McKinneyLonghorn

I've been real impressed with Sufix Elite as well as their Siege line. I just picked up some Sufix ProMix to try out. Hopefully it is as good as their other lines.

I'm stuck on the bank so I used a GoPro with a chest rig. GoPro has some free software you can use to edit the raw footage. Works pretty well since the wide angle lens captures the whole process from casting to fighting fish. You just have to make sure anything you do with your hands (taking the fish off the hook, holding the fish up to look at, etc...) happens right at chest level rather than eye level. This takes a bit of getting used to but when you get it down you get some really nice video.

I've never used or owned a swimbait but last night I purchased two of the 3.5-inch H20 swimbaits, one shad and one sunfish. I got out this morning but was in a pond where there is way too much grass to use any treble hooked baits so all I was able to do was tie them on and pull them around near the bank. The swimming action seems pretty nice and natural, although admittedly I have nothing to compare it to. Looking forward to trying them out this year. For less than $6 each I figure I have nothing to lose. I'm a big fan of the H20 hooks and the Mettle reels as well.

x3 for Knipex. I have a pair of the 8 inch side cutters and they will easily cut through any hook you will be using in freshwater. I picked up mine at Sears a few years ago for $20-$30 I believe. Edit: My pliers are the high leverage design with the longer handles, which I think makes a ton of difference.

Watermelon Red and green pumpkin are my goto colors for soft plastics/jigs/chatterbaits. The bait I have caught a lot of fish on the last year is the Rage Space Monkey in the Double Header color, a laminate of my two favorite soft plastic colors. For crankbaits firetiger catches me the most fish.

The ones I am using a lot lately are the ones you can buy blanks of all over the Internet. (I've seen them on three or four different sites but there is never a brand name, but a simple search of "wake bait blank" should bring them up.) A guy I know paints them up for me so I am able to get custom colors at nice prices. Here is a pic of some of the frog patterns he does, as well as ones in black/blue and junebug that slay them at night. These baits run 6-8 inches deep on a fast retrieve and have a really wide, noisy wobble when reeled slowly along the surface. These are 2 1/2 inches long and weigh a 1/2 ounce.

I don't know if there are Academy stores near you, but I have always been able to find them there.

For me stained water calls for a firetiger crankbait with a wide wobble and rattles. Since the areas I fish are incredibly weedy and anything that runs deeper than 12 to 18 inches gets hung up, I typically use the Baby Minus 1 (in the matte tiger pattern) or a similar super shallow crankbait.

The fish in this thread make my smallest bass look like a lunker. This was caught last summer in a local pond on a 1/16 oz Rapala floating minnow.

I carry one of the Academy H20 Express tackle backpacks, with one of the storage boxes a Plano 3600 Spinnerbait Box. The backpack easily carries a few dozen bags of soft plastics, four 3600-size boxes and a few smaller boxes for terminal tackle.

Getting hung up is definitely part of the game where I am fishing. But when I rig them weedless I am able to spend more time fishing and less time picking grass and weeds off the bait, which kind of sucks because I catch a lot more fish when it is wacky rigged. It is just not worth the hassle to wacky rig it when you see how much vegetation is in the ponds I fish in.

I fish the Space Monkey and Brush Hog from the shore in community ponds and catch plenty of fish.

I fish exclusively from the bank and mostly in shallow water. I have a ton of colors in my bag but for 99 percent of my fishing I use watermelon red, green pumpkin, junebug and black/blue. Those should handle just about any situation you will find.

Tough choice between the Baby Brush Hog (in Watermelon Orange) and the Space Monkey (in Doubleheader), but I think I have to give the nod to Rage Tail here.

I took the Cut-R out for the first time earlier this week and also liked the results. I fished it slowly along the bottom but feel it will probably work on a straight retrieve as well since the tail really has some nice action to it. The Cut-R, along with the Craw and Space Monkey, have all been successful for me this spring. Can't wait to try the Toads I recently bought and for the Rage Bug to come out later this year.

Everything in my local pond likes the Space Monkeys. Tonight I caught three largemouth as well as this chunky little black bullhead, who thought the green Space Monkey hopped slowly along the bottom looked like dinner.

Elite Series pros James Niggemeyer (Lake Fork) and Kurt Dove (Lake Amistad) are fishing guides. A few FLW series guys guide in Texas as well.

I am also new to soft plastics, so I am far from an expert, but here are my early experiences. So far I have tried the Craw and the Space Monkey and caught fish on both. I have fished both of them Texas-rigged with a 2/0 or 3/0 EWG or offset hook with a small unpegged weight. I have caught fish both hopping or dragging them slowly along the bottom, as well as simply casting and retrieving them like you would a spinnerbait. The claws on these things flutter like crazy when retrieved so when they are quickly retrieved back they have a real good action, which is why I think swimming them back is effective. As far as colors go, I have used both black/blue and watermelon red in the Craw, and double header (a watermelon red/green pumpkin looking laminate) in the Space Monkey. On both I have used Spike It on the claws (yellow on the green baits, orange on the black/blue baits). I also have a pack of the Cut-R worms in watermelon red but have not tried them yet. As you can probably guess, in my limited experience I have found Rage baits to be extremely effective. They, along with senkos, are now my main go-to soft plastic baits. I had read some reviews that the Rage Tail baits were not too tough, but that has not been my early experience. I typically get 3-4 fish on each bait before it is too torn up to continue. There may be other companies that make worms that are tougher, but the Rage baits aren't one fish and done like some reviews I had read. My only problem has been in areas where there are lots of bluegills, the claws get nipped off when I swim the bait back. When I fish it on the bottom it is not a problem, but when those claws are really fluttering the panfish can't control themselves and tear them apart.

This thread got me excited to try some Rage Tail baits. So far I have caught fish on the watermelon/red and black/blue Craws, as well as on the double header Space Monkey. I have some of the watermelon/red Cut-R worms that I am also looking forward to trying out. I am not too experienced fishing soft plastics but the Rage baits are definitely as advertised in my opinion.

Thanks for your service.

I assume the Spike It markers are permanent on soft plastic, but are they permanent on hard baits?

I've only tried a half dozen or so models, but so far the Rage Craw is my favorite because of the big-time action of the claws when it is retrieved. Just tonight I caught two bass on a black/blue Rage Craw with the claws dipped in orange Spike It by casting it out and reeling it back in like a crankbait. With the bullet weight still on the line the craw was running a foot or two below the surface. I have also caught fish on the Yamamoto Flappin' Hog, and while I have no real problems with it, it doesn't appear to have much action. I think it will be a better option when the fish want a more subtle action. I also have three or four models of Havoc craws as well as some Crazy Leg Chigger Craws to try out this year. Can't wait to see how they do.

Those are in the bargain bin at my local Cabela's also. They have them in several sizes for $2.99 each. I picked up a few and can't wait to try them.

I'd check YouTube. Almost anything you need to know can typically be found there.

I am sure Texas has been mentioned, but I didn't want to read all six pages. We have a ton of different options here, but the basics are $30 for a freshwater license, $35 for a saltwater license or $40 for an all-water license. If you get a combo hunting and fishing, the prices are $50 for hunting and freshwater, $55 for hunting and saltwater and $60 for hunting and all water. Lifetime licenses are $1,000 for hunting or fishing, or $1,800 for both. Fortunately, I purchased my lifetime combo license 5 or 6 years ago when they cost $1,000. In 2009 they increased from that price to $1,800. When I bought it, I think I figured it would pay for itself (using 2008 prices) in 15 years (at the current price it would pay for itself in 28 years). Since I am only 31 I think I ended up with a pretty good deal.