Jay Ell Gee

Do you have a known weight of that lure? It looks excellent for what I do... Flipping hollow bodies into shallow cover! Have you had any luck using it as such? I assume it casts well? How does it hold up? Sorry for all the questions. I may have to try one.

I like the puppy in baby bass and clear, myself!

I am an avid frog user, to the point that my girlfriend's dad and brother pick fun about my constant use of them. We were fishing a deep reservoir last weekend with little success. Clear water pitching at finicky bass was completely useless. I jumped on the trolling motor and began paralleling a long flat roughly four feet deep, with an 18 foot dropoff behind us. I began tossing a ribbit and soon landed the largest fish of my life, in a WIDE open clear water flat with submerged vegitation. At 4:30 in the afternoon. They proceeded to stock up on ribbits as we hit the local tackle shop that evening. If you have trouble catching on a hollow body (I do from time to time) the next thing you should be throwing is a buzz frog. It's almost impossible to have a bad day of fishing with a watermelon red ribbit!

I agree wholeheartedly with the jig and pig and swimbait recommendation. Keep in mind, however, that if the water is small enough, it may not support monstrous bass. Just something to keep in mind.

There was a guy on these boards that had a sol stolen from him around a month ago and he was very interested in hunting one down. Might want to let him know!

I own some of these rods and while the 6'6 MH/F is an excellent precision spinnerbait/squarebill rod and the 6/10 is a good worm rod (among other things) I surely wouldn't want to fish a frog with one if I didn't absolutely have to. They are definitely rated a bit heavier than they fish, which isn't bad for their intended application... Just not frogs. I have a Powell Diesel 7'2 MHXF that I absolutely adore. Hollow bodies and ribbits both throw well and with some self discipline, the hooksets are nice as well. Best part is they are very well made and cost only 69.99 every day on TW.

Bob, I actually saw that floating worm kit on the bass pro site, but bass pro doesn't stock it. I will be checking at Walmart! I didn't even think of that. They had good reviews, so I'm looking forward to giving them a shot! Thanks to everyone who has answered so far! Gonna get a few brands and compare!

Thanks so much craww, you are definitely right on the money with what I was looking for. I'll be ordering a few packs tomorrow! Also going to look into some lizards.

I would honestly steer clear of both of those reels man. Give megastink a PM. He has some nice reels for sale. Here is his thread:

I appreciate the input. Do some brands of lizards float? I have literally never used a lizard.

I actually have a 7wt fly rod for bass, but it is difficult to use in small holes in thick vegetation. I did consider that, however. Try and go easy on the new guy with the terminology, but a worm seemed more "finesse" than my big frogs and mice, haha. I'm mainly just looking for small, floating, weedless topwaters.

Dad and i were out river fishing yesterday afternoon and I was lucky enough to find a decent pattern fairly quickly. Most (all but one) of my bass that afternoon were caught pitching a hollow-body mouse to holes in vegetation, walking it in, and twitching/dead sticking it. These hits were very light, the bass merely sipped my mouse from the surface. I got to thinking about perhaps a different type of finesse topwater presentation, namely something weedless. I know that topwater worming is nothing horrendously new, but I do a lot of fishing in small, clear creeks and I believe that this type of presentation would be a productive addition to my ever-growing arsenal. I have a spinning setup that will work well for this presentation, but I am really at a loss as to what type of worm I should use. I want something bigger than a roboworm 6' straight tail, but I don't want to be throwing my anacondas either. Zoom trick worms have a good balance of length, girth, and action, but they simply do not float consistently. I am not looking for a worm that floats just due to surface tension... I am looking for something that floats outright. I have plenty of 1/0 hooks lying around, I just want to find a worm to wiggle on the top to tempt some of these finicky bass into taking a boat ride with me! Thanks in advance everyone!

Academy ran those rods a month ago at 39.99 and pretty much wiped out their stock. I work at BPS and we have a handful of vendettas left on clearance, but not many. As much as I hate to say it, you are joining the vendetta party about a month late. You'll have to do some footwork to find one at a decent price at this point, but I'm sure you could track one down. St. Croix mojo bass rods are only 80.00 right now at Dicks. Maybe that would be worth looking into as well. Awesome rods, especially for 80.00! The Shimano Sellus spinnerbait rod isn't so bad either, but I believe it is 7'0. My top suggestion, however, would be a 6'6 MH/F Falcon Bucoo. Sans microguides they are in the 100.00 range and are absolutely amazing for spinnerbaits under 3/4 oz. They also make an excellent square bill rod! They are light (3.5 oz), have amazing grips, and have a 5 year warranty (as does the St. Croix.) it's hard to go wrong with that bad boy! Good luck in your search!

I wanted to name those also, but I had no real world experience with them, so I opted to pass. I'll have to give them a shot some time!

Lake Fork Magic Shad in the magic shad color. Swim jigs are never a bad idea, and square bills and spinnerbaits usually produce. Don't vote out some shad and baby bass senkos as well!

I just use the Strike King shakey heads with KVD on the front. I use a Shimano Sahara 2500 FD with a St. Croix Mojo Bass wacky style rod. It's a 6'8 medium with an extra fast tip. It wiggles wacky and shakey head worms without a ton of effort and sets the hook with AUTHORITY. It is also extremely sensitive with its super fast taper. 5 year warranty, double gloss coating to protect the finish... Overall, I love it. If it ever breaks, I'll buy another one that afternoon. As for choice of worms, you really are doing yourself a disservice by not using Roboworms. I like the straight tail, but the zipper shakin worm looks pretty sweet too. If you see some on a shelf, you owe it to yourself to try them. Best shakey/dropshot worms around, IMO. Hope that helps!

That bass in your hand right there has the genes to become a real monster later down the road. Maybe you will catch it again!

I highly doubt that. It usually has to be a printed as from a local competitor.

I actually started out with an H2O express frog and then moved to the pad crashers. I have the exact same problem, popping it one direction consistently. I recently picked up a live target field mouse and suddenly I could walk one like it was nothing. I'm quickly becoming a fan of that little guy.

Good afternoon everyone. This summer, the private pond outside of my work has been overgrown with some seriously crazy moss (or something similar). This large pond is very well stocked, and has been known for some seriously monster bass, catfish, and even some nice redfish swimming around (no, I am not kidding, they were transplanted and have survived well). Seeing as how this pond is only accessible to employees, it is not fished very often and to make matters better, it has been seeing almost no pressure whatsoever since this crazy moss started growing. We have no idea what it is, but it is matted almost right up to the surface, just barely under. To give you an idea, it actually does break the water in certain spots, but a buzzbait over the submerged mat collects moss. I found a picture that looks similar to what I have been seeing, so I am including a link: Here is my problem. I know that I have a very good chance of landing a very large personal best bass out of this large pond, but I am just about fed up with trying to fish it. I can usually pick off a few smaller (1-2 lb range) bass on a Ribbit, Pad Crasher, or Live Target Field Mouse, but when the topwater bite drops off, I am stuck fishing the inside weed edges between the weeds and the bank in less than two feet of water, usually with a texas rigged weightless senko. I will usually convince some fish to dart out from under the mat edge and hit the worm, but they are generally smaller guys as well. The pond has a decent drop (being 24/25 feet deep in the middle), but it is absolutely impossible to fish that far out with any lure that I have tried. These mats sometimes blow around when the wind picks up, and it seems as if they are finally starting to break up a bit (maybe the cold fronts are killing them?), but I am looking to expand my techniques to land my first lunker. Like I said, I probably have the best chance to land a monster here compared to any other places that I fish, so I really want to learn to become effective at fishing this place and start fishing for the big boys. My question is this... do you guys have any lure/technique suggestions? We have to fish from the bank, so I was actually entertaining the idea of doing some "light" punching when I can find any thin spots in the pond. I say light because I really do not have the adequate tackle for a true punching setup. I will be using my Shimano Citica and Powell Diesel 7'2 MH/XF rod, as it is the stoutest rod I have for flipping. It only has a 3/4 oz max lure recommendation, but I should be able to use a bit more if I am just flipping and pitching, correct? I am thinking about picking up some big tungsten weights and rigging some of my soft plastics weedless. I have plenty of Super Hogs, Pit Bosses, and even Rage Tail Anacondas (10") that I believe would work well. However, I have no idea what size/type of weight I need to use. I don't want to spend 20 dollars for a weight, but I want enough weight to fish the lure effectively in the weaker spots of the moss. I saw some wedge weights by Stanley in the 3/4 and 1 oz range that were much cheaper than tungsten but looked like they would penetrate rather well. Does anyone have any experience with these? Should I use an even higher weight? Do you have any suggestions as to WHERE I should punch? Edges of the mats? Do holes in the middle of larger mats hold fish? I would really appreciate some advice guys, as well as any other suggestions to fish this area. Hopefully I can have my first real lunker to show when I get this figured out! Thanks in advance to anyone that contributes their knowledge!

Can't say I have ever Used those. I work at bass pro and I have never seen them in our store. They may work well though!

I am an avid frog fisherman. With soft plastic frogs (aka ribbits) you can simply let the frog sink after the miss. However, I do pitch beaver/craw/senko lures back as well upon a miss. The key I believe is something that sinks veeeeeeerry slowly. You should certainly try it.

Lake Fork Magic Shad in the 3.5 inch size. You can get them in bluegill, baby bass, etc. They are not a paddle tail like most swimbaits. They actually swim more like a hard swimbait. I use a 3/0 Gamakatsu keel weighted swimbait hook. They have the keeper on them and the weight is 1/16 oz. You can also wacky rig them through the side for the dying fish look. They are a big favorite of mine on bass that chase small fish. You can also fish them on the dropshot!

Congratulations man! Glad to see you finally cross some eyes! Prepare to get addicted! We're all of these caught on that peacock bass swimbait?

It's a little over ten pounds, of course! In all honestly, I have no idea bud. Regardless, I just wanted to drop in and say congratulations on an amazing bass. If you start carrying a small tape measure, you can get a pretty accurate guesstimate with certain formulas. Congrats again!