Jolly Green

Because my local Walmart never has anything I need, I just knew they'd have a whole aisle of these... but all they had was the 04 size perch. They did have scads of 05 size blue gill, though. Sorry, pal; I tried.

All hooks stick more fish when they're sharp. $.02

The one on the left looks like my Bronson. It may be rusty or it may be showing where the chrome has worn away from the brass. Fishing it is a fun and challenging way to appreciate the superiority of modern gear, but even if it were actually NIB it wouldn't be worth that much.

Same here, sorry if that wasn't clear. An ice jig, huh? That must have been fun! Who needs a Suick when a Lindy will do?

Hmmm... maybe I got a bad hook, which happens. I got it stuck through a piece of clothing and didn't know enough to just flatten the barb for easy removal, so I got out a small needle nose pliers and clipped it off like it was nothing.

"...have been designed to help increase strike frequency between casts." I can't put my finger on the exact reason why this is so funny to me, but it's a good chuckle. These were my first spinnerbaits; I bought them knowing they were probably crap but also knowing that I might lose a few in the learning curve. (I did.) I took a feisty 30" pike on one of these last year, as well as a few bass with no problem, but they are as poorly made as their price tag suggests. You can clip the hook off with pretty much anything designed to cut wire. I would personally hate to lose a nice fish to that kind of failure.

I don't think they are as popular as a jig/trailer combination, but YUM CrawBugs actually look like a crawdad, as in a soft plastic replica of the actual animal, not something that has a couple big floppy claw-like things that you stick on a jig. You can T-rig them with a bullet weight or on a weighted hook but I've had the best results taking advantage of their hollow bodies by rigging them on a 3/8 oz. tube jig. (I like that weight because it helps keep them on the bottom in the river I fish; you could go lighter maybe in still water.) They're killer around any significant areas of gravel or rip rap; I just slowly walk them around in the rocks with maybe a couple of twitches here and there. When a larger bit of rock holds it up you can rock it back and forth a little bit and the claws will actually appear to be working, opening and closing. Crawdad colors in the wild usually are similar to whatever habitat they're in, so pick yours accordingly. I've never used any commercial scents, but I have shoved pieces of fresh garlic into the bait before the tube, and interest seems to pick up somewhat. Z-Man Crawdadz are another bait that looks like a whole crawdad, though less realistic. I don't do as well with them but they catch fish. Be warned that they are some different type of plastic that can't be mixed in with typical plastic baits or they will react and actually melt. On the upside they are super resilient and have a little groove along the back where you can let the business end of your hook hide, so it's still very weedless but easily emerges to stick the fish on the hook set. Good luck!

Fluke time is any time! I like the 4" white myself, usually T-rigged weightless or on a weighted hook. If I don't feel like messing with weighted hook I will shove a small finish nail into the bait after it's rigged for weight. I don't use a bullet weight because you want them to stay relatively level as they drop on the pause to maximize the enticing flutter of the tail. I also use the larger Super Fluke in Baby Bass and Smokin' Shad colors with good success. As always, plain old black is good in low visibility conditions. The typical twitch, twitch, pause retrieve works very well, watching your line closely on the pause. Most of the fish I catch on it don't crush it, they slurp it up and just go about their business, That moment when they try to amble off with it is when I usually set the hook. Some people suggest counting 2-3 seconds from the initial strike to the hook set, but I only wait until I start to feel the weight of the fish or see the line going taut, which may be sooner or later. I've never gut-hooked a fish waiting too long, but I have missed fish trying to set the hook too soon. These are very versatile lures; I've fished them on a splitshot rig, mojo rig, and just recently I've tried them nose-hooked on a drop shot rig. I feel that their relatively subtle tail action doesn't suit them as well for a straight swimming retrieve, but people do use them as trailers on various jigs including swim jigs. Other than the drop shot, I always use a 2/0 or 3/0 EWG hook that has been sharpened to a sticky point. Some people pooh-pooh EWG hooks, but I stick a ton of fish with them just fine. Good luck!

I would go to 10# line and set the drag to break at 4#. Don't reel down on the fish all the way before setting the hook; you want a tiny bit of slack in the line so it snaps taut and punches the hook through in an instant. Keep your hook sharp and swing for the fences; as long as your drag is set right you shouldn't break your line (or rod.)

I don't. I bought one at a flea market, so it only cost me two bucks to find out that it had no wobble at all at any speed, slow, fast, ripped... maybe I just got a dud, who knows? I kept the hooks and used them to replace the crappy stock hooks one of my Cordell Super Spots, which work great for me.

Yup. And as iabass8 says, 3/16 is too light. I don't throw anything lighter than a 1/4 oz. + trailer with mine; I use spinning gear for anything lighter. General reel cleaning advice abounds here and on other forums, YouTube, etc. but definitely have the diagram for your reel in front of you while you're working on it. Taking pictures as you go can help as well.

Anyway........ I don't throw crankbaits at all, so I can't speak to that, but topwater lures like a popper, chugger, or Spook tend to get tangled up in braid because it's so limp and otherwise manageable. Use a mono leader or straight mono for these types of baits. I also use a mono leader for spinnerbaits; everything else that I drag through rocks and other nasty cover gets a fluoro leader.

I T-rig the Zoom Super Flukes weightless as they are heavy enough for my taste by themselves. I like the Jr. size in pearl white a lot as well, and if I want some extra weight I will embed a small finish nail into it after it's rigged on the hook, or use a weighted hook as has been suggested; I don't like the way it falls with a bullet weighted nose. I have also had good success using them with a split shot or mojo rig, but the real advantage of these baits is the way the tail wiggles as they fall on the pause; nothing that swims can ignore it completely. Dip them in boiling water to straighten them out does make a difference, and rig them as straight as you can for best action. Flukes are my favorite plastic; you should have a blast. Good luck!

I've done OK with jigs, but they aren't my go-to by any means. I too found some of the info on this site and others to be confusing or even contradictory. (How does one hop it AND maintain contact with the bottom?) My kids have each caught fish on 1/4 oz. Strike King Bitsy Bugs, so it's not impossible. We have had the most success where the bottom composition is mostly rocky, especially transition areas from weeds to gravel to rip-rap. We also get hung up and broken off the most in these same areas, and I tend to pretty quickly switch baits at such times, so jigs really haven't gotten a fair shake from me probably; other lures just plain work better for me.

A bike. Somebody had tossed it off the pedestrian bridge across my local river, and it was in the way of fishing. A giant S-hook and some strapping helped me land it. Surprisingly, it only had one Trap broken off on it. I was expecting a Christmas tree's worth of rusty tackle.

4" white Zoom fluke, T-rigged with a small finish nail embedded in it for weight. Bass, 'gill, turtles, frogs, and even ducks smash it. Stupid ducks.

I always use a trailer with my buzz baits for weight and that little added action, usually an appropriately sized grub. I tried trailer hooks a few times, and all three times the fish hit the main hook no problem and wound up with a trailer hook stuck in its face. After the last one, a verrrry ticked-off northern, I retired them to the tackle-making bin. Sometimes the fish miss the bait, but I'm usually working it slowly and often they are persistent enough to chase it down for another swing; I wait until I feel the weight of the fish and I'm happy with my hook-up ratio. Even though they are obviously topwater baits, and it is AWESOME when they work that way, I will let mine yo-yo up and down a few feet if I'm not getting any topwater love. My basic philosophy is that it's easier to change up presentations with the same bait than to change baits altogether, and I've caught plenty of fish on a buzzbait down three or four feet. They can go pretty much anywhere a spinnerbait can go. Black is my best color, but yellow and white work for me too, and I only fish them early or late. Good luck!

I bought fluoro for leaders based on its reputation for being less visible in water. Seems to me, especially in the heavier weights, it's just as visible as mono. When I run out of my spool of fluoro, I'll probably just start using my $5.00 clearance spool of 12# Berkley Big Game mono. I don't fish anything that could be described as "gin-clear", however.

Welcome to the forum, CDobber. Couple things: You don't want a swivel or snap in your T-rig recipe; best feel is directly through the line. So then, your line... you could probably tie green braid directly to the hook; I personally like the improved clinch knot because I can tie it with less waste. I doubt the fish can see your line very well in the low-visibility waters around Madison (is that Warner Park or Wingra Park in your profile pic?) unless you're using white or yellow braid. If you decide to use a leader but don't want to give up on your Fireline and buy yet more line, try using an Alberto knot to join the lines, but tie it backwards; that is, make the bend in the Fireline and do all the wrapping with the much more cooperative braid. Trim the tag ends super close with a small wire cutter or side-cutter. Not ideal, but it'll fish. Keep at least slight tension on your line at all times, as braid doesn't have great slack-line sensitivity. Lastly, when I first started using T-rigs, I was using a weight that tipped the scales somewhere between bowling ball and anvil because I could cast it pretty far, but I quickly realized that using a lighter weight would actually allow the bait to fall through the shallow water I fish over a period of seconds, instead of nanoseconds. It made a huge difference. Good luck!

The few buzzbaits I own have an open bend for the line tie, in which case snaps are prone to sliding out of position during the cast, on splash-down, during the fight, etc. I will use them for spinners with a closed line tie on occasion, and you can get closed eye buzzbaits. I only throw black, white, and yellow, though; the convenience of a snap would kind of be wasted on me.

Not into decals on my anything. I think it's an interesting experiment, though. There's a record store in my hometown that's still alive and kicking though the odds continue to pile up against businesses like that, and while I'm sure they would love for everyone to display their bumper stickers, they don't give them away, even if you ask nicely. It has nothing to do with their character, it's just business. Give a man a sticker and he'll take a handful and forget about them til the next time he cleans his truck out; sell a man a sticker at cost and he's almost certainly going to use it.

Well, your alternatives for a combo at $30 bucks probably all say Shakespeare or Zebco on them. Go for it.

I used a palomar for everything once upon a time, but I had immediate breakage issues when I started using fluoro leaders. (Break was always at the lure or hook, never at the Alberto knot I use to tie to my main line.) I use a Trilene knot now with no issues, and don't anyone faint but that's using the much-maligned Berkley Vanish fluoro. As a side note, the quality of my knot improved after giving my son an eyebolt and a piece of nylon cord to practice his knots with. The first one I tied to demonstrate for him looked like absolute crap; the relatively gigantic diameter of the "line" makes it easy to spot the flaws and correct them.

http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/supertune-baitcaster.html This article is an outstanding read. Personally, I don't care to screw around trying to eke out an extra few yards of casting distance, but the section on improving drag performance has some totally worthwhile ideas. Ghoti and RM are Yoda-wise when it comes to this stuff.

Not mono. My ideal hookset is a quick firm snap from a slightly slack line, and nothing transmits that zero-to-BOOM punch in the lip like braid, imho. I do use a flouro leader but never more than 18" so the stretch there is minimal to nonexistent.