TorqueConverter

Judging depth by lip size is only good enough to ballpark it as a shallow, medium or deep diver. I've got 3 cranks right next to me, a BPS Deep Diver, DT-20 and 6XD. The DT-20 and 6XD both dive to the same depth, yet the DT-20's lip is significantly larger. The BPS crank and 6XD have the same bill shape, size and even body size, yet the 6XD dives 5 feet deeper.

Excellent read. Refraction is how light passes through a transparent medium. I'm sure everyone has stuck their rod tip in the water and noticed a neat optical feat that appears to bend the rod. The differences in refractory idexes of air and water is what causes a distortion in the image of the rod tip submerged under water. Light waves travel slower through water than they do through air and this causes the distortion of the image of the rod tip underwater. Lets say there is a fishing line that is right at the refractory index of water. How would this line look underwater? What effects would refractive indexes have on the line? Refractivity is the distortion of light passing through a transparent medium and this means that anything within that medium that is not of the same refractive index will bend light differently. Lets apply this to fishing lines. A line that has the same refractive index of water will not distort any images seen through the line. If you were to hold up this line and look through it, you would see the underwater world free of distortion. It would be as distortion free as looking through glass on land. Here's where the problems start: # 1 Fluorocarbon line is not at the refractive index of water. It's close, but so is a lot of what is called "mono". #2 Fluorocarbon ain't clear, or at least it's not crystal clear. It's like speaking about the refractive index of window panes to see which one will give you the better view, only to discover they are a transparent whiteish color and not at all "clear". #3 fish aren't going to hold the lines up to their eyes and gawk at their buddies image on the other side. The refractive index claim to fluorocarbon becoming less visible than mono is highly suspect. Percentage wise, there is just no room for those claims when comparing refractive indexes of monos to fluoros. Unless my 1.5-1.6 average mono values are way off then there is just no room in the data for there to be any differences. Combine that with the fact that a refraction is simply the speed of light through a material, in this case specifically being clear things underwater, is not something fish care about. There been two things that I can't speak about because there is very little info out there and that is refractvity of cylinders and the actual chemical composition of "mono". We can't just assume that all mono is largely nylon. It's usually an unknown blend of polymers that the manufactures are tight lipped about. Data and science need to what determines if there is really any truth to the fluorocarbon visibility argument. I know you've had some great days on the water with the stuff but I've been beaten by my father, from the back of the boat, accidentally spraying OFF insect repellant onto jigs thinking it was Bang. Same jig, same line, same rods. We even switched places. He still beat me that night coating a jig is what is basically fish repellant. All my favorite crankbait colors have nothing to do with science, or even good data collection, and are just emotional or confidence colors. I had a few real good days last year on two particular orangeish red cranks. I'm noticing a growing number of orange and red baits in the crankbait boxes this year. Funny how that works.

I haven't found anything better than a uni with like a million wraps.

x2 20 mph is nothing.

I usually can break 10 or get close to it in a 6 hour time frame. I enjoy recreational junk fishing with crankbaits and is where my numbers come from. If I'm after big fish then I'll fart around all day to get one bite if that bite is going to be a PB.

Same here. I picked up the Scatter shallow in Bluegill recently. It's hard to believe that it is rated to dive to 5 feet. I'm still waiting for a big bodied scatter sub 1 foot crank.

A lot of cranks will hunt. All of them potentially if you adhere to the hunting theorem, meaning that a bait will hunt as a result of instability caused by a defect in it's weight placement or body material. I had a Rebel shallow Wee R that would hunt like crazy. Hunting baits caused by defects that slipped through QC means that even cheap baits are likely to hunt.

I just bought a $30 Waddle Buggy wake bait. I've only spent up to $15 or cranks thus far. It needs to hurry up and be summer already.

The Curado is a great reel. Generations of it come and go. The Curado is discontinued for a reason. The reason being that Shimano released new gen. I'd like to see the old Curado design continue to live as a low end, sub $100 reel. Caenans are kinda junky.

Are you dissatisfied with your cranking performance? If not, then if it ain't broken don't fix it rings true. If you can crush em cranking and make everybody else throwing jigs and plastics green with ***, then count yourself as lucky. If you really want to learn soft plastics, I'd recommend starting small, casting to cover water (to have some simlarty to crankbaits) and moving on from there. Once you get a few fish under your belt your confidence, and enthusiasm. should soar. I'd recommend fishing small 2'' cranks to anybody coming from the opposite background looking to get into cranks for the same reason. Start with easy-to-eat small baits and gain confidence 1st. Confidence goes a long way and you seem to have a lack of it when going outside your comfort zone.

Menards has kayaks? The hardware store? This is new to me. Sams has them so this shouldn't be a surprise I guess. Kayaks are great. I love fishing out a small personal watercraft. A much as I love fishing out of my inflatable pontoon, it's impossible to row against even a slight breeze.

Welcome to the braid mustard race. Braid is the smoothest, most power per diameter line on planet earth. Fluorocarbon is some of the worst casting plastic line out there. I love the stuff but it is exceptionally poor casting when compared to good mono let alone a good braid. I deep crank with #30 braid for it's cast-ability and diameter. I frog with it as well for much the same reasons. My jig rod has #17 fluro on it for abrasion resistance and low vis (vs braid because it's clear, or at least see-through). If you haven't tried an 8 strand braid I highly recommend you try some. I recommend 832. This is the 1st time I've heard this. It made me double post and all. Tell me more. There's a lot of bizarre claims made about 100% fluorocarbon line ranging from invisibility, makes cranks dive deeper than rated to burning knots when tying. While all of this can be tossed out the window as bogus claims, this claim is interesting as it is 1st I've heard of it, yet it sounds unbelievable. Are we sure it's just not the terrible manageability of the line that requires a higher spool tension and/or centrifugal braking to keep it under control? The line being heavier and needing more braking sounds, on the surface, like many of the other fluorocarbon myths.

Your bait is either way, way outta tune or is defective and unstable. I have to ask, does the bait run true at very slow speeds and only become unstable as faster retrieve rates? If so you may have a hunting Wiggle Wart on your hands and that something that is fairly desirable to many Ozark anglers.

Nope. What channel are you getting that show on? It was one of my favorite fishing shows until it vanished. I have Direct TV. The spiral is a characteristic of the tube bait itself. A weedess rigged or lightly weighted Texas rigged tube is spiraling machine.

I've got a an Accurist on a Veritas MH sipnning rod. It's a nice reel and balances out nicely on the Veritas. I haven't got a chance to use it yet. The handle threads into the bearings and is reverse threaded when set up for left hand retrieve. I spent like 10 minutes trying to attach the handle for left hand retrieve.

1. The pins on the side of the spool are the centrifugal brakes. I like 2 turned on paired with a light spool tension. 2. I use Quantum hot sauce just because I have it laying around. I use silicone based grease to lubricate the gears. 3. There's 2 schools of thought on that one. I say fish it out of the box and go from there. 4. I'd say no. Most anything can be used in that environment with constant cleaning and lubrication. I don't think the drag on the reel is able to deal with some of the fish found in saltwater environments. A Shimano would be a better reel for that environment.

I'm a cranker too. I also have not caught a thing on senkos. I think once you become a crankbait guy you develop a patience problem. Before I got into cranks I used to throw a texas rigged ribbon tail worm a lot and it is still one of my confidence soft plastics. I don't know about OP but I'm content to crank and keep my plastics on the back of jigs.

Senko and other similar stick worms. I don't beat the bank very much and that's all I've ever head of anyone doing with the things to get bit.

The refractory indexes are for fluorocarbon as a material. It wouldn't be wise to assume that flurocarbon as a fishing line and mono-filament fishing lines tested in a real world scenario are going to display the same 1.4 and 1.5-1.6 refractory indexes. The difference between the two is so small that it would certainly be very difficult for optical equipment to tell them apart, let alone fish. Being invisible to fish because of refractory index is exactly what the flurocarbon invisibility myth is centered around. Refraction and reflection are much the same here. It difficult to speak about refraction of light in layperson terms. Reflection, while technically incorrect, makes things easier to understand. A line that was at the refractory index of water would, when submerged in water, refract light the same as water. This means that the sunlight would be bent through the line much the same way it is in water. This does not make the line suddenly vanish. A line that was at the refractory index of water would be, in strong sunlight and clear water, less glowy or shiny for a lack of a better word. Fluorocarbon fishing line is not at the refractory index of water. Another way to express refractory indexes is as the speed of light through that material. Light travels though mono filaments at around 63% of the speed of light were fluorocarbon does it at around 70%. Tiny differences.

Yes. It's not uncommon to see straight shanks on some cranks right out of the box. I've seen it on some Japanese cranks targeting wahoo I'm not sure how they'd hookup when bass fishing. If you're concerned about safety, crush down the barbs on your hooks. You'll actually get the hooks deeper into the fishes mouth than with barbs and can still have a good if not improved land ratio over barbed treble hooks.

Re Refractory index of water: 1.33 Refractory index of fluorocarbon: 1.4 Refractory index of "mono filament" fishing lines: 1.5 - 1.6 Explain how it is far more than less shiny under water. Explain to me what it would mean if a fishing line had an identical refractory index as water (1.3). Explain how this makes the line invisible. Explain refractory index. Refraction is, when oversimplified, shininess. A line with an identical refractory index of water would not be shiny underwater. Not shiny underwater =/= invisible underwater. The percentage differences between flurocarbon and mono in their refractive indexes are so small that I would be hard pressed to believe that they could be accurately measured in a laboratory environment by some of the finest underwater optics in the world and be anything other than identical.

Invisibility. Fluorocarbon line is great in its own right but 5%-10% less shiny under water wasn't exactly exciting. Tell people that it's nearly INVISIBLE and anglers were all over it.

Clear Super Spooks work well in the Ozarks when the fish are shy about a painted Super Spook. The "bait ball" effect may be a gimmick but a big clear bait has produced bass in the past. It's not uncommon to see people deep cranking in Biwa with unpainted plastic cranks. These baits are much the same with the addition of some small baitfish inside the bait.

That's a killer price. I thought I stole my XCS-200s for $4.88. $2.99 is house brand territory.

I think the biggest mistake a lot of guys new to jigs make, is that they take the advice of seasoned jig fishermen targeting big bass with few bites in a highly specific presentations too seriously. Better to cast a 1/4 Bitsy Bug and get bit like crazy to cut your teeth on jigs than to jump right into pitching/flipping a 3/4 jig into the shoreline IMO.