Felix77

If you are catching fish then that is all that matters. Like everything else in fishing experiment and see what you prefer. I personally use the gitzit heads and tubes.

It's all business ... As the demand for LH reels grows so will the options. No different in golf ... actually worse in golf IMO.

Pictures of the lures ... interesting.

It's very hard to tell if this is an ethical issue or not from where we stand. There was a ton of bashing of Skeet Reese and the Sick Fish for the longest time. It took the owner of the Trash Fish who actually came out and exposed that he sold the design to Berkley Havoc and Skeet to build the Sick Fish. Before that everyone thought it was flat out stolen from them.

I find it very hard to get bored with a lure that flat out catches fish. Senkos flat out catch fish for me. If I am struggling from the back of the boat in a tournament it's usually a senko which I resort to.

Have a great show Bobby ... Those flick sticks are going to Kill!

Congrats ... can't wait for the day I am posting my pics on here.

x2 ... I own 2 pair. One is their amber color and the grey ones. Love them. Worth noting that I was fortunate to try a few high end glasses with boaters who used them. I saw the difference it made against my old (pre S11's) glasses. For the price I decided to buy the grey S11's and they worked as good as the higher end priced one IMO. I quickly got the other ones. For the price of one of these higher end glasses you can get 2, sometimes 3 pairs of the S11's.

It doesn't get much better than senkos and finesse worms. Clutch pretty much sums up my feelings about it.

Update on this from this past weekend. I fished on Oneida Lake for a 2 day tournament. On day one I was able to use the drop shot tips from this post. 3/16 weight and braid with a FC leader in particular. It brought me in 2 fish to make my limit. I felt the rocky bottom much better than with FC alone. One negative was the swivel and the leader I put on made it difficult to cast. Too long a leader possibly. I ended up using an underhand flip cast to get it out. My catches were in the 7-10 foot range in rocky bottom/sparse grass. Day 2 I tried putting a double uni knot instead of the swivel. THe casting of the drop shot was much better. I also got a chance to fish in 17-22 feet of water. the 3/16oz was a little too light to feel the bottom. Simply upgrading the weight to 1/4oz fixed that. Unfortunately I did not catch anything on it to see how well it held up. Day 2 was all about the finesse tube for some reason.

I had two goals going into the 2013 season 1) Learn the drop shot and catch fish on it during a tournament. This weekend I successfully used the drop shot to catch 2 very finicky bass out of Oneida Lake in my 2 day tourney. Beginning to feel very confident with the lure. Still learning all that it has to offer. 2) Catch a limit in most of my tournaments. So this one is still ongoing but off to a very good start. Out of 6 competitive rounds I have caught limits in 5 and cashing in twice as a result.

I just bought a Rapala flat to try it out. Can't wait for the SK one. I love the KVD Square bills.

Generally if you drive around the reservoir you will see signs everywhere which say one of 2 things. 1) You can fish with a permit. 2) No fishing allowed No signs generally means you can fish it. You should check with the DEC just to make sure though. good luck. Reservoir fishing rocks!

I just finished switching out my line to try out the Braid with FC leader approach. I will see how it goes. This rod seems to work well for me shallow. I might have to get something softer for deeper drop shotting. Good suggestion.

Thanks ec1. Reeigging my drop shot rod to try this out.

It's funny that you suggest that. One of the videos I watched was of Jonathan VanDam (JVD) and his Drop Shot technique. He's a believer in this method as well. He uses a swivel between the braid and the Fluoro. Right now I am using straight Fluoro 8lb Seaguar InvizX The only question I couldn't uncover was how long a lead between the swivel and the hook. Do you have a suggestion?

x2. Clubs include co-anglers. I went straight into fishing tournaments as soon as I could. You learn so much and so fast! Do it ... you won't regret it.

At the beginning of this fishing season I chose to dedicate a lot of my finesse fishing to the drop shot. I have been limited to drop shotting from the banks and occasionally when I get out on a boat. Last week I was given the opportunity to fish Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. I knew the lake from prior tournaments and I decided to dedicate a majority of my time to working a drop shot no matter what! I just wanted to get a real good sense for the presentation at various depth and through various pieces of cover/structure. I wanted a drop shot which was versatile across all conditions so I chose to rig up with the following setup Rod: Rapsody Drop’ Em rod. 6’10” MH XF Tip. Line: Seaguar InvizX 8’lb test Hook: VMC 2/0 Spinshot Lure: Strike King finesse worm. Green Pumpkin with red fleck. Weight: varied but ranged from 1/8 – ½ oz. Hanging around 9" from the hook. Lessons Learned 1 – Shallow drop-shotting – Rock You need to use the lightest weight possible and try and keep the presentation moving a bit more. Almost imagine you are ticking the rocks one at a time. With weights heavier than 1/8 I found myself getting hung up much more often. Caught 2 fish using this method. (Sidebar: This was something I learned on this forum. … Thanks!!!) In an effort to save $$ I would tie an overhand knot around my weight. When I did get hung up I would lose the whole rig instead. I switched over to pinching the weight on and just crimping the weight a little more to get a solid hold on the line. When I was hung-up I would lose the weight and keep the rest of the rig. 2 – Shallow drop shotting – submerged grass, weed edges I generally would use a Mojo rig for something like this . I rigged the weedless drop-shot on purpose to work it and see what happens. I found that the 2/0 spinshot actually made it through the grass better than I thought. I bet a traditional 2/0 tied on the “old fashioned drop-shot way” would be better. The spinshot did get weeds a lot of the time. The 1/8 oz weight also made it through easy as long as it was the long slender model. It is quite the workout popping it through the weeds but it did work out for 2 more catches. That includes my biggest largemouth at almost 3 lbs. 3 – Pitching to targets (shallow) According to Gene’s advanced drop shot video a shorter leader was preferable in this situation. Being lazy and wanting to keep the same rig I actually did something different. I “pitched” the weight to the cover and gave the lure a little more slack to ensure it fell more vertical. Pitching under an overhanging tree was good for one more bass. 4 – Deep Drop shot (30+ feet) We used part of the day to try and catch some deep water smallmouth. We found some submerged humps with the electronics and marked fish. I had to use ½ oz weights to keep bottom contact. Maybe in time I can lighten that up but I needed the weight to help me feel the bottom. We could never keep the boat on top of the hump so we struggled to catch a fish. My buddy had a strike but his hesitation kept him from setting the hook. Zero fish, not even a nibble for me. I found it difficult in deeper waters to feel the bottom with a cast and drag method. Jigging it was much easier. If we could control the boat over those humps life would have been much easier. J Not sure how much help this will be for everyone but it was worth posting to get feedback on other things I could have tried. As always your feedback/suggestions are always appreciated.

Finesse worm has become one of my favorites. Rigged on a 1/0 weedless OR Wacky.

According to their videos you can. I haven't tried it though.

Already said ... Spinning gear and 8lb FC. Good luck in the wind though.

I watch the big commercial fishing shows for entertainment more than to learn more now than I ever did. Early on I felt like I was learning by listening to what they were saying. I realized I needed to pay attention to what they were doing, how they were doing it and where they actually are. I think it was one of Gene's videos which said the best way to watch those shows is to put it on mute. I never felt so validated about my opinion on fishing shows. Sometimes what they say has to be seriously adjusted to meet your needs. For example ... When they refer to springtime fishing in the south it's generally a different world up here in the north. Their April spring is more like June/July here if we are lucky. Another example is summertime fishing when the water get's well above 90. I don't think the waters up north ever get that not. At least I haven't seen it yet. The only pet peeve I have is one which is just a 30 minute commercial that someone mentioned. But only those which show hookset after hookset, doesn't explain what they are doing or show how they are doing it. I avoid those like the plague.

LOL ... Boy do I have a little story for you! If you saw the river monsters episode in the Ukraine he was searching for the river monster of the Ukraine. My wife has never seen the show but decided to watch it with me because she is from Kiev in the Ukraine. In Jeremy Wade fashion he dramatically finds someone who is describing the "monster". The native called it the "Psalm" or something like that. My wife yells at the screen "Oh for freakin' sake ... its a stupid catfish". By the end of the show he catches a catfish. She also mentioned that according to Jeremy Wade the "Psalm" weighed something like 200 -300 pounds when the native actually said something like 100 - 200. Fun to watch the show with a native.

I think everyone is going to cheer for their favorite rod. It's all based on the preference of the user. My favorite drop-shot rod is a Rapsody "Drop-Em" Drop Shot rod. It's a MH with a XF tip. Some think that is too firm for drop shotting but I love it. The tip sends back everything that weight goes over. Before this rod I used a MM Fast tip rod which came with my spinning reel and that was good for me too.

The MJ Rig ... deadly. I have a small kit with gold and silver willow and colorado blades just for this.