smalljaw67

I spoke to an Okuma Rep on the phone about the TCS rods as I loved the look but the actions weren't for me and here is exactly what I was told. They said Scott was given free reign over all the actions in the rod series and they were all optimized for the use of braid. It doesn't mean you need to use braid but if you are fishing jigs mono would not be a great choice, you should at least use 17lb fluorocarbon to maximize hook setting efficiency but todays hooks are super sharp so it isn't too much of a concern. They are considering expanding the line as numerous anglers, mainly from the northern sections of the country have expressed interest in the rods but with faster actions for lighter lines in clear water environments. I'm not wanting to make you made but I had a nice discussion about these when they first came out and what you said is true, you don't need braid but their product rep told me that the rods were indeed made for braid specifically which is why most of the rods have slower actions. The only rods with a fast rating are the Mat Daddy rods and they were made that way because Scott will often use fluorocarbon with the techniques he uses those rods for, so the rods were made with added strength to take the shock of braid but they are also faster than others because Scott likes a faster action with fluorocarbon. There were a couple rods I liked in that line but with me using mono for most of my fishing, it makes these rods an entire series of cranking rods and the product rep agreed and told me that he wouldn't recommend mono with those rods, only fluorocarbon but your best bet is with braid.

The C3-40X rods are the real deal, a much better rod in my opinion and were originally priced higher than the TCS.

When does it squeak? Is it when it is being cast or reeled or all the time? That is an old Accurist that happened to be a reel that took a beating but still worked well. It more than likely needs lubed but if you don't know much about them I'd have someone who does know how to service a reel look at it. In the mean time, take off the cast control or spool tension knob, it is located next to the handle behind the drag star if you didn't already know. Take it off and see if there is a little brass disc in the knob, if there is remove it and turn it over to the other side and see if that takes care of the squeaking, that is if the reel has that brass washer in it.

Jig Man is spot on!!!! You are going to need a mold, and then a melting pot along with hooks, skirt material, weed guards and paint. You are looking at $200 to make 50 jigs in maybe 3 different colors, so if you are looking at it as a hobby then it is a good investment, but if you are trying to save money then it will take years to recoup your initial investment. I agree with Jig Man, buy some pre poured heads and skirt material and tie some jigs, you can use wire or thread or you can get a skirt tool and use the skirt bands, but make some jigs like that first, then if you like ting try painting and then if you want to get more involved you can get the melting pot and molds and you'll understand part of it. I've been making tackle for 17 years now and I can tell you that I have several molds that I purchased from guys who went and bought all the stuff only to realize it was more time consuming than they had envisioned and so they sold the stuff at a discount just to get some of their investment back. Go to Tackle Underground and ask the guys in the wire baits section, you'll get a lot of help there.

It wasn't the rod, it wasn't the bait, it was the fish and I've had the same thing happen just a few days ago. Here in PA the fish are beginning to spawn, but the fish haven't been eating, power tactics like square bill have been drawing strikes but the fish are hitting them with closed mouths, or what is commonly called, "pushing" and sometimes they will come back and eat but a lot of times they just leave it alone. What you had happen was the fish were mad, they were pushing it from angles and actually trying to hurt or kill it so you got some that were just skin hooked and that is why they were getting off. What I do in a case like that is I'll go to my Bomber Square "A", it is a small profile and a lot of times they will just inhale it and my last time out I got 3 on it but the rest were caught using a 3" Senko thrown on a 1/16oz weedless ball jig with a size 2 hook. The next time that happens remember to downsize your bait and then go slow, the fish are hitting out of anger so they aren't eating the bait so a lot of bites happen with closed mouths but on smaller less threatening baits, the fish will inhale it and then you'll end up hooking them.

Do not get caught up on reviews, you be the judge and keep an open mind. Reviews on websites aren't really reliable, some people will bash a product with no experience because they heard it was bad or they had a bad prior experience with that company. So now that you got it just see how it works for you, you may find you really like it or maybe you won't but don't give up on something because you head it wasn't good after the fact. For $100 I'd go Pflueger Supreme casting reel, I have the Supreme spinning and the Supreme XT casting and I gave my friend my old Supreme casting reel that was 11 years old and worked like the day I bought it. The Supreme is basically the same reel as my XT for $50 less, the difference is the XT has an extra bearing and also weighs less because of a more expensive material for the side plates. At $100 you are going to get a great reel with the Pflueger Supreme but most reels are decent at this price point, just stay away from the graphite framed reels, you don't want that, side plates are ok, but not frames.

The 1 means 1 piece, you have WM which is Wright McGill, then you have SR which designates the S-curve and S-glass rods, the you have what the rod is, SB-spinnerbait, JB jerkbait, and so on then the numbers tell you the rod length and then you have C, which means casting and the number 1 represents 1 piece. I hope this is what you are referring too.

Remember, these rods are just about all mod to mod fast actions so no stretch line is your best bet with single hook presentations.

If you go to another site, they have them in both perch and yellow perch. I use to have a tough time of finding the yellow perch color which is more subtle, my Local Cabelas use to have every DT model in perch but you could only find a couple in yellow perch.

Right now on TW you can get a Fenwick Aetos 7'6" MH-M cranking rod for $129, but there is only 1 left so if you are going to act you may have a few days but I'd make up my mind soon.

Most of the colors are for us fishermen but I like trying to match the hatch as the craws change colors with season and body of water in my area. When I make a brown jig for myself it will have at least 3 different color browns and one of them will be a printed pattern with black spots and I'll put 2 strands of burnt orange just to accent it. Does it work, yes but I'm not sure if it is the color and it would work without the accent but it looks cool and I have fun making it. I started doing that as I saw a plain looking craw on the river bottom, I scooped it up and discovered there was dark brown on top of the tail which transitions to a lighter color brown on the sides and the head area was a distinct green pumpkin and there were spots of a muted orange along its sides but from just seeing it under the water it didn't look nearly as colorful as it was and that is when I began adding a few different colors but really just different shades of one or 2 colors. I do use simple black& blue and black neon for largemouth in dirty water but when I'm fishing water with a little visibility and using smaller jigs for smallmouth, I make sure those jigs have the multiple shades of green pumpkin or brown as I'm also in different areas and working the bait differently. So that is just a little insight to my jig color selection but when I pour, paint and tie my own jigs it is almost impossible not to experiment with colors but if I was buying jigs, I have black and blue, green pumpkin and PB&J.

That almost looks like plastic but it is balsa and based on that I'm going to say it is done, forget fixing it. The reason is that even glued, that balsa is going to split again and it will probably happen with a nice fish on and you'll lose it to the crank. I know from seeing a guy in our club trying to glue the bill back in place on a Rapala DT crank, he slapped it off the water to get weeds off and he did it one time too many and the entire front of the bait cane off. Eh used wood glue along with Devcon 2 ton epoxy over top and he let it cure for a week, it took 4 cast for it to fly apart again, so rather than chance it and put all that work into it, just put it in a collector case for retired lures and get a new one.

Yep, you got a deal and they are better than what you've been using but you have to be the judge yourself, you have to like them. We always like to see what other people think of our tackle choices but even if others don't like them so be it, as long as it works for you. The anglers that won't care for them normally have experience with higher end rods but they also keep making them because there are a lot of guys using them. I really like the new mid tier stuff that goes from $100 to $200 price range, I was a high end rod guy and G.Loomis was my deal but now my earnings took a hit after I got sick and I'm forced to get mid tier stuff but today the mid tier is incredible. The rods you used before are ok but what you got now is a step up, Brent Chapman won angler Of the Year a couple years ago using those rods so they will work for you and you got them at a good price, congrats on the new sticks!!

As I said, I'm a "Don't knock it until you try it" guy and I saw why a moderate action works with a chatterbait but with a swim jig it is a no go, at least if you are working it in cover like grass and around wood. I use my pitching rod as it also make an awesome swim jig rod, Fenwick Aetos 7'2" MH-XF, it just works well for me. In that price range you can get a lot of rod, especially if you wait 2 week for Memorial day sales, but honestly a 7' MH-F Quantum Smoke rod, They are updated with the new line indicator but that isn't important, what it is that they still have the same basic build with the same blank as the original Smoke and it is a rod that is under the radar as far as most people are concerned but it is a really good stick for the money.

This isn't going to cost you an arm and a leg but it fits with what you are looking for. Rod, that will be a Falcon BuCoo 7' medium power, the number is 4-17 rated 1/4oz to 1/2oz baits, the newr ones they call the all-purpose special but originally they were called a spin cranker. My fishing partner has 3 of these, he keeps on in his lake Erie boat, one in the river boat and one in his bass boat, and he does that so ne never forgets it. What he uses it for is cranking with shallow to mid depth cranks with light line, he likes throwing a Jackall Bling 55 on 8lb line and he hates using 8lb on a casting rod. Anyway, he told me by doing that he can get a longer cast and get the bait to go a little deeper than designed, he uses it in spring or whenever we have lightly stained to clear water, and he has taken 6lb smallmouths and a 7lb 4oz largemouth with it and has no problems, in fact after the 7 pound largemouth is when he got the other 2 but for what you want to do it sounds like what you need. For your reel, I would think the fastest 2500 to 300 size reel that you like and line I'd go 10lb mono or copoly but you could also use braid on that set up with no adverse affects.

I was at a flea market this morning and I came across a table with fishing stuff and the guys had a bin full of packs of Mustad soft plastics hooks with welded keeper. I never used them before and I know they were like 5 bucks a pack and this guy had 4/0 size, exactly what I could use for 3 dollars a pack, so I bought 5 packs. Anyway, I come home and see TW has the 3/0 at clearance price for $1.88 but that is it so I don't feel too bad. I don't use Mustad worm hooks, I use their trebles and jig hooks but no soft plastics so I'm curious to what you think about these. The hooks seem fine but since I haven't used an offset shank work hook with a keeper before, I need to ask if there are problems I should know about. Any information you guys can give me would be helpful, I'm guessing it holds the soft plastic pretty well but taking them off probably tears them up to the point they are no longer useable, but let me know what you like and don't like, thanks.

I know that just about everyone has a lure that fits into this category and if you're like me, a lot of them are discontinued but I want to see baits you can still get. My list consist of new baits I've tried as well as some old favorites and while the names will be familiar, they really aren't talked about much. The first one is a new baits for me from last year, the Rebel Frog-R, I only saw it mentioned a few times when it came out but I decided to take a chance on it and grabbed one in leopard frog and after using it I simply replaced the hooks with Owner Stinger ST-36 hooks and now I own 2 of every color, very effective topwater bait. The Bomber Square A is another bait that gets little fan fare but it has kept me from going to fishing a worm or jig many days. I'd be on the water for an hour with not much going on and before going to jig and worm fishing I'd tie on the Square A and it would be game on. So what about the rest of you, which baits do you do well with that get little to no recognition?

They are a good rod if you can get them for less. The problem with them is that just about every other rod in that price range is really good, they weigh less and have more responsive blanks with better components. If you get one at a good price I'd say grab one, but at the current price I'd add $20 and get a GL3, those are much better than the GL2.

You have to be careful with a spook, if the hooks add too much weight it will make walking it much harder. That said, I like the new Mustad KVD Elite Triple grips and the Owner Stinger ST-36, both of these will be fine for a spook. I use to use the regular Mustad Triple Grip which is a good hook but I prefer the new KVD Elites for 2 reasons, the first is the hook gap is wider and the second is they are black nickel which means I don't have to worry that they are going to rust but that slightly wider gap makes a big difference.

You have rattle and color but you left out speed, the Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap and Cotton Cordell Super Spot both have chrome black back and chrome blue back and both have a similar sound but the super spot will vibrate and produce noise at a much slower pace than the trap, in fact I have found a lipless crank that works as good as a spot does as slow speeds. But I agree that vibration is the one thing that I don't take under consideration when I select a lipless crank, it is sound, then speed and my color selections are between painted and chrome.

That is just awesome!! I learn something new everyday.

This^^^ I like ripping my spinnerbait out of grass and banging it off dock pilings and a moderate action cranking rod isn't going to work for me but if you are in open water then great, there are a lot of guys that like using cranking rods for spinnerbaits. You can get a good set up that will work well depending on what kind of cranks you are throwing along with what size spinnerbaits. If you afre fishing cranks like square bills and basically shallow diving cranks then a nice medium power, fast action set up would work well but you probably would be best off with 1/4oz and 3/8oz spinnerbaits as 1/2oz would be really pulling hard. I'm looking at it as a 2 rod deal but you can get by with 1 rod if you choose to limit the weight of certain baits or limit where you thorw other baits, good luck with the decision.

I can see you don't fish jerkbaits much...LOL. Just kidding, but you are the first ever person I ever heard of using a 7'5" rod to fish them, I'm guessing you sweep the rod to the side, I'm 6'2" and I have to shorten my rip or I'll hit the water with a 6'10". I'm wondering now, I'm assuming we're talking about hard jerkbaits, perhaps you mean soft jerkbaits? Forgive me but that just really threw me off a bit, that is a very long rod but if you can use it then more power to you.

Have you handled the Okuma TCS or the ***? Have you used a rod in the $100 dollar range or higher before? I'm not being smart but I've know guys that fished with Ugly Sticks and store brand $30 dollar set ups only to get their first decent rod and they didn't like it at all, and no matter the brand they didn't like the feel. This is a common thing that happens to someone who uses that type of equipment for a long time and uses it a lot, they look for flexibility and heft, yep heft thinking light weight rods will break if anything larger than a minnow is on the end. The reason I ask you this is you are bouncing brands at random with no real insight as to what you might like and I feel you are just headed for disappointment. When getting a rod think of what you are going to use it for and what properties you want for that particular technique you want the rod for or perhaps you want more of an all-purpose rod but once you know what you are going to use it for then look to see which brands have the length, power and action you need for your fishing. Your rod selection will even come down to the type of line you use, it sounds strange but a perfect example is the Okuma TCS rods, you can use them with any line really but the powers and actions are designed for braided line fishing in grass, if you look you'll notice almost every rod is a moderate to moderate fast action, they a designed with added flex to compensate for using a line with no stretch, so using mono on those rods fishing a Texas rigged creature bait will present problems as the line will stretch and the rod will flex and the hook sets won't be as hard as you may need it to be and it will result in lost fish, so you have to make sure you get your set up to match to the line and technique you are going to fish.

Have you handled them? The Fritts perfect crank is a composite rod and I'm assuming the Mojo is graphite as I'm not sure if they have a 7' MH in their glass line up. So, if that is the case, the Fritts cranking rod is going to be heavier in weight and if it was a pure glass rod I'd say you have to try it first but being it is a composite, it has a similar action as a graphite rod. Based on that, I'd opt for the lighter graphite if the actions are the same, no reason to use a heavier rod with the same flex as the graphite model. I have both graphite and glass cranking rods, my glass rod is for deep divers while the graphite goes for square bills and mid depth cranks but my glass rod has a connected feel that is different from graphite, it doesn't just bend in half and shut off like graphite or composite rods, instead as it flexes down the rod it begins to require more and more pressure to make the rod flex until it is solidly into the backbone and stops, it feels like you have endless power and it is only glass that will give that too you. I'd keep the Mojo and sell the Fritts, but both will work so if you like the Fritts rod you can keep it but both will have close to the same action so the lighter rod wins out in my world.