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Holy crap! This might just be the biggest thing I needed to hear but didn't know it. With my small lake (and no boats allowed dang it), I've been trying to find areas that "look good" based on what I've seen or heard from others. Finding a pattern is well and good, but if you're like me and only catching 1-3 bass in 5 hour or so period and those 1-3 are spread all over the lake, there's no way to figure out a pattern. Yet, if I can break them down into zones and work those zones (as much as allowed here). If technique A works in other similar zones then I can derive a pattern. The Zone System should work for bank fishing as well. Even bank fishing I tend to start in the shallow areas or areas of cover that should hold bass. Thanks to people on this website I've been trying different lures, but for a while I was using soft plastics (generally a black trick worm or any color lizard). They work, but with the exception of spawning period, I've really been fishing a hit and miss. On my good days I would cast to about 4 or 5 places in an 180 degree fan and then move on. Or, on my off days (health wise) I would sit in one spot for a while but cast to the same spots over and over again. The only true zone or even pattern that I got good at was during spawning (pre, during, and post). I knew where the males were guarding the beds and I was able to take that all over the lake. However, I was missing out on the female bass and maybe even some male bass that may have been further out than what I thought they'd be. The hardest thing for me is to have a game plan rather than "I'll just cast until I get something" syndrome.

Hehe. I've gotta stop responding to post that I have no experience in. I just thought that if you haven't seen the vids then maybe if you'd seen what type of action they have then you would have some ideas to try. Like the shad, for me that would either be c-rig or rage rig. But anyways.

LOL! Maybe it will last till I can get a higher end one. I fish almost 7 days a week and anywhere from 5-6 hours a day or more. The lake is practically in my front yard. So far it's been good but since my only other b/c I've had is the Quantum Lite then I don't have to solid of a ground to compare. I will say that I don't fish with it all the time. I take my spinning rod out a lot. Sometimes I will take 2 rods out. Normally, just one.

Crestliner2008, I can attest that they work on a dropshot. The worms naturally float so on a drop shot the tails stick up. A third of my bass last month was from the ZMan lizards and I didn't have to tear a head off to reuse or anything like that. I will say this and it's very important: DO NOT PUT THEM WITH OTHER PLASTICS. They will shrivel up really bad. My ZMan chatterbait came with an Elaztech split tail grub. Like an idiot I put it with my other jigs. The grub shriveled to a little nub. The other plastics weren't affected. Just the Elaztech. Unfortunately around here only wally world carries it. 2 colors in the saw tail worms and 2 colors in the lizards. But, they are worth it. Still would like to try Strike King's 3x finesse worms though. *sigh*

I am fairly new to them myself and I have issues with the cast. For whatever reason I can't cast as far as other soft plastics. Probably an operator failure. Anyhoo, from my research on this site and watching videos on YouTube, I would have to say that it would be unfair to limit yourself by just one or 2 ways of rigging any of those. Simply put, the design of almost all of the RT makes them extremely versatile and each of them could be used for c-rig, drop shot, t-rig, rage rig, shaky head, or any other way that suits your fancy. I would say that it's hard to fish them wrong, but I seem to be the one person that does. Haha. If you want some ideas, check out Strike King's Rage Tail videos on YouTube or type in the search "ragetaillures". Very awesome vids.

Not to take away from the OP, but smalljaw67 you indirectly answered a question that was plaguing me this morning. It was real rainy this morning so I took out a quarter ounce chartruese and white spinner with a tandem gold willow. I had a bass bump it the first time out and the second time he followed it. I wasn't sure if it was the color or size. I wish I had 2 of every spinner I have because once downsized there's no going back. Actually buying more skirts would solve that problem. Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you and I love this website.

Trust me, the only reason I hold onto that story is because I don't want to be like that guy. If I had paid much attention I would have probably quit fishing. LOL! I stopped caring too much what people think when I was in highschool. I mean, I will respect someone as much as possible, but I could care less if they like my shirt, my beard, my long hair, or if they think I fish too long in one spot. Thankfully it's a community lake so the only way they're getting rid of me is to evict me. And I happen to know that the people who run the place likes me and has no issues with where I fish or for how long. Mainly cause they know that I catch and release rather than do like one guy did a few years back. He caught a bunch and left them on another guys porch without telling him. Needless to say that not only was he not allowed to fish but he was also kicked out (guessing there were other complaints besides that). So far, besides a couple misunderstandings, everyone has been nice and helpful.

I don't know. I got a black/blue from ZMAN and J Willis Rocker? It comes with 2 skirts, one with 2 frog legs (white and green skirt) and one that looks like a bunch of minnows (white skirt). The blade is painted on one side. Unfortunately the blade is just as big if not bigger. I do believe that ZMan makes a smaller version of it though. Could be wrong. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I have yet to get a strike on either one of them.

Um......is it safe to assume that you meant "poster" and not "poser"?

Storm makes a Wild Eye bluegill and crappie. The half ounce has a belly treble and a 4/0? on the top. The quarter ounces have just the hook on top. I got the crappie version because the very first bass I "caught" was one that I pulled up from the bank by hand. You read right. He had a crappie caught diagonally in his mouth whose head was in the bass' gill plate. It could swim and was upside down, the bass I mean. Once I took the crappie out it swam away fine. But back to the point. I have caught a couple of bass on it. At first I thought there was something wrong with it because at certain speeds it would try to swim side ways. Apparently this did it for the bass because that's how I caught them. I did take off the treble, though, because my lake is mostly shallow and the weeds grow pretty high. I may regret doing that one day. You get 2-3 in a pack for around $5. There are better brands out there but not for my budget.

The only store locally that has RT's only carried the smokin rooster and the anaconda. I picked the smokin rooster (bama bug) because the video i seen of it was showing some serious action and vibration. I haven't had any bass hit it though, so at the moment I am sorta wishing that I had gotten the anaconda. I've texas-rigged w/ 1/8 oz, c-rigged, weightless, and a 1/16 keel weighted hook. But don't blame the product per se, I still have issues with most any lure unless it's worms or lizards. It's one of those things that I'm gonna have to keep trying. I just wish it wouldn't tear up so bad after a few times of putting on a hook and taking it off.

Except how the line ties on I would say that my Hart Tackle jig isn't much different. That's a pic from harttackle.com. In fact it's the exact color I have. Given the over all design of yours, Vinnie, I would say that I could probably swim the HT jig the same way. That skirt has never given me any problems. Anyways, I don't want to waste the jig. I am on a budget so purposely losing the jig is not my.............wait, I'm stupid. The purpose of a swim jig is to imitate fish (much like a spinnerbait) so it is better to have a trailer on it that gives swimming action in conjunction with the undulating skirt. Sorry guys. Maybe I should have my head re-examined before making another post. *sigh* But the skirt does still tend to move around like the strands will shift more to one side or the other (talking about the Booyah Swim Jig now). How would I fix that issue?

I agree with the OP but I feel it applies to just about any lure. Now days any lure category has a situational category. It didn't use to be that way. And to top that off, they now have lures that could fit into multiple categories. The chatter bait is one of those. It acts as spinnerbait, crankbait, jig, and a frog. I say spinnerbait, but theirs no spinner blades on them. They do give off a lot of flash like a spinnerbait.

I do not mean to take away from the OP, but he got me thinking (again). Lee you said that except for being deeper it's pretty much the same type of situation as my lake. So do topwater frogs follow the "rule of thumb" like other ones do? You know, like they are better at sunrise hours and sunset hours or can they be just as effective through out the day?

Has anyone have any trouble with skirt staying on the Booyah Swim Jig. I got the one in bluegill (really more of a brown/black). The skirt attempts to come off every other casts. If I was getting strikes I would understand but I'm not. The only way it stays on is if I have a trailer on. Which isn't right. I should be able to use it without a trailer to give it a smaller profile. Right? Here's a pic of it I got from lurenet.com:

From what I've seen KVD is one of those guys who isn't satisfied with "outta the box". Even the lures that he's helped design he will still find a different way to fish them or modify them. Sometimes I swear it's almost as if there's a diver in the water that just puts the bass on the hook for him. I haven't had any success on the SK cranks either. I have the sexy shad and the gizzard shad color. Keep in mind that until very recently I have been big on soft plastics. So I'm not really qualified to answer your question. I will say that I have this Bomber Model A Square Bill foxy shad 0'-3' that really stays at 0' more times than not. I hung a bass with it. Can't tell you why? It was acting more like a wake bait rather than a crankbait. The thing to remember about KVD is that most of his video's are done over a few days or a couple of weeks. Still fun to watch him trying to give a lesson and he'll catch bass in mid sentence and sometimes every other mid sentence.

On my lake there are no lily pads or surface veggie. Bank fishing, there are a few trees and bushes that hang out over the water (including root systems in one particular spot). However, there are a few spots where the veggie get as high as 6" below surface. I bought a KVD Sexy Frog last month. So my concern, as with some of my other lures, is this: Can top water frogs still be effective here? The lake is easily 80% shallow and 20% deep......ish. Check my pic album for a topdown view of my lake or go to "Success with Spinnerbiat.....Sorta".

I do agree with smalljaw and jigfishin, but I am also positive that even with short strikes if I had a trailer hook on the first three then I might have gotten 2 outta 3. I say 2 outta 3 because the warmouth (rockbass) mouth is a little too small to get around the hook. I've seen it attack the spinnerbait one time when i just let it fall to the bottom all of a sudden. poor guy tried for about 5 minutes and then he gave up. Oh, I forgot to mention that I tried 2 types of retrieve. I used a straight medium retrieve (1 full turn a sec roughly). I also tried same retrieve but every so many turns I would stop reeling and bounce the rod tip a couple of times. The very first bass on a spinnerbait a month back was caught on the second technique. Yesterday's they were hitting on the first. If I could just figure out why the were hitting in some spots and not others. I partially think that they were hitting on the eastern bank because the wind was blowing a surface current into it from the WNW. But the one I almost got in the "thumb" breaks that rule and I got him from the east.

Thank you, smalljaw67. I don't know enough to say which brand is better. I've heard a lot of good things about Shimano. But I've heard a lot of good things about Quantum. Mainly because I like watching KVD fish. If I have one of those days where I wonder why I fish at all, I watch clips of him fishing on YouTube and all of a sudden it feels like a Gibbs slap (NCIS anyone?) and I get right back out there. As far as off brands go, I have to go with Shakespeare (is it really an off brand). My $28 rod/reel combo has been through heck and back and has yet to give up on me. Oh, I caught my first bass with the Pinnacle Solene reel this evening, 2#, it did pretty good. Same as the Quantum Lite. The problem with the Quantum Lite turned out to be my fault. I am a stickler for putting everything together in the reverse order that they were taken apart. For some reason I am missing a part and not sure how it happened. I believe it's the drag clicker. I found a similiar object when vacuuming the floor one day and I put it up somewhere not knowing what it was. I can't remember where though.

Okay, I'm gonna keep this short if possible since most of you have seen my other posts. Today, I took my spinnerbait for a swim. The skirt has white with a few strands of black and white in it. It had a rear willow blade and a front colorado blade. Not sure of the size (2"). It is a quarter ounce. The first trip I went around from north to east and to south east (on the eastern side of the "pinky finger"). I had 3 strikes and landed 1 bass. The bass was also my third strike which tells me he really wanted it. I learned a lesson: trailer hooks are your best friend. The first 2 strikes I was lucky enough to see my spinnerbait get knocked sideways. The second strike was a warmouth (rock bass). The second trip was to the "thumb". After landing the 1 bass, 2#, my spinnerbait felt like it bogged down by some weeds. Next thing I know I'm reeling in a bass, but because my brain didn't react quick enough to set the hook, he flipped off despite the trailer hook. The third spot was in the first "finger" (west side). Nothing doing. The important thing about today is that my confidence in spinnerbaits has shot through the roof. Thank you everyone who has steadily encouraged me over the past week to use a spinnerbait. Here's the map of my lake again. Blue is the wind direction, yellow is off limits, orange is the places I got strikes with no hook ups, and red is where I got hook up and did or did not land it.

smalljaw67, I thought about that. As much as I fish, it would be better to have a higher end reel. What happned is that I went looking for a $15 reel/rod like the quantum to tide me over. They had nothing but spinning gear except the brand new Pennacle. I told my wife it was up to her. She went ahead and bought it. Worse case scenario, I will get one later and have this one as a back up just in case.

Great job Rookiepilot2003. The one thing that I have learned the last few days from everyone on this forum is not to get stuck fishing a lure the "traditional" way. The swim jig got it's start because a bass hit it on the retrieve (quickly reeling it back in to make another pitch/flip). Sometimes if you fish a lure differently from everyone else the bass will nail it because it's different from everything else they seen. That's one of Iaconelli's big things: change is a key to catch bass. Sounds, looks, and smells. The slightest change will some times trigger strikes that wasn't happening before.

XPaininthebassX, I have problems like that with every hard plastic lure except Zara Spook. I'm not going to give up on them though because I know that the reward is well worth the effort to learn. Texas-Rigged, I had wondered about that. I did it one time back in prespawn with a half ounce black jig w/red flakes with a zoom chunk trailer w/ matched color. I hope the OP was helped by this post because I know it helped me a bunch.

Has anyone used a Pinnacle Solene SLP10C baitcasting reel before? 6 ball bearings+1 roller bearing. 6.2:1 ratio. I bought it a pawn shop still in the package for $40 (Walmart's price $50) to replace my Quantum Lite that's messed up (which I now believe to be a missing part due to an operator's stupidity). So far it seems pretty good. Haven't caught a bass yet so I don't know what type of reel power it's got. But I threw a half ounce spinnerbait, a quarter oz. crankbait, and a baby brush hog w/ 1/8 oz weight and seemed alright. The winds are S 10-15mph. I did have to turn the brakes up, but I still have a lot to learn about baitcasting in windy conditions. I "professional over ran" a couple of times, but nothing major.

Bassrun, I assure you that I have tried countless time to come up with a devious plan to get some type of floatation device on the water. This lake has a no boat restriction (see OP) and they won't even allow you to step into the water. If I did so I would risk getting kicked out. The last couple of months I have been trying other lures and I run into problems when I do. 1) Lame I know, but if I don't even get a strike I start getting "ADD". I will change to a different one after 5 minutes. 2) Submerged foliage is a major hinderance, however a lot of replies on here have given me new hope and ideas. 3) until I get another baitcasting reel I am limited to a 5'6" ML Spinning gear that doesn't like anything over 1/4 oz. While plastic worms are my go to baits, I am learning to fish them in different ways. Shaky head, C-rig, wacky rig, dropshot, and weightless. I've also been working with top water quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. During spawning season lizards were my number one lure. There's nothing like watching a bass trying to figure out whether he should kill the lizard or just move it.