smalljaw67

I actually got a rod just for that, it is a 6'10" H-F, basically a broom stick. The rod is a Quantum Tour Edition Biffle Bug rod and why I got it was because I found that working the bait like he does requires a super stiff rod. I like 1/2oz and 3/4oz heads with the original Biffle Bug or a Sweet Beaver as the bait and once it is on the bottom I just reel steady about medium pace, or just as fast as I can while keeping bottom contact. The reason for the 6'10" length is that in a heavy power you don't have much tip action at all and it is important, at least the way I use the bait. As I'm reeling the thing is banging and smacking the rocks but when it comes to a larger piece of chunk rock or a piece of wood I keep reeling and because the rod is so stiff it doesn't load very much before the jig breaks free and I find that is when I get the majority or strikes. When I was using my pitching rod and even my flipping stick, the bait would actually get stuck and the rod would just continue to load up and it would require me to pop the rod to break the jig free from whatever it hit. Doing it like that I wouldn't get as many strikes. I fished 4 different rods with it for about a full season before getting the bug rod and after the first time I used it I knew exactly why Biffle wanted a rod like that but there is some trade off. Your casts are limited and if you are using it on bottoms that isn't full of chunk rock the rod won't help, for sand and gravel bottoms I would go with a longer rod in a medium heavy or heavy with a fast action with a little more tip but in heavy chunk rock like I'm fishing the short stiff rod works fantastic.

I throw jerkbaits all year and here are some things to consider. The first thing is I don't uses a suspending bait in summer, I use a floating jerkbait like the Smithwick floating Rogue, the Rapala Flat Rap, and the Bagley Bang-O-Lure, at times these are downright nasty. The next thing to consider is that the jerkbait isn't my first choice, it depends on conditions and one of those is clear water, if I don't have at least 2.5' to 3' of visibility then I'm not going to use it. I prefer using a soft plastic jerkbait like a super fluke but, if the water is clear and the fish are swiping or slashing at it just following it then I'll switch to a hard jerkbait. The reason is you can really work that jerkbait fast and it stay down, the super fluke will rise up if going to fast and in clear water speed is what often triggers the strike, and I can work a floating jerkbait really fast. The only suspending jerkbaits I use in summer is an X-Rap, and a Lucky Craft Flash Minnow, the X-Rap I use because of the erratic action and the flash minnow because it sits in the 2' zone and goes no deeper.

Do you want it to be a spinning rod or casting rod? The other problem is you want a combo, is there a reason you don't want to get a rod and then a reel? I'll be honest, most combos are made with either a low quality rod and/or reel and with $250 you can get a better set up than what you will with most combos.

I really liked the Owner down shot hooks for that but I have to admit the VMC wide gap spin shot is what I use now simply because of the reduced line twist.

They use to make one called a Cabela's Bass Beaver, it was 3" and not bulky at all and it had the two claw appendages but instead of having the two small flappers, it had 2 long thin strands coming down the sides, 1 on each side. Anyway, they were the perfect trailer for a small 3/16oz - 1/4oz finesse jig, I caught a bunch of fish on those and I would have bought a bunch of bags had I known they were going to be discontinued.

I like 3.5" to 4" soft plastic swim baits as a trailer on my swim jigs, they just flat out work but there are times when the rage craw is just killer.

What you have will work but you won't like fishing them much, I know as I've been down this road. I got into finesse cranking and bought a 6'6" ML-M rod for Mann's Baby 1 minus, DT-4s and all my cranks that are in that 1/4oz to 5/16oz realm. I even use it for small jerkbaits and 3/8oz square bills if I'm not in heavy cover, the rod is rated 1/4oz to 1/2oz and while it does handle 1/2oz pretty good, most baits 3/8oz down to 1/4oz are optimum. The power curve is very close to a Falcon BuCoo 7' M-M cranker . I'm saying this as I would always start out with larger stuff and if I wasn't getting any type of action I'd reluctantly downsize but now I don't wait nearly as long and my fishing has improved, the simple act of getting a rod for the smaller cranks has got me more fish for 2 reasons. The first is I will now switch to smaller baits much sooner as I now love throwing them as much as I do larger lures, and the second reason, I'm getting bit more on the smaller stuff as the baits are working better, I'm no longer killing off action because of the rod being to powerful. I'd say try to throw those baits and if you feel like you are overpowering the bait then you probably are and it may be a good move to get a medium power set up made to handle the smaller stuff, finesse cranking was the best move I made.

Let me ask you a question, are you fishing them on a spinning rod and reel? I'm asking that question as a friend of mine only uses spinning tackle and he is the only one I've witnessed that had fouling issues. He would make a cast and as soon as the bait would hit the water he would flip the bail over and start reeling like mad but sometimes he wasn't fast enough and the bait would get wrapped up in the slack line and foul the blade or it would get the hook and the bait would come in sideways. The fix for it was to teach him to make side arm cast to get a lower trajectory so the bait wouldn't tumble as much. If your bait is fouling using casting gear it is probably because the bait is tumbling in air, this happens when you try to bomb a cast and sling it 20 feet high, you can get a good cast without doing that. The bait needs to be moving in a forward direction like a line drive instead of an arc like a rainbow, that will help.

I'm not really brand loyal, I will try a lot of stuff and form opinions based on my experience and the only reel that I ever had fail on my is a Shimano Symetre, 2 of them actually. The reason I won't buy any more Shimano reels isn't because they aren't good, they are considered to be the best, but customer service is hit and miss. My first Symetre had a bail spring go after 2 trips and so I took it to a small tackle shop which was actually an authorized dealer to be fisxed but he had to order the springs so I purchased another one as I needed it for a trip coming up and that one failed, bearing went bad in one outing so I called customer service and told them my problem and what they told me caught me off guard and I had to have the person repeat it. He told me that is was too bad my reels failed but if I would have purchased a better reel from the line I wouldn't be having these issues, that was, and is, a $100 dollar reel. That was the last time I ever purchased anything Shimano, and I'll be honest, I've looked at the rods and some reels but I just can't bring myself to buy anything from a company that told me I should have purchased a higher end reel as if $100 wasn't enough for them to be concerned about. As for the Smoke reels, I think it is the best casting reel Quantum ever made, aluminum frame and side covers, both sides and under 70z and the performance is great, 3 yeas and no problems, I'm not sure I like the spinning reels without anti-reverse. I will say this, Pflueger has impressive reels for the price point, I really like the Supreme casting reel, at $100 I'd have to say that it is a deal and on sale it is killer, light and smooth yet still feels super solid, those are proven.

The biggest difference in jig fishing warm water versus cold water for me is the size of the jig and the trailer. In cold water I'm often using less than 1/4oz and I use chunks for the trailer most of the time but I also use a pork strip. In warm water I'm normally throwing over 1/4oz and my trailers will often have action like a rage craw.

It is probably made from Tin which is very expensive but lighter than lead.

If you used the 4" there are several that are very close, the Strike King KVD swim N shiner, and the Bass Assassin Elite Shiner but at 3" I don't know of any.

Jigs with flat eye hooks are what works and the lighter the better. We have small natural lakes around my neck of the woods and finesse jigs are the only jig that can be dragged over soft bottom flats. You'd also be surprised at how much weight a soft bottom is going to hold before it digs in. Look for wood like deadfalls coming out of the muck, the bottom around those can usually keep a 5/16oz jig up and when dragged in short spurts it will kick up sediment making it look like a fleeing craw or other bottom dweller ripe for the picking. For areas that the bottom is too soft I'll empoy a hopping presentation and it won't cover a large area, instead it will be near a target, I'll make the cast and give the jig a few hops and a shake and let it sit and repeat up to 3 times depending how big the piece of cover is and if no takers I'll bring it back and hit the next spot.

Early spring it is a hair jig, mid spring it is a jerkbait and late spring it is a spinnerbait.

I like high speed reels for just about everything and even cranks although I use a 6.4:1 for those. I use to subscribe to the 5.1:1 for cranks but when I had my reel tore down for cleaning and used a 6.4:1 for cranking that day, I honestly didn't struggle like I thought and I actually like it better, much easier to slow down than to speed up and the amount of torque lost is barely noticeable. Being that you are going with a rod to cover topwaters and jerkbaits along with cranks I'm going to say the faster reel is going to serve you better, especially when it comes to the jerkbaits as you will want a little more speed to reel up the slack you get in between rips.

You can get Owner twist lock hooks, they make them in light wire simple called twist lock light. They are a little expensive but, if your eyes are that bad that you can't Texas rig a Senko without butchering the nose of the bait, a regular screw lock is going to be almost impossible for you to rig. The thing with the Owner twist lock light hook is the screw lock has that centering pin so all you need to do is get the centering pin in the center and then screw the worm on. There is one problem with those hooks, including the Mr. Twister Keeper hooks, and that is tying your line to them, I say this because with these types of hooks you will have to thread your line through the eye like normal but you will have to watch that your line isn't in the screw lock or keeper barb as those are attached to hook eye making the eye smaller to get your line through. You can buy hitchhikers which clip on to the eye of any hook you want to use allowing you to tie your line to the hook first and then clip on the screw lock afterward but the hitchhikers don't have the centering pin which will make it hard to screw the nose of the worm on without making a mess out of it. There are shaky heads with spike and barbs not on the eye of the hook but they are jig heads and not a plain hook so it isn't going to help you if you want to fish your worms weightless which is probably what you want to do with a Senko anyway. My advice would be to just use a regular hook and get a pair of magnifiers that will let you see enough to Texas rig your worm without making it a mess, unless you can see well enough to thread your line through a smaller line tie which I don't find that possible if your eye sight is that bad that you can't get a hook point into the center of a worm nose.

Abu Garcia Vengence 2 piece 7' medium power spinning rod, it is $49.99 or you can go Ugly Stick GX2 7' medium power in a 2 piece for $39.99. If you want to go lower than that you would be better off going to yard sales or flea markets.

I haven't tried them, I'm not sure if I will but the bluegill cranks, not the square bill but the regular round bill, get the BG70S, it is 1/2oz and dives to 4' on 10lb line. I should say almost 4' as it is a little bit shy of that mark but anyway. If you find those on clearance buy them up, in my waters every time the bluegill spawn, late June or early July, throwing that crank along the first drop from the spawning flat usually ends up with the bait getting hammered. They did a great job as it not only looks like a bluegill but as soon as you see it swim it looks like a bluegill. I use the BG70S in matte finish, and that is one crankbait that has never got swiped at or pushed, it gets hit and the hits are of the utmost violent kind of hits I ever experienced with a crankbait. As I said, I'm not sold on the bait ball but the bluegill cranks are dangerous.

Vision 110s aren't suspending baits, they are slow rising, and most suspending bait really are slow rising or sinking but the test I use is different. I call a bait suspending it is stays at least 1/2 the diving depth at 2 minutes, the Vision 110 will float to the surface in less than 1 minute. A bucket with cold water is not a very good test, the first problem with it is there isn't line attached, the next problem is you are only putting the bait in 1' of water or less, and then there is the temperature, you need a thermometer and even that way doesn't tell the story. I'll give you an example, we wanted to see how well the test worked on a bait that I know for a fact suspended so we took my Super Rogue Jr to my buddys place and I tied it on and made a cast to his pond, I reeled for 5 cranks and gave 2 jerks and counted, it took 4 minutes and 39 seconds for it to hit the surface of the water. We took the Rogue inside and filled the fish tank with water and ice until we got it to 44 degrees, the temperature of his pond, we put the Rogue in and it floated up in about 20 seconds, and after seeing that I don't believe in testing out suspending baits in buckets of fish tanks, I just don't think they are anywhere near accurate.

Right now Cabelas has the Pflueger Supreme on sale for $69.99, it was $59.99 at one time but my advice would be to grab it now. Get the 8230 size, it is perfect for most finesse situations and it is going to be the best reel you are going to get in the $80 range.

I have a Quantum Super light 6'6" MH-F because I didn't care for the color of the KVD rod but something with the graphite in Quantum rods that gives them pretty good sensitivity. That is a decent rod and will be good for roll casting spinnerbaits or skipping jigs and it is perfect to hit small spots that are too far to pitch to, congrats on the good deal.

6lb line, 1/16oz shaky head with a 4.5" finesse worm.

When I first started getting into bass fishing a little more than casually, I was told that black grape and grape Mann's Jelly Worms were what was hot. This was in the mid 80s and for the next few years it was those colors and then when it came to hard baits, there was white with a red head in any diving bait and for topwater, a red wing blackbird crazy crawler and a chipmunk pattern jitterbug were king of all the colors. Gradually I learned that color wasn't as much of a factor as was the fish becoming conditioned to a certain color so I became the guy who threw something different than the rest and it worked. About the time I thought I had it figured out, I was introduced to river smallmouth in low, clear water, and that was a revelation because color did matter a lot, sure, I heard all the guys sying you had to use a certain color just like it always was but now these guys were getting specific with the shade of a color. Chartreuse had to be yellow chartreuse and green pumpkin had to be dark with some brown in it and what I noticed is all the colors matched the hellgrammites and crawfish but I had no idea why chartreuse but it worked. Of course I was reading any book or magazine I could get my hands on and I remember reading a piece by an angler named Daryl Black, it was about Smallmouth bass and how they react to color and one of the best colors was to use a natural color with a loud color, not too much but just enough to make it stand out, and sure enough that worked too. Spinnerbaits with translucent skirts and silver heads with a silver blade on top with a small red Colorado kicker blade became the standard and anything black with chartreuse, in fact a black tube with a chartreuse tail was the very first bait I was using when I caught my first Smallmouth in water that was less than 40 degrees but if you didn't have that color you didn't get bit. So what I learned from that was just like Largemouth or Smallmouth in lake environments, river Smallmouth became conditioned to certain colors but the difference between fish in clear water versus stained is that clear water fish are much more color dependent than in stained water and Smallmouth in general seem more color dependent, or should I say that color matters a little more to them as either the most natural color is needed or the loudest color and anything in between just don't cut it.

That Cajun Red Cast actually handles extremely well and is strong, the only problem I ever saw with it was the Red Cast has a little more stretch than I like but it does handle well and the abrasion resistance is good, great line in 6lb, 8lb, and 10lb tests. Silver Thread AN40 sounds like the line the OP will want to try, it has a controlled stretch meaning it will stretch but it only does so under steady pressure, similar to Big Game but it has a lower spool memory than Big Game, on a spinning reel I like it, on casting reels I like Big Game. This season I'm trying Spiderwire Ultracast Ultimate Mono, it is very thin, and very low stretch with supposedly good abrasion resistance but I haven't got out to use it yet. From spooling up my reels for next week I can tell you that knot strength seems to be very good, but this dry knot strength and it has average spool memory, a line with low stretch is going to be a little stiff but it isn't unmanageable so it has me hyped up ready to give it a go but so far it seems to be very good.

The old reliable #5 shad rap, if there are fish in the area you are cranking, they will hit it. I'm trying the #7 and 8 in some different areas this year but the #5 on 45 degree banks is a killer presentation, either shad or crawdad pattern and you'll be set. For my water I've caught fish on the shad rap from 48 degrees to 52, when the water gets into the mid 50s I like using square bills more.