TorqueConverter

I don't fish lipless much but I have tried fishing some deep weed lines with them and caught a mess of pike in 20' and 16' of water last summer. The Red Eye Shad has a tendency to stay at whatever depth the bait is at when you begin the retrieve. It's pretty straightforward to get that particular bait down to those depths.

The BPS baits that I use, I use because they are better than my name brand equivalents or have actions unlike anything In my box. Some of the XPS hard baits have great actions but all have poor finishes and cheap hooks. They're Japanese designed, Chinese built baits. Whatever tooling they have over there is pretty decent as the baits run true out of the box and are largely free of dents and tooling defects. If you're willing to put up with thin clear coats, cheap hooks and bait that may tumble in the air on windy days in exchange for a great fish catching action then baits like XPS squarebills, Egg, Laser Eye Deep Diver and Slim Dog are good baits. I haven't found a better fish catcher than the squarebills or a better wakebait than the 3/4 oz Egg. I'm a believer that you get what you pay for, just that you need to know what you are paying for. I've seen the cheapest of the cheap cranks have fantastic action and high dollar baits with mediocre action. A lot of what you are paying for in high dollar cranks are things that matter to angler more than fish. Things like how "nice" a bait is. You have to know your priorities. I know people that will fish a crank with an average action with an above average price because they like the hooks, paint, durability ect. I value action above everything else in a crank and will put up with things that will send other angers off the deep end.

I shallow crank in those temps in state ponds. I usually get a spring turnover that muddies up the water to 0 visibility and drives the fish super shallow. In my case I'll throw a big bright squarebill crank and slowly swim it just off the bottom. What you should be throwing is going to be dependent upon your specific body of water. If I was down in Table Rock I'd be throwing suspending jerkbaits and slow rolling chatterbaits/spinnerbaits.

Beaver has some killer spotted bass action. I was slaying 3-4 pound spots on topwater. They were all the same size and all over the lake as if they were from the same hatch. I'm thinking Beaver has the makings of the #1 spotted bass destination in the Country.

Do the the KVD squarebils even hunt? I've a had a few and none of them wold hunt. I assumed it was KVD marketing hype like invisible fluorocarbon. Hunting action has been put up on this sky high pedestal. I just made a waddle bat out of a beat up on Bagleys Balsa B. Hopefully I'll have something that has that classic hunting action.

Different makes of lipless cranks have tendency to want to live at certain depths. They may be rated as simply "sinking" but the baits do generate lift during the retrieve. Once the weight of the bait and lift balance out, you've found where that bait wants to live given a set reel speed. In my experience, for a given weight, the wider the wobble the shallower the lipless crank wants to run. Red eyes are the exception to this. They seem to be countdown lures in that once the retrieve is begun they will live at whatever depth they happen to be.

I like them on the Arkie U bolt Finesses Jig Head. The jig head allows the grub to be weedless and the hinge generated by the U bolt lets the grub have a swiming motion.

610 clackin rap not DC10. Too many XCS baits on the brain I suppose. What are those neat looking joined bluegill looking things? What is in that 2nd cavity from the top far right? Looks like super shallow/wakebait bomber.

How do the Lucky Strike RC squarebills compare to the Luck Craft RC squarebills? I'm of the opinion that blobs of plastic are blobs of plastic. Once a mold can be knocked off then the knock offs are as good as the originals when comparing plastic blobs. It's hard to knock off a balsa bait put together by a craftsman. IMO this is why "balsa KOs" are largely nonexistent. I am also of the school of thought that a machine operator maning an injection molding machine is not a craftsman and that it does not mater from what country of origin that injected molded blob of plastic originates from. I really do like those Luck Strike RC blobs of plastic and am disappointed by the lack of colors and sizes from the baits. Is it worth the $ to get the Lucky Craft versions?

I'm real interested in those baits. They look to be of a completely different design than any other Livingston Lure design I've seen. They lack the Norman knock off look of their other baits. They have a much more contemporary aesthetic and the color I saw looked like an orange readish color that I have not seen from LL. Blinking lights and noise be damned, those cranks look tasty.

Why is the Clackin Rap DC10 in the retried baits box? I just picked one up on sale pricing. It remindes me a of Dt-10 crossed with an Xrap.

God owes me a couple of DT-16s in Firetiger. He and I don't see eye to eye these days.

Those crankin raps are definitely some under appreciated baits. I don't fish the squarebills but I like the other depths. They have a bit of a hunting action like the old pre Rapala Warts. They have that gentle sided to ride rocking motion. The funny thing is hat the bait is very similar in design o the really early post Rapala Warts that everybody hated. I like the XPS squarebills and Xcalibur XCS 200 a lot. Both baits have the same wobble but the XPS baits wobble faster and are smaller. The majority of my shallow crankbait fish come on the XPS squarebill. I cold, dirty, shallow, water I like the Storm Arashi and Cabelas Flatsided Pork Chop crank. My favorite classic squarebill is the Bagleys Balsa B#2.

"God" is a cheapskate. He shoulda materialized some big bass in his live well instead of just telling him to go beat that bank over there.

This is alarming. It'd be one thing if guys grinding rocks were experiencing bill failure once a year, but to experience this much DT bill failure is insane. I don't grind the rock, because I have no rocks where I fish most frequently. Just to reiterate, the closest I have to experiencing to bill failure is a DT-16 that I got stuck in tree in my yard for a year (don't ask). When I finally recovered it, I had a DT-16 in a subdued 2nd gen fire tiger with loose epoxy around the bill. Some Devcon quick set fixed that. To cast DTs into water and crank them down to a rocky bottom only to experience not one, but multiple bill failures is very strange. It hints at something greater than simply "thin bills" as many other wooden baits have had thin, brittle even IMO, bills in the past and not had this experience. In the little bit of info I have gathered (surprisingly bill breaks are poorly documented online) is that it has something to do with the region around the line tie. It's as if the way the line tie is fitted to the bill is weakening the bill at that point and causing bill failure.

I've been having bass fishing related dreams for weeks now. I had a crankbait one last night. I just dropped over $100 at Cabelas over the weekend on lures and intend to spend as much at BPS this weekend.

The Berkeley Flat Back Shad is pretty good. It's one of the few with a rigid enough spine to translate tail movement into a swimming motion of the bait. A snap or split ring attached to the jig head frees up a lot of movement and allows it to swim like a giant soft plastic shad rap.

I'd use the swivel myself. I don't see it as much of a hindrance and it allows you to recover the weight during a break-off. Why not go mono for a leader? I would assume the sinking nature of fluorocarbon would impede the falling action of the bait? This is assuming identical visibility between flurocarbon and monofilament lines, per reality.

I'm not quite into my 30s and a lot of what is considered old school. Bagleys, discontinued Rapalas, early Warts, ect. The only super spooks I have are the JH signature series and I've clobbered big spots and the occasional large mouth on them in beaver lake. I like a lot of the newer stuff out there. The contemporary square bill beats up on my big square As, Shallow wee R and plastic Big Os. The Rapala DT series lays a solid beatdown on my down deep ratling fat raps, risto raps and most anything else for the equivalent depth. A lot of my BPS XPS stuff pulls a lot of my fish. The slim dog, the egg, XTS crank, XPS square bill and lazer eye deep diver kick butt over a lot of lures I have and they're just house branded stuff. DTs and XPS pulls a lot of my trebble hooked lure bass.

I have mostly soft bottom where I fish. Like silt. That's my bottom content lol. I'm new to the DT-4 because it's been real hard to put down the squarebils or resist the urge to pick up another squarebill when reaching for a DT-4 on the shelves. I've been more of a 6-20 guy. Everybody forgets about the DT-20. The DT-4 looks like it might snap off a bill. The bill is different from any other shallow Rapala bill, in that it is not a bent bill that attaches at 0 degrees. It is a straight bill that attaches to the body at an angle. I can't imagine that bill goes to far into the body the way it does with the other DT baits.

I never understood the whole broken bill Rapala DT thing. I fish the hack out of DTs and haven't broken a bill yet. I absolutely destroyed Poes and Bagleys in the past, so I know a thing or two about murdering wooded baits. I actually find the Rapala DTs to be exceptionally durable when compared to other wooden baits. I don't know how many Bagleys I've had that have the paint chip off or split bills in two. My Poes would loose all their paint before even getting bit. I'm starting to believe that the only people breaking bills on DTs are guys that have never fished a wooden bait before. With any bait, you shouldn't be slapping the water to get weeds off or bouncing the bait off the bank. These behaviors are unnecessary and destructive to any crank.

Risto Raps Down Deep Rattling Fat rap the bigger versions of the Reble R squarebill Anything and everything Bagleys Lee Sisson baits (he ones he made after leaving Bagleys)

I've got the dragon ball Z reel. It's actually pretty decent for the $60. The aluminum frame and externally adjustable centrifugal cast control (functionally identical to ACS/ACSII) are unheard of for the money. It's a fine reel but it is not smooth and the gear set is noisy. The reel is still better than an Abu offering in the $60 range but I'd rather spent the extra $40 for a Pro Qualifier. About the only thing I can think of that might be as good for a $60 budget are some of the Academy H20 reels.

I much prefer suffix 832 over power pro super slick 8. I bought both in #30 last year and after a bit of fishing it became apparent that SS has got some problems. While it's super smooth to the touch and limp, it breaks down to an overly limp state much quicker than any other braid I've used. The stuff is already broken in out of the box, but because of this, don't expect it to live as long on the spool. I also experienced wind knots with SS. The line is very light weight and limp resulting in the wind picking it up on windy days. 832 was just as limp, casts just as far, stayed in a like new condition longer and wasn't affected by the wind.

How do you fish your shallow shad raps and why are they better than a square bill crank? I've grown up around Rapalas but I don't throw shad raps. I was more of a rattling Fat rap and risto rap guy.