evobowhunter

Has anyone taken a DT6 crankbait blank and used a DT10 bill? I was wondering how this would work. I don't have any experience in crankbait building just jig making but I love a DT6. Sometimes I just need it to get down a hair deeper but don't want the profile of the bigger DT10. Any ideas if I could get one down deeper this way or maybe just trying to thin the bill on a DT6. Im not really a fan of adding weight to it so im looking for some other options.

If they are on a frog bite be sure to really pick apart what is holding them to the pads. They may be in the thickest of pads. On the edge. In thin pads. Transitions between thick and thin pads. Or on floating pads. In my experience with pad fishing frog almost every bite has something in common with another bite. Normally its where they hit it / the type or area of pads but it may be something as simple as our frog rolling over on it back while u work it that trigger a strike. Ide try that early morning and evening. If there is a deep hole in the pads where none grow might drop a jig Texas rig or senko down in there and wait for bassquatch. Hit points both bank line points and pad points. The drop off of the bank in the pocket two to the right of the long finger at the bottom really stands out as something different compared to the rest of the map along with the far left side. One thing nobody has said is an inline prop bait. Depending on the pads u might be able to run a prop bait through thin pads without snags. Don't be afraid to let a prop bait or frog sit a long time either... its august and the bite may be slow. U may need that long pause so that the fish really thinks it is crippled bad making an easy meal. Through a jig or Texas rig up in there . Might swim a jig on the edge of pads. Might crank c-rig or t-rig the points. Outside the pads on the edge u might try a popper. If u hear bluegill u might work that into our color selection on a propbait popper jig even the frog in a bluegill color.

I like the e series over g so I would take the chronarch over the g series if I was buying a new reel.

might try a weightless fluke

ive been playing with making my own jigs for a while now and you can usually stick to a few simple colors. Black and blue is always a great producer it will catch fish no matter what the clarity of the water is. In clearer water a color like Okeechobee craw color that green pumpkin, with a little blue/black is good and also can be used to mimic bluegill. in a little clearer water in a true crawdad situation a green pumpkin brown and orange jig is normally good to throw. green pumpkin orange is a good color too. as for trailers if im throwing a smaller jig or finesse jig I use a zoom speed craw and if the jig is bigger I throw a rage craw. if the water is stained to muddy I may throw I rage chunk on a smaller jig to put out a lot of disturbance. if the water is stained or muddy I may use spike it in orange or chartreuse on just the pinchers of the jig to help fish find it or in normal water clarity I may dye the pinchers to better match my skirt or whatever I want to imitate

Really depends on where I am ... I don't really always stick to one hot lure regardless of where I go. At one lake I walk poppers over bream beds on flats, on another I set up on a rocky bank with wind blowing parallel or slightly towards the bank and let the wind push my down it as I make long cast with the wind and burn lipless cranks back to the boat, and on the river since it changes so much ill flip grass, squarebill jetties, or walk poppers over submerged cover depending on the flow and water level. But this year my go to has been a fluke most of the year when I really need that bite and within the last couple outings ive resulted to deep cranking ... but normally its walking baits (for me that includes poppers) or lipless cranks.

The pit boss is one of my favorite crawdad imitation/beaver style bait and they are cheap. good action relative soft but will hold for a couple fish. also like missle bait dbombs too, they are a really good plastic. I like rage craws but the pinchers come off way to easy normally on the first fish and sometimes before then. Zoom speed craws are good to when the bite calls for a small lure and they also make a good jig trailer.

I spend a lot of time throwing topwater whether its cloudy, sunny, whatever and I almost always have 2 lure at all times tied on that are topwater regardless of the situation. I feel like my average fish is better when throwing topwater here so I take advantage of that. Almost always I have a walking style topwater which 95% of the time is a lucky craft Sammy 100 on a 6 10 mh baitcaster and always a 1/4 ounce lobina rico popper tied on a 7 foot medium spinning rod. Most of my fishing is spent in clear water lakes so even on a sunny day when the topwater bite shouldn't be a factor you can normally lure one into hitting that lure on top. I may be cranking, flipping, or dragging a worm but ive come to a point where ill see something I like for topwater and ill pick it up and throw it. I may see a lay down, a shallow flat, or a shallow grass bed as im fishing along and pick up that popper for a few cast. I may not have a hit or I may miss a fish but I can follow up with whatever I was doing and still catch fish but most of the time, especially in shallow water or directly over cover that surface disturbance is enough to lure them out to where I don't need to follow up. At lake Ouachita the bream bed bite gives off a huge topwater pattern this time of year and I can get a topwater in shallow place that may even be grassy with scattered perch beds where other lures wont go and the lure is right in their face. I may be different than most people but if im throwing topwater and the water is clear, I normally start out working the lure with a fast retrieve as opposed to starting slow. My clear water fish are spooky to lure sitting still or slow moving because they study and see something like hooks or something off in the coloring and they wont hit, so I start off fast and in clear water I start with something transparent. this for me generates more strikes and clear water fish normally have good enough aim to hit that faster presentation. Its not uncommon for me to have to slow down though. If I fish the Arkansas river which is normally muddier than the lakes here or in other cases that im just getting bad strikes, I may start fishing fast but have a lot of fish missing the lure. In this case I will slow down the presentation until I start getting most of the fish in the boat and that is the presentation I stick at. Starting off fast works for me in the clear water here but that may not be the answer for you ... and its not always my answer either. like I said if I am fishing to fast I slow down until it starts paying off but I don't have to stick to that rule either. like I said I may pick that popper up to hit a lay down ... I may have been fishing fast down a bank in relatively open water but I may slow that presentation down a few cast for that lay down to keep the lure in the strike zone a little longer since it is a high percentage target before I pick the pace back up. If I still have fish missing the lure this may be when I switch from walking bait to the smaller popper or switch colors. If switching colors I may go darker or to chrome to help the fish find the lure, if I think the fish are finicky I may go to a transparent color, maybe make my popper less erratic and I never pop the popper I always walk it and catch more fish that way. Almost always I keep that Sammy for morning fishing then as the bite slows I downsize to my popper. The popper is the go to daytime topwater lure for me but if I hit a flat I want to cover with topwater and I cant get the boat farther in I may pick the Sammy up to cover deeper into the flat if I need too. I also keep a topwater out on a sunny day with scattered clouds. when that sun is up those fish may be holding tight to the cover but if a cloud moves over and creates a low light situation for even just five minutes those bass will probably suspend outside of the cover or on the edge. this is a really good time to put down your jig or worm youre throwing and throw topwater instead. ... that's just to help getting the right strike. so you've got the fish to commit that's only half the battle. I heard somewhere that less than half of the topwater fish ever make it to the boat. Fish hits and its temping to rip that lure but that's not a good solution. My approach isn't to stop the lure or to count to a certain number like most, I keep working the lure and I go until I feel the fish. this works very well for me. if the fish has it, within a few twitches of the rod tip I feel the weight (the hooks may already be halfway stuck since I was twitching the rod tip) and I reel tight and pull into the fish somewhat like a crankbait hookset ... after all they are thin treble hooks that don't need to be laid into. if it is way out there on a long cast I may actually set the hook like a regular hookset since I throw topwater on a rod with a pretty flexible tip and mono that stretches just to get the hooks in there better farther out. that's if they get it in there mouth. if they don't ive never stopped working that lure and 9 times out of 10 they turn right back around and they wont miss it the next time. if they've slapped it or knocked it under I normally do slow the retrieve for a second or twitch twitch pause it because in the case they were slapping to wound or kill it they are probably expecting that lure to not look so lively. For slappers you got to have really good hooks that will hopefully stick the fish anyways ... this will help with smallmouth, spots, and whitebass too since they have smaller mouths than a largemouth. lobina and lucky craft come with really sharp hooks so I don't upgrade them out of the box but I will when they become dull or mangled beyond repair. after every fish I make sure to bend the hook back to where it was. most have topwater have round bend hooks. they aren't designed to be flared out past where they come from the factory because they will drag in the mouth of the fish and not hook up well. Round bend wont stick either if the hooks are rolled in either since there is now very little space to grab hold around the point of the hook... leave that for the wide gap hooks. Just pay attention to the hooks and make sure they are right after ripping them out of a fish because any outward bend of the hook on round bends is going to probably end up with less landed fish. I know that was a lot but I hope I helped somewhere and ide be glad to help anymore if I can.

I can get the bulk of the jig but where I run into trouble is the flare at the head end. The short trimmed end is different than what you normally see on a jig and that's what im trying to mimic. Their material flares from the jig head itself all the way back until it meets the main body of the skirt. Any ideas on how to do that?

How can I get my skirt on my finesse jigs to flare like this elk river jig? Anyone know?