Brian_Reeves

I use the Rage Craw and Rage Lobster exclusively. High action trailers tend to produce more vicious strikes, taking out a lot of the guess work in jig fishing. Pork, old fashioned chunks, and beaver style trailers are good for certain situations, but I rarely use or need them anymore. I prefer generating reaction strikes. If I want to fish slow, I'll throw an Ocho. The Rage Craw gets the most action on 1/4-1/2oz jigs and the Lobster is put on a Strike King Football jig or Oldham's Trailer Hitch jig in sizes 1/2+ 100% of the time. I like to use black skirts with a watermelon-colored trailer or a brown skirt with a green-pumpkin trailer. Of course I play with a ton of color combinations, but those are the two that I'm becoming the most fond of.

My favorite colors for jigs are solid brown, solid green, or solid black. When I'm pitching to shallows, I use thin skirted jigs. For trailers, I almost always use watermelon red and watermelonseed, regardless of skirt color. Occassionaly I'll be a traditionalist and make sure that I match trailers to skirt color, but I am getting to where contrasting colors is doing better for me than matching.

Dunno. I haven't heard anything. Granted I haven't been able to keep up with things for the last couple months. Another MIA??

My best shallow water bait, even including flukes and senkos, is a rage craw on a weighted swimbait hook. That is one lure that has yet to have let me down when facing shallow water fishing. I keep it tied on until I move into deep water. Then it's all about the jig.

Between 60-80 hours of work each week and some legal issues, believe me I'd rather be fishing

I know I haven't been around much. Sorry bout that y'all. I've been swamped with work and other BS. I don't even have much time to fish, much less keep up with website stuff. I'm going to try to get on a little bit more.

I fish the shakey head a lot more. I just have more confidence in the lure. If I want a lure off of the bottem, I go with a floating tube and a carolina rig. The dropshot has a different place for me. I use heavy tackle/line, a 1oz pyramid sinker about 1ft below a 4/0 hook and a rage tail lobster for punching grass. I don't fish it like most people, to say the least. Getting the bait off of the bottom in the tunnels below matted grass is an awesome technique. Putting a high action lure on it makes it irresistable to big bass.

I'm good here in NE Louisiana. We just got a buttload of rain and a few blown down tree branches. It wasn't bad here.

Yes. But sadly, I'm partially color blind and I'm horrible at describing patterns. But I can tell you, it is one sexy sunfish color

I got a 4x4, a chainsaw, and a shotgun. I can make it I am heading down there today.

My parents are going through hell right now in Baton Rouge. i'm really worried about them. Siding has already been torn off of hte house. I'm debating on driving down there, but I don't think I would make it. I'm in Northeast LA right now, and it's pretty windy and rainy here, but not so bad yet. I think the worst is going to hit us tonight. Should be interesting.

To me, I love big tubes in the grass or in areas that are choked with vegitation. A florida rigged tube will really slip through that stuff a lot better. I also use them as a topwater or a c-rig bait by slipping a foam earplug inside them.

Very nice fish!! Thank you and I hope you catch a lot more like that in the very, very near future!

It depends on what I'm fishing...which is a cliche' thing to say on this forum, but it is the truth. If I'm fishing deeper structure, I typically ignore "search baits" because I want to maintain and control depth/bottem contact in most cases. To do this, I prefer heavy jigs and carolina rigs with texas/florida rigs coming in a close second. If I'm running a flat or bankline or covering water inbetween key areas on the structure, I'll break out a crankin' shad rig (on the ragetail site) or a spinnerbait. I'm not a big crankbait fan, but I'll use them for this purpose too...especially in shallow water. I rarely target large expanses of water with a jig and I'll rarely target structure with a crankbait. I use them both for more traditional purposes.

I try to find as many things about an area before I even travel there to mark structure or fish it. I look for key things like current breaks, depth changes, ambush zones, natural transition points, and potential cover. One huge factor that I take into consideration fishing Louisiana Marshes and natural lakes is moving water. Generally, with the fluxes of river stages, heavy rains, irrigation or drainage will all have a huge effect on both bass mood and location. When fishing some of these "featurless" bodies of water, usually I will start by finding some sort of moving water entering the lake. That philosophy has helped me find bass on everything from highland reservoirs to marshes and swamps. Once some sort of oxygenated, cooler, moving water is located, you can easily find ambush points, breaks, forage, and cover. Also note that when I find moving water, I rarely find bass hanging out where it enters the lake. They are almost always positioned near it, but out of the direct current hiding around something. On highland impoundments, the key structure will often be near a creek or main river channel. Though this water is very slow moving, I will always try to fish the down-current side first if the situations allow it.

I usually use only one of two colors of jigs when I can make my own. So far, I haven't ran into very many situations where one or the other wouldn't work. My favorite is watermelonseed with watermelon/chartruse accents and a matching trailer (rage tail craw in summer craw fits the bill for me, but I'm colorblind lol). My other favorite is a solid black, 30 stand skirt with a rage craw/chunk that DOES NOT match the skirt. A little unusual, but it works very, very well. The most popular jig color is probably either brown/red or blue/black. Those would be a good starting point, but I rarely use either one. ONly when I have to buy jigs.

I stocked up on various Mustad hooks and so far, I don't have any complaints at all. For years, all I used were Gamakatsu and Owner, but decided to try Mustad out again. They are holding up to tough fishing pretty well so far. You might want to try either an online store like www.***.com or bass pro or cabelas to find hooks if they are out in your area. If you're not using 4/0-6/0 EWG hooks with your soft plastics, then you could be missing out. I don't use offset hooks anymore at all with the exception of Big-O's favorite Eagle Claw 6/0 monster hook for big worms. Everything else gets EWG.

I'm a firm believer in rage tail baits. I love working with Steve and I love using the products. They are unique and they do make a difference. With rattlehead baits, I love their spinnerbaits. I tweaked mine to fit my spinnerbait style a little better, but they are fish catching machines. Good reviews Catt.

These were the only jigs that I used for a year or so. I still have a few left over, but I use my custom made stuff more now. You're right on about targeting different areas of a dock. Remember that jigs are best suited for targeting individual pieces of cover or structure. If you're searching the area, you might want to try a faster moving lure just to figure out what the fish are doing and where they are at. Then when you find them, set up shop with the more targeted baits and go to town.

The new scent is some pretty good stuff. Smelling it in the pure pre-mixed form will definitely wake you up lol. But as far as fish catching ability, it works wonders. I love the stuff.

THe coffee scent is patented if I'm not mistaken. Last thing I would want to do is step on Strike King's toes.

The strike king coffee scent is one of the best on the market. I've gone through a lot of tubes, trying to perfect a few techniques with them. These bad boys are the real deal. My favorite way to present a tube is with a foam earplug inside of it. I have used it with tremendous success this way on a carolina rig and weightless as a topwater. On top, it walks the dog pretty good. Strike King's various soft plastics are leaving very little room in my tacklebox for crankbaits, topwater plugs, and spinnerbaits. I rarely use them anymore. I can't wait until the rest of the Rage Tail and Coffee lineup comes out. Next year, I might not pick up a hard plastic lure AT ALL. I'm seriously considering trying this challenge out.

One of my best kept secrets in heavy vegitation... Deep diving crankbaits, 1oz rattletraps, and jigging spoons are what NOT to use!! I very rarely throw anything that isn't made by ragetail anymore. I like the entire lineup. FIshing the shad as a subsurface lure is KILLER around vegitation. To do this, use a keel weighted swimbait hook and a pegged bullet weight about 12 inches up the line. Fish it just like a crankbait or spinnerbait. I also like the craws on a keel weighted hook for flipping into holes or pockets in the vegitation. Other lures to consider are weedless spoons, spinnerbaits, and HEAVY florida rigged worms. As for areas, I'd target edges or pockets/holes of the vegitation in the deepest available water. Usually, thats where the coolest water is going to be and that is, in itself, an attractent. If all of that fails, use a Rage Toad or a SnagProof frog on top of the vegitation late in the evening for some topwater action. And remember this, big bass can only be caught if they are in the lake. If you are looking for 15lb bass in a lake where the biggest fish is 6lbs...well that speaks for itself ;D

I recommend a florida rig 10 times over for fishing vegitation. I use a rage anaconda or craw, a *, or a big brush hog.

The 7" is a go to when I am just fishing. The 10 inch is one of my favorite big bass baits. It has gotten to the point to where I won't target larger fish unless I have big Anacondas and Lobsters. The Lobsters are a sight to behold as well.