iceintheveins

I love them, especially black. I use a Marty Stone lockdown weight and drag them through weedbeds or along drop offs. One of the best 6" worms around.

Husky Jerks are great jerkbaits for bass. They are a little more subtle than X - Raps and they have a wider wobble than a floating rapala. When bass want less movement, go with the Husky Jerk. When they want it more erratic, go with the X - Rap. I always carry both. Both lures will catch largemouth, smallies, trout, pike, walleye, and even crappie.

I use firetiger in stained water or if perch are a common forage. One of the best all around colors for water that isn't super clear.

They both stink IMO, especially Trilene XL which is very brittle with little abrasion resistance. The best mono for me is Original Stren. P - Line CX Premium is good stuff too, though a little more memory than stren.

Carolina rigged tubes work very well. The trick of placing earplugs or styrofoam in the tube helps it float and stay more visible to bass.

I like the 3.5" original gitzits for finesse bass work, and the BPS magnum flippin' tubes for heavy cover. Bluegill, motor oil, white, watermelon, green pumpkin, chartreuse, and root beer are my favorite colors.

Creme White is my favorite color. I prefer the 4 incher, rigged weightless texposed with a 1/0 EWG Gamakatsu hook.

I love bass fishing and catching both largemouths and smallies, but pike are my very favorite fish to catch. They get huge, hit like freight trains, and fight like mad. I also love catching real trout (not stocked catchables), especially in a river. I love walleyes, catfish, anything pretty much. My real best love is ice fishing, especially for pike and lake trout, both of which I fanatically pursue in the winter. Perch, crappie, and bluegill round out my list, I flat out love them all. My favorites in order would be. 1. Pike 2. Real Trout (including lake trout) 3. Bass 4. Walleye 5. Catfish 6. Crappie 7. Perch 8. Bluegill

The best pike or pickeral lures are: 1. Buzzbaits 2. Soft Jerkbaits like flukes 3. Spinnerbaits 4. Suspending Jerkbaits Like X - Raps Or Husky Jerks 5. Jointed diving minnows

REAL trout grow larger and fight harder than any bass. The world record rainbow is 46 pounds. Stocked trout placed in fisheries as put and take resources do trout as a whole an injustice. For real trout, cranks and minnow baits rock, as do curly tail grubs. Trout are often much more aggressive and willing to chase down lures than bass are. That being said, I often catch 10 - 12" stockers on accident while bass fishing, they will hit 5" lures pretty often. I've even caught trout on buzzbaits. Real trout are for catching. If the trout can't regularly grow to over 20" or they can't really reproduce in an environment, they don't belong their. Stocked trout are for feeding bass and pike.

I only use spincast reels to fish tiny streams where casting accuracy is paramount. Other than that, I fish mostly spinning reels, and baitcasting reels for bigger lures or heavier lines.

On average once every three or four trips. If I'm bait fishing, usually after every trip.

Mono. Braid ruins topwater actions and fluoro sinks.

Some companies used to even say coffee repelled fish. :-?

Palomar knot is good.

Senkos, flukes, finesse worms, centipedes, tubes and the like. If the water is heavily stained though, those presentations don't work that well.

The dancin' buzzbait is a gimmick. I tried it and have had a couple of bass hit the blade and thus not get hooked. Stick with cavitrons, strike king elites, terminators, accent lures hi riders, and lunker lures.

White always works, but natural crawfish and baitfish colors are must haves as well. Pumpkin, green pumpkin, watermelon, smoke, motor oil, rootbeer, and the like. If there are shad in the lake and the water is really clear, a clear grub with silver flake is a good weapon.

With temps this cold, suspending jerkbaits, float n flies, and hair jigs tipped with a small plastic craw would be the way to go.

Spinnerbait with a black skirt, and a loud, black or bright colored shallow running crank. If legal I would use live minnows before anything else though.

Thanks for your input guys. I've down well with both, plastic seems to have better action but the pork is best for finicky bass.

You fish them with a lift drop or slow dragging motion. I fish them a bit faster than jigs but still slow. After a pause, you can shake or jiggle the rig to get your bait to appear natural. This is especially productive if your using brass sinkers with glass beads.

Sometimes 2.5" tubes work better for finicky smallies and when you need to match smaller forage. But 3.5" tubes usually work better. I alwatys like to go as big as possible because big baits cast further and cover water better.

Outing number one: 1. X - Rap, 8# Olive Minnow (Two Largemouth Bass, 19" and 14". Nineteen incher was over four pounds) Outing number two - 1. 4" Creme White senko, rigged weightless/texposed with a 1/0 EWG Gammy 2. 3.5" Bluegill colored gitzit tube, rigged weedless with a 1/0 EWG Gammy and a Marty Stone Lockdown weight 3/16 ounce. Senko caught a a5 pounder, X - Rap caught a couple 10 - 11" dinks, tube caught a 15", 2 + pounder.

I have caught them in water as cold as 54, but I do best in water 62 - 63 or over. I will start throwing them some at 55+ though. The first topwater they seem to hit is a floating rapala, which technically is a shallow minnowbait but it can be twitched on top.