smalljaw67

Grub, very simple but very effective as well. The best part is you can work them anyway you want and they will still catch fish. Slow reel it, hop it off the bottom, crawl it on the bottom or buzz it on top, whatever the fish are feeding on you can mimic it with the right size grub.

Trout fishing with a Joe's Flies spinner. They are super light and don't cast far with my ultra light but a BB split shot just in front of the spinner is all it takes.

My favorite is the Rapala DT Flat 7 and Flat 3, awesome flat sided cranks. I like them in colder water but I also use them in summer, sometimes that tighter action is all it takes. My next one will be the Yo-Zuri 3DS flat crank, 1/4oz and 2' diving depth, that should make for a nice post frontal crank around shallow wood.

Like others have told you, finesse worm fishing is no different than other worm fishing except you are normally using downsize line and rod. 90% of my finesse worm fishing is done on a shaky head, and I normally use finesse worms from 4.5" to 6" with 4.5" and 5" being the main size of finesse worm. I use a medium power spinning rod with a fast action and 8lb line to fish most of my shaky heads which are normally between 1/16oz and 1/4oz with 1/8oz being what I use most. Another good way to use them is on a drop shot rig as well as a split shot or mojo rig which are like a finesse Carolina rig, lots of videos on finesse worms on you tube, check some out.

That is the most heart breaking thing that can happen and unfortunately there is little you can do other than leave the area. I would first try to find a spinnerbait with the right size blades to match the hatch or a swim jig with a small swim bait trailer, those 2 baits seem to draw strikes during those events. I was in the middle of a Damsel fly hatch about 15 years ago, I saw some massive smallmouth coming up and just busting the surface everywhere, it was unreal!!!! I didn't get a single fish or even a bite, it was one of the those times when the fish were keyed in on a specific type of forage and if you weren't close then forget getting bit.

All you need to do is tie your hackle or buck tail or whatever you want to use to the hook shank directly beneath the line tie just like a treble hook. If you don't have a vise or haven't tied flies or jigs before then you should watch some videos on it as it is a learned skill but can be mastered quickly. You need a fly tying vise that has jaws capable of holding the size hooks you are going to use, some thread, I recommend flat waxed nylon in 210 denier as it will make for a durable hook dressing, and some small scissors plus your material you want to tie on the hooks.

You got it, the rattling version is exclusive to BPS. Try getting the Storm Arashi in black chartreuse shad in the rattling version, very good bait.

I was looking at the ET Smallmouth 6'9" ML on amazon last week but this week its gone still kicking myself over not just buying it. One rod I found that I think would be good is the Abu Ike Series 6'10" ML. Its a moderate fast action (not sure if I should go mod fast, fast, or extra fast) and looks to be a nice rod but I haven't seen very many people post about it. Is it over shadowed by the Veritas which seems to get a lot of praise? I went to my local Field and Stream store last night and really liked the 6'9" ML Fenwick HMG with a fast action what are you guys thoughts on this rod for throwing really like weight jigs (I normally tip them with either grubs, tubes, or small swim baits if that helps). The HMG is a nice rod for what you want to do. The Team Lews HM85 for $80 at American legacy is a steal but at 7' it may be a bit too long. The 6'9" ML HMG is really nice, perfect length that it allows you some good casting distance and yet still is pretty nimble in tight quarters, if this fits your style of fishing I know you'll like it so jump on it and then let us know how you like it.

It is a modified Neko rig, and the Senko isn't used on a Neko because it sinks. Jackall has a worm right now on the JDM made just for Neko rigging and another popular one was the Kickerfish hole shot. Pete Gluszek told us that at a seminar, the popular story is that it was developed as an ultra finesse way to fish a 4" Senko when the fish wouldn't hit it wacky rig but the worm needs to float for it to really be a Neko rig. A couple years after the Neko rig became popular, anglers began modifiying the rig to use with the 4" Senko and other worms that didn't float, the rig falls like a Neko rig and it allows to the worm to have action when drug along the bottom.

Sensitivity is subjective as it is more than just vibration transmission down the blank. I've fished with rods that were very sensitive to me and others found them not to be very good because of things like comfort. You can have the most sensitive rod in the world and if the reel seat feels bad in your hand, you end up not really feeling much because the focus is gone. That said, if you find a Fenwick Aetos for $150, (I can't find to many models for that) I'd say that is a good bet, I have 3 of them, 2 casting and a spinning and they have sensitivity in spades but if you don't like the skeleton reel seat, you won't feel the same way. Another is the Elite Tech Bass in the Fenwick line up, these are $150 and while they are more powerful than the smallmouth series they replaced, they managed to keep the sensitivity. The Daiwa Tatula is another, I haven't used one but one thing that is consistent in reviews is the praise anglers give it for sensitivity. Another option is to look on ebay and see if anyone has old stock Powell Max or better yet, and Endurance, should be in the $150 range and those are really good as well.

This^^^^^ !! The Abu Garcia Veritas 2.0 and the St. Croix Triumph will be more like a medium, I just got a Team Lews HM85 ML-F rod and it too is a medium power rod. I will say first off, I'm partial to Fenwick rods, I have 7 now and their medium lights are pretty much spot on but that is in the Elite Tech and Aetos line ups, the HMG ML is along the same lines as the Lews, very good rod but it fishes like a medium power rod. I'll give you something to look at and I'm not doing it because they are a board sponsor, I'm doing it based on the best medium light rod for your price range from the rods listed. Take a look at the Okuma EVX-A 7' ML, they don't list a taper but they are fast actions based off of a video I saw with them and it was a rod a guy in our bass club talked highly of, but the biggest thing is it is a medium light rod and a lifetime warranty at that price point is tough to beat. When you are looking at spinning rods under $150, a true medium light is tough to get unless you get a drop shot specific rod which has a very soft tip to the point is isn't good for much else, but other than that most are medium power rods for the most part. The other thing you can do is a search for a Fenwick Elite Tech Smallmouth 6'9" ML-F, that is a very, very good rod, they are discontinued but you may be lucky enough to find some old stock somewhere.

Is there a brand preference? Do you have a length preference? I ask because on the low end of your price range you can get a Fenwick HMG 7' MH-F rated 3/8oz to 1oz, you get a lot of rod for $100 that will give you a great mix of sensitivity and power with a lifetime warranty. At the other end of your price range you can grab a Daiwa Tatula 7'1" MH-XF rated 1/4oz to 1oz, I don't own one but I know those who do and the rod is considered excellent and should cost a lot more.

If I was getting a rod that I could throw chatterbaits, swim jigs, spinnerbaits and casting jigs while also being able to flip a bit, it would be 7'2" - 7'5" and would range from MH to H as it was already stated, not all MH rods are the same.

6.4:1 I find is awesome, I can slow it down to worm through limbs but I have enough speed that I don't have to reel like a mad man when burning it over rocks and through sparse brush.

I use an O-ring on a 3.5" centipede bait with a size 2 octopus hook when going after smallmouth. If I use a stick worm I'll Texas rig a 5" model or do a wacky jig or flick-shake rig with a 4" model and it is for the same reason you found, hooking the fish outside the body. In the rivers I fish, if you get your soft plastic near a smallmouth and it isn't feeding or doesn't want to eat, the fish will hit the bait with a closed mouth or with its tail and it often results in a foul hook. By using a smaller bait they will sometimes suck the entire bait in and the Texas rig they will end up not getting hooked, and you can easily figure out when they are hitting like that. What you get it hard hits but you can seem to hook the fish, if that happens 2 or 3 times, move on, the fish isn't eating or even getting the bait in its mouth, it is just smacking it with its head or tail.

I'm guilty of using them during the cold water period for the most part. Like others, I make my own and 1 thing I can tell you about the hair jig is that different water types require different jigs. I saw a lot of people interested in large 1/2oz hair jigs after the pros were catching them, on my water, which is basically smaller flood control and natural lakes, a large hair jig doesn't fair well and while I have caught some fish slow swimming a bucktail during the summer, I found there are much better presentations that work better. My success comes from cold water smallmouths, there are 2 things that work really well in cold water, small soft plastic swim baits and hair jigs, I like the hair jig as I do better when the water is very cold but I use them up until the mid 40s.

The 6'10" MH-F Okuma C3-40X will be a great all-purpose rod, that is what I would use for worms, jigs, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and it would be excellent for swim jigs and chatterbaits too. The only thing is it would more than likely be a little stiff for squarebills and other lures with trebles and it is a medium heavy with a fast action rated 1/4oz to 1oz. I saw a lot of guys were using the 6'10" MH Lews spinnerbait rod for square bills and such but it is rated up to 5/8ox and has a moderate fast action. I happen the think 6'10" is a great rod length, long enough to get good casting distance and still short enough for decent accuracy for close target casts.

We didn't have a long jerkbait bite in my waters as the water went from cold to warm very quick. That said, my best baits have been the smaller RC STX in secret night and the Rapala Shadow rap in moss back shiner. The one thing that I wasn't very keen on at first was the slow sink but the way it falls is absolutely killer and it does work as all of my fish came after a pause and not immediately, maybe 3 seconds, everyone I caught hit like that. Comparing the 110, which is a slow riser, to the shadow rap is like comparing apples to oranges, the reason is they are 2 completely different actions, the 110 has a tight wiggle with a fair amount of roll, the profile along with the weighting of it seems to really get the attention of the fish. The shadow rap has a wide darting action with a good bit of roll but it will suspend level for a few seconds and start sinking nose down and that gets the attention of more lethargic fish.

Toads or buzz frogs or whatever else they are called now. When Yum came out with the Buzz Frog I was sold on them, it was my main topwater bait and it was the first one I'd use and even when they didn't produce I still had a hard time putting it down. When the Buzz Frog was discontinued, I bought like 10 or 12 bags so I would always have some but then I got back into wake baits to the point that the buzz frogs rarely get pulled out anymore.

The Pflueger Supreme is a great reel and you'll have a hard time finding a better one at that price. I got one, the old MGX model, the 8230 from Cabelas when they had them on sale for $59.99, I should have got 3 at that price, excellent reels. I don't have experience with the Lews but the Gold seems to weigh almost the same and has some really good features, I doubt you would go wrong with either.

That gray model was a steal at the sale price, it was a TD Advantage, I still have mine and I still use it, that is a really good work horse reel.

I'm going to tell you that worms with salt and sink do just as well as stand up when fished on a shaky head. I've tried this experiment for a long time fishing side by side with one guy using a floating worm and the other using a salt loaded worm, we fished during a good bite on shaky heads and we switched back and forth to make sure we each fished each worm and over a 3 year period we found that both catch fish at approximately the same rate. There were a few days that a floating worm prevailed but there was also a few days in which the sinking worm did better. The other thing is I make my own shaky heads, and I make some for friends and one guy turned me onto a great technique, and that is fishing a Zoom Old Monster in green pumpkin magic or blackberry on a 3/8oz shaky head with a 5/0 hook in 8' to 12' of water. I fished with my buddy the day after I gave him the heads he wanted and I watched him use that set up while I used a regular 5" finesse worm, I got the first 2 fish, a 12" barely legal keeper and a nice 15.5" largemouth, after I released it he got his first bite, a solid 19.75" that weighed 4lb 11oz. That was all I needed to see, and what was really strange is I wasn't getting many more fish, I think I caught 4 more fish but all of his were decent with the smallest being a little over 13". Give it a shot, just because it has salt in it don't think it won't work, I now use it every summer and I have a lot of confidence in it.

I categorize my cranks by diving depth but I do separate square bills from shallow divers as those will get burned through cover. So I have square bills, shallow cranks which shallow for me is 5' and less, the I have my mid depth cranks which is 10' and less and then deep divers which my deep divers are anything deeper than 10'. Now, the tight wobbling cranks, I have those separate and you can tell most of those because most tight action cranks are flat sided and they are better in cold water but they are also good during the warm water seasons when a wide wobbling bait is too much, like post frontal conditions or if I'm around submerged wood, then I'll run like a DT Flat 7. So that would be the easiest way for me, square, shallow, mid, deep, and flat sides.

I mentioned before that on my waters the anglers have been doing this for years, mostly in the river for smallmouths. I remember the first time my buddy showed me how he was going to slay them and I laughed because he had on a Case Magic Stick (another Senko variant) that was cut in half rigged on a 1/16oz ball jig. what I didn't know was that he was with a guide a week earlier while I was at work and he learned it from the guide because there was a tough bite, it was hot and humid with low crystal clear water and you had to finesse them and the conditions were still the same when we hit the water. I got my clock cleaned that day and it didn't take me long to start doing that but now I use a 3/32oz or 1/8oz mushroom head with a 3" Senko and it is just flat out amazing at how that catches fish but I suppose we will never know exactly what they see in that bait.

River Rock Baits 4" Jointed Jerkbait, the thing is money and it probably weighs a little bit more than a 4" super fluke Jr. but that is a guess. Ever since I started using that bait in the 5" and the 4" sizes I stopped using the super fluke and super fluke jr. and it has really done a great job of catching fish. They have a nice hook slot but the claim to fame is the plastic, it is just really soft but holds up and it makes the baits really come to life, I use the Owner twist lock light hooks in a 2/0 for the 4" and a 4/0 for the 5".