War Eagle 44

While I agree that Dirty Jigs are the best on the market I'll have to disagree with you on the Cali swim jig. Their regular swim jig head with the no jack hook is the best swim jig made, IMHO of course. I picked up 4 more at the shop last week, 3 in the Coosa Special color and 1 Warmouth.

Powell Max 735 with a Citica 201E and either 50 or 65# braid. I "upgraded" the drag to Carbontex, no slip.

Owner is my favorite brand hands down and the one I'd recommend first. Having said that, I feel just as confident when using Gamakatsu. As someone else already mentioned I too use Owner's TwistLOCK hooks for a wide variety of plastics and presentations. Owner just has a wider variety of hooks that I personally enjoy using so they are usually my go to brand but I've never been let down by Gamakatsu. I'd feel 100% confident using either brand. Mustad makes some pretty good hooks as well, I just prefer the other two.

Me either and I've never had any trouble hooking and landing my fish. Spro is my favorite brand so I have more of them than any others and I've never once gotten a "bad" bait that doesn't hook fish.

I like a more full skirt so all I'd do is fish that bad boy. Good job.

x2

I think you're getting bad advice here. Look up frogging video's by Bobby Barrack or Dean Rojas, both very well known frog fisherman and they both recommend 65#.

Outback and Killer Gill and of course they work.

I couldn't agree more. It's almost as if they didn't put any research and development time in at all with these rods. I couldn't believe how heavy they were the first time I actually picked one up.

As always I'll suggest the Powell Max 735 frog rod. It's under your $200 limit and IMHO it's a fantastic rod. If you are really wanting to stay with Duckett then I'd wait and get one of the new Terex Rojas designed frogs rods. He has 2 different frog rods coming.

This is far from the case. Although I have more expensive and "better" gear, eg. Calais DC, Calcutta TE DC, Stella FD, Metanium, most of my fishing is done with Citica E's and a Chronarch B. I enjoy fishing with them all equally. I'm very excited to try the new Curado I and add it to my growing list of Curado models which include a 51E, 301E, and 201DHSV. My first Curado was a 201B SF but I stupidly sold it some years ago, really wish I hadn't.

I know the feeling, I too am waiting on the lefties. I'm used to it though because this has always been the way Shimano conducts business, lefties 2 to 3 months after the righties. To tell the truth it hasn't been that hard for me waiting, I have all the gear I could possibly ever need now. In fact I have a Metanium XG that I received for my birthday last Oct that's never been spooled or put on a rod. I'll eventually get around to it, and maybe by then the Curado's will be available. Good luck in your search to find one of the first available lefties!

I've heard about "Power Pro Plus" a few times now, what line is it exactly?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

It's a very nice fish to be sure but I'm looking for one around 8 or 9 pounds. There are always a few this size weighed in throughout the year on my lake so I know they're in there I just can't seem to interest one. Thank you for the kind words, I've caught several different species of Sunfish from this lake so that's why I wanted to try and find a few different colors that worked and also ones that aren't mass produced. I need all the advantage I can get. I've caught a few fish on the Dirty Jigs Crappie color but it doesn't seem to be "the" color on my lake either. It sure is a nice looking color to my eyes though. As I said earlier a chartreuse and white swim jig has produced the best for me by a long shot so I may just be complicating things here by trying to fix something that isn't broken. The lake is loaded with Sunfish though so that's why I feel I just haven't found the right imitation yet. Thank you. I use quite a few different trailers, anything from a small swimbait to regular swimming chunk style trailer. I'm one of those people who try and match my trailer as close as possible to the jig skirt colors. Thanks everyone so far for your feedback.

I've been "hooked" on swimming a jig for the last two years, I haven't caught any big ones doing it yet but I've caught several in the 4 pound range. My most productive color so far has been chartreuse and white followed by the Green Sunfish color Dirty Jigs puts out. I've had limited luck on black/blue. Most of the posts I see or reports I hear from other anglers are mostly about Bream related colors. I've fished the Alabama Bream colored Dirty Jig with some success but not nearly as much as it seems other guys are having with similar patterns. So I decided to try and tie a few jigs with what I think might be good Bream imitating colors. These are the colors I came up with, maybe they'll work maybe they won't. I'll just have to wait and see. My question to you fella's is what are your favorite Bream imitating swim jig patterns. Post pics if you have them so I can get an idea of what I may need to be making. Thanks guys.

I'm slowly coming to this exact conclusion and therefore feel that I'm going to settle on it as my braid of choice for the foreseeable future. I really like P-Line Spectrex braid as well but I can't buy it locally so when the two spools I have run out I'll just replace it with PP.

Curado I

Power Pro 65#.

Hollow body - Spro & River2Sea Toads - Gambler Cane Toad & Rage Toads I prefer the original over the popping but there is certainly a time and place for the poppers.

I did use them as a jig trailer on my trip and I got quite a few bites. I was expecting them to have more action than they actually do but they are a very interesting bait none the less. Sometime in the not so distant future I'm going to flip with them and see how that goes. I'm thinking they have "just enough" action to be very effective here, I'm just not sure that I'm fishing them to their full potential just yet but I'm sure I'll find the sweet spot. Good luck on your trip.

Braid - Power Pro / P-Line Spectrex IV Fluorocarbon - P-Line 100% Mono - D/A Copoly - P-Line CXX

I know lots of guys (including myself) hate the bait keepers that Gamakatsu ships their heavy cover straight shank hooks with. I haven't had much luck flipping with straight shanks over the years but I'm still trying and to that end I like the Gamakatsu straight shank the best so I've been looking for a simple fix for them. I think I've found it, adhesive lined heat shrink tubing. Just remove the stock keeper and replace with the new heat shrink one. It doesn't take very long and it isn't that expensive so if you really like the hooks it might be worth looking into. I prefer them mainly because of their welded eye, besides the fact that they make good hooks.

When using the new short shank trebles it's normally ok to go up one size treble without it effecting the lures action. I've been doing this a few years now and I've not had any trouble so far. I was a very big fan of the Mustad KVD trebles but I've since learned that they've changed the hook point to a much cheaper design that what they were originally using so I'm done with those. Gamakatsu makes a short shank EWG treble that's just as good, although more expensive, that I've started using instead. My favorite replacement trebles though are the Owner Stinger series trebles, they don't have quite as short a shank as the other two hooks I mentioned but they aren't "full" shanks either, they're kinda an in between. Great hooks though. I stay with the stock sizes when using these hooks though.