different rod, to me the Avid X is a better rod and it is hard to believe a split grip with micro guides made it so different but it obviously did.

It has nothing to do with the new rods, well not entirely anyway. The way it works, and this is with all manufactures, is that when you buy a rod from an authorized dealer and you buy it on a sale price, it is assumed you either take the model that is on sale or don't buy it. If Dobyns was going to switch out your rod it would be devastating to them because every time they would improve the line anglers would buy up the discontinued rods at cheap prices no matter what the length, power and action and then trade them in for the newest rod in the power and action they want. The idea is that you got that rod at a sale price because it was an old model in a power and action you wanted to try, it felt light and Dobyns was willing to replace, but they didn't know you bought the rod on a deep discount, they assumed it was a full price purchase, had you told them you got it on sale and when you got it, they would have told you that you would have to pay an additional fee. So remember, when you buy a rod on sale, you are buying that length, power, and action and if you hope to swap it out with the manufacturer be prepared to pay the difference. Now, if you were sending the rod in on a warranty replacement, whatever fee Dobyns charges would have been what you pay but you'd also be getting the same length, power and action back so it wouldn't help anyway.

I'm old school and really thought there was no better prop bait than the Heddon Dying Flutter, I have a good stash of the discontinued wonder. Well 2 seasons ago a friend introduced me to the Yo-Zuri 3DB Prop, that bait is killer, it has a plastic prop that really throws water and it makes a noise unlike any I've heard before but the fish just hammer it. Right now I have caught close to 100 fish on it and have yet to miss one or lose one on it, when the fish hit it they mean it and try to eat it.

There are a number of different tube molds, the ones that take an Aberdeen style hook use an Eagle Claw 570, so you can use the Eagle Claw 500BP which is a sickle hook and just wicked sharp or you can use the Mustad 32746 or the 32756, or the Owner 5318. I never heard of a Mustad 32760 or 32762 so I can't help, but the Mustad 32833 won't fit without the mold being modified, for one the hook yey is shorter and the 2nd thing is it is a 2X strong hook so it is made with heavier wire. BTW, for heads that use the Eagle Claw 570, I use the L570BP which is the Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp model with the black platinum finish, I traded 1100 Mustad 32746 hook for 800 of the Eagle Claw L570BP, that hook is super sharp and strong for an Aberdeen style hook. I also like the 500BP lil nasty sickle hook and I use the Owner 5318 super needle point, and that is how much I like the new Eagle Claw Black Platinum series, I use it right along with the Owner hooks, it all depends on what I need the hook to do. So before you get down on Eagle Claw, you better take a closer look, the last 5 or 6 years their black platinum line has been gaining a lot of support as they are American made and very sharp and strong, they'll hold their own against any hook and have even surpassed Mustad in terms of quality, I've been making jigs and spinnerbaits for almost 20 years and I hated the old bronze Eagle Claws and I'm telling you, the new ones aren't those.

The least expensive that I've used and really like is the Storm Twitch Stick, they have great hooks out of the box and they are fish catchers. I found that the size 10 suspends pretty good, the smaller size 8 floats a little faster than what a suspending bait should so a single suspendot works well. They came out and were $4.99 but they put out some more colors and added to the cost, I have a dozen of them and I think they are awesome but they also have some heft at 5/8oz. Rogues are one of my favorites but there are so many models that it is hard to know what you should get, I recommend the Elite 8 and the Cabela's exclusive G-Finish rogue, they are between $5.99 and $6.99 most of the time and suspend well and are great fish catchers, the black glass and Tennessee Shad have been outstanding in clear water.

If there is smallmouth I'm throwing it, even in clear water!! I agree with Bluebasser though, if there is a little color to the water, clown is what I'm going with, something with that color that they have to hit it. Not all clown colors are the same, there are 3 different types, you have the Rogue style which is a gold chrome with white belly and red head, then there is the Rapala style and that is bright chartreuse with a little bit of clear on the side and a bright red head. Last is the Nishiki or LC clown pattern and it has a chartreuse back,silver sides and belly and a red head with red spots, and while all of them are a little different, they all work. slight stain or anytime smallmouth are involved.

The color "Gone" is what I have, you got silver so "gone" or "purple haze" would be what I would grab. The reason being is you have a baitfish imitator so it is natural, the purple haze and gone both have purple hues, purple is a color a lot of forage species, including shad, turn when they begin to die, it is a condition called thermal shock. I'll be adding "bud" next!!!!! Nice fish!!!!!!

It actually doesn't come in contact with the gill, it is in the mouth, but guys don't do it because it takes a few extra seconds. If the hole in the jaw would close it wouldn't be a big deal to me but every year I catch fish with holes in the bottom jaw, one fish I caught had 3 holes, because rather than try to get it in the hole that is there just puncture another. Remember, the hole is there to stay the next time you do that.

No, you don't sharpen the ends, they are designed to be threaded through the gill slit near the mouth just like a stringer. I always hated seeing guys puncture the lower jaw of a fish for a cull tag and I could never understand why someone didn't use a stringer clip in the first place.

No comparison, the Lews has an aluminum frame and is actually a little lighter. They did improve the Caenan but it still can't compete with the Lews at the same price point just for the fact of the aluminum frame.

I use braid for 2 things, frogs in slop and heavy flipping and the rest of my fishing is done with mono. Berkley Big Game is inexpensive but it performs well, it has some stretch but not bad and the abrasion resistance is fantastic. The other mono I like is the Spider Wire Ultimate Mono, it was advertised to have less stretch than other monos and have an excellent abrasion resistance while being thin. Well I'm on my second season of using it and I really like it, it has a little more memory than other mono but not as much as fluorocarbon and the 10lb is the same diameter as Big Game 8lb and for the memory all it needs is two spritzes of KVD L&L and you're good for the day. Yo-Zuri Hybrid is a softer line closer to mono than fluorocarbon, I haven't used it but I have never heard of anyone that has used it that didn't like it.

It depends on how much that Daiwa reel is, I have a TD-X and a TD-S 103 HVA and if they are selling it for more than $100 don't consider it. I paid a good bit for those reel but today they are heavy and other reels, like the Lews LFS speed spool outperform and are lighter. EDIT: I meant to say perform just as well, not outperform. That Daiwa reel is very good but by todays standards it shouldn't be too much, $100 is what I would pay, anymore and it isn't worth it.