moguy1973

This is the way I rig my wacky worms, although I save a bit of money by using Goody hair bands from Walmart instead of the o-rings. I've tried it with the hook parallel to the worm and my hookup ratio wasn't nearly as good as it is with the hook perpendicular. 90% of the time I'd say I hook the fish either in the top of the mouth or in the corner of the mouth with it like this. Never in the bottom lip. This is using the Owner Mosquito hooks or the Fusion19 weedless wacky hooks.

Strike King is super proud of their new vibrating jig at $14 a whack. I don't understand what makes it that much more than the Zman chatterbaits that can be bought for $4 anywhere other than maybe a better hook.

Oh I see it now. The plastic on the edges makes it look like it's been used a lot and is all ground down.

Uh, I think that's been used before it was removed. LOL?

I didn't read all of the article but I read enough for a different take on it. Ned is known for his namesake bait and the Midwest finesse techniques. His bait is half a stick worm on a small lead head hook. Not much to say other than that other than it is what it is and it works. Maybe this is his sense of humor coming out when IF gives him this bait and says "Hey, look at this new finesse bait. Give us a good article for our magazine/website/whatever". And Ned looks at it and says, "That's a lot fancier than my half a stick worm. I can write a 3 page article about this thing, talking it up and describing it down to every minute detail it has, but I bet it still doesn't out fish my stick worm."

I watched Jon B when he was first starting out and found his channel when I had one of the monthly boxes and saw his unboxing videos. His fishing videos were decent back then even though he really made more out of every small fish than he needed to. Most of the time he was trespassing on water he wasn't supposed to be on and I'm not a fan of that. Now the group of them are rather annoying and I haven't watched since they formed their group. I'm kind of sad that Academy started carrying their overpriced baits, taking up a section of their racks that used to have baits I used to buy that they discontinued having.

If they can't out price the real deal Zman stuff that works perfectly as it does then there's no point. I've been using the same 8 pack of Zinkers that I cut in half for my Neds for the last year and a half.

New personal best yesterday. 5.20lbs

I like to fish alone most of the time. There are times I like fishing with others though. When I’m kayaking it makes it easier to go with someone so it makes the vehicle shuttle easier with two vehicles. I like fishing with my fishing buddy because when I catch a nice one it’s easier to get a nice picture of it. I don’t like fishing with my fishing buddy when he out fishes me. I do like fishing with my wife because she enjoys it as much as I do. I don’t like fishing with my wife because she’s not the most graceful and I’m helping her get out of trees or retying her line or helping her get her fish off. I really don’t like fishing with my wife though because she typically out fishes me, mainly because I’m helping her more than I’m fishing.

I’ll have to update mine. Caught my new PB largemouth yesterday out of the same pond my previous one came from. This one was 5.20lbs. Thought it was much smaller when it hit my wacky rigged senko but then it surfaced and then ran like a freight train to and under dock I was fishing from. Didn’t want to come out but finally my wife was able to net it.

It's almost like they put the list together and when they got to #25 in the southern and central regions they said, "Oops, we forgot about Kentucky Lake and it belongs in one of those regions, but it's not as good as those lakes as it once was. Hey, I know, we can only come up with 24 really good lakes in the northeast region lets throw it on there and hope that no one notices!"

There's a boat motor in this picture? ??

Yep, like they said above, it's a very slim small weight. Just enough to flip the toad over when it lands to keep the hook point up. The hooks aren't EWG so the weight almost fits up in the slit on the belly of the horny toads and doesn't catch on much if anything at all. The 1/16thoz VMC drop deads isn't that much more weight and it really doesn't make the horny toads sink that much faster. I can still reel it pretty slow across the top of the water although I usually use a 7:1 or faster retrieve reel with top water baits. I really want to try the new Zoom Frogs as they are a lot more buoyant than the horny toads and supposedly a lot more durable.

I use a 1/16th or 3/32th weighted VMC 4/0 drop dead hook on mine, with the screw lock. The weight keeps the toad upright with the hook facing up. I don't miss many and they are usually hooked right in the top of the mouth.

My PB smallmouth (in my avatar picture) came about 3 years ago on Columbus Day. Went to a local river access that isn't known for big fish, or any fish really, but this day I figured what the heck, I was close and had the day off so why not. There's a big pool under the bridge at this access that had some leaves and other debris on top swirling around in the eddy that the pool forms. I started out using a walk the dog that kept getting leaves caught on the hooks making it hard to work, but on one cast I got a huge blow up near the only piece of cover that was in the pool, a rather large log that had lodged itself up against the bank and was sticking out in the water near the bank. I thought it may have just been a gar since there are a lot of gar in this part of the river typically. To remedy the leaves getting snagged on the treble hooks of the walk the dog I switched over to a texas rigged Zoom Horny Toad. The very next cast i dragged the frog across the log and another huge blowup, only this time I had the fish hooked. I still thought it was a gar as it didn't fight much, then when I saw it I realized it was a rather large smallmouth. I got it up on bank and it ended up being a 21.5" 4lb 7oz smallie. Probably a catch of a lifetime on this river as not many that size are on that stretch anymore. My PB largemouth came earlier this year on my in-laws pond. In the past it has yielded a lot of big green sunfish and a few smaller largemouth bass although my wife had caught a 6lb 10oz monster right after my in-laws bought the place. Usually it's full of grass to the point you can't fish it but this year they've gotten it under control with some grass carp and it's been fishable. That day I caught several fish in the 3-4lb range and caught my PB of 4.52lbs as the biggest. Nothing really exciting as it's a farm pond and I caught it on a wacky rigged senko in a shallow part of the pond where they were most likely setting up for pre-spawn.

Possibly different salt content too. With my Z-man products I always stretch them out and let them go to get as much of the salt out of them as I can as less salt makes them float better and gives them much better action.

I was probably 4 or 5 when my grandpa took me fishing so 41-42 years?

The 60amp one would have worked just fine. ?

Some techniques like topwater frogs and walk the dog lures or even jerk baits require a twitching motion with the tip of the rod so if you have a longer rod there is the tendency for the rod tip to hit the surface of the water when in a kayak in which typically you sit closer to the water. Shorter rods fix that problem.

Yep, illegal here in MO too due to didymo (rock snot) being transferred from stream to stream.

Looks like it's about 4' above full pool and a mess https://www.hotsr.com/news/2019/may/09/corps-of-engineers-closes-campsites-ram/?news

That it does. I think I got mine for like $65 on TW for their 25 days of Christmas sales a couple years ago.

This is the ticket here. I love the Fusion19 weedless wacky hooks. They have a fluorocarbon weed guard where the VMC have a wire one and the fluorocarbon one gets out the way better while still maintaining excellent weedless capabilities.

I'd skip all those as when it comes to bait casters usually you get what you pay for. I'd put a few bucks more out there and get a Speed Spool LFS $99 shipped on TW.

I used to only reel with my right hand when I was younger because all my spin cast reels weren't able to be swapped to the left side, until I got a Zebco33 I guess. I learned to use my left hand to reel when I started fly fishing. I fly cast with my right and my left hand would always be the stripping or reeling hand. Carried over to my baitcasters and spinning rods now. I can't use a right handed rod to save my life anymore.