MIbassyaker

I'm too young for 70's BPS catalogs, but I remember getting them as a kid in the 80s. I used to flip through them over and over, dreaming of one day owning every worm in every color... a dream that, to this day, goes unfulfilled, but not for lack of trying...

People around here seem to have consistently good things to say about the value per price of the various Academy H2O products. No Academy stores where i live, so I had never heard of any of the H2O things before I started hanging around these boards.

Huh. I like the look of that. I have rigged plastic craws backwards, but not with the weight down like that.

4 inch black curly tail grub on simple round jighead. Pick a random weight head between 1/8oz and 3/8oz, and I'll make do. Can be thrown on spinning or casting, will catch almost anything, almost anywhere. Runner-up #1: in-line spinner, silver blade, undressed treble. Runner-up #2: original floating rapala F09, silver/black-back

I often wonder if other humans see and interpret colors as I do. In the end, it doesn't matter though: we can still agree that a thing is "orange" whether or not we see it exactly same way. What matters is the ability to distinguish it from other colors. And bass are demonstrably capable of distinguishing the same basic colors from each other that we can. A bass may not see orange as you do, but the idea is, whatever it sees when it looks at something orange still bears some similarity to what it sees when it looks at, say, a bluegill's throat.

I don't actually think color matters very much, most of the time. I think on occasion bass will dial into particular color patterns related to particular forage in particular conditions, but from my own experience and from the published evidence I've seen, it's very situational, and other aspects of presentation (depth, speed, size, movement, general visibility) tend to dominate most of the time. Again, it's not that color doesn't matter, just that it doesn't matter as much as most other things, most (not all) of the time. But quite a few bass forage species have distinctive orange highlights -- bluegills and pumpkinseed sunfish have orange throats, yellow perch have orange on their pectoral and pelvic fins, craws in many places have orange coloring, especially undersides and claws...If bass are going to key in on color patterns indicative of quality forage at least some of the time, I would expect an orange belly would be a good candidate pattern for that, in many places.

The 1-2 punch!

Question! I've decided I want to upgrade a medium spinning combo with an Avid X. I bring only a few rods (5 max) at a time with me on a kayak so I usually need them to serve a few different purposes. Here is what I'll use it for: 60%: wacky rigs, weightless and light t-rigs (flukes, ribbontails) 15% tubes, grubs, paddle-tails 15% Small topwaters 10% Jerkbaits I'm looking to choose a length and action that will give me the best balance of functionality among these uses (I can split duties with the current rod, but it's not very sensitive). Leaning toward the 6'8" MXF -- does that sound about right? Will I wish I had gone with a longer rod (the 7'0") or a fast action instead of XF, for some reason? Or, since St. Croix has a reputation for being more powerful than their ratings, should I consider an ML power instead of M?

Whatever colors you'd use for jigs and/or craws in your waters, I suppose. For me that's anything with a base of black, pumpkin, green pumpkin, or watermelon.

I put them on any jighead that fits, 1/8 to 1/4. Try the 5" on VMC swinging rugby head. The 4" I just put on whatever lead roundhead I can find. As much as I fish a finesse C-rig similar to what WRB mentions above, (mostly lizards, worms, smaller brush hogs), I haven't tried a hula grub on it yet...I'm sure it would be great.

Jeez, you florida guys! Rub it in some more, why doncha!

My biggest of the year is a current PB: 5lb 2oz largemouth on a 3/8oz Megastrike Cavitron Buzzbait, black blade/black skirt.

That screams "pike magnet" to me.

Easiest. Question. Ever. http://www.siebertoutdoors.com/

I dig a 3.8 fat on a hornet underspin. Whatever color looks good to you is the right one to use.

My uncle's backyard, just across town from our house growing up was just loaded with crawlers! My brothers and I would go over there and hunt them with my cousin, exactly as you said -- trying to slosh around carefully after a rain with a flashlight, competing who could get the biggest one or the most. We were never careful enough or knowledgeable enough to keep them alive and fresh very long, though.

FFO tackle has size 35 Pflueger Supreme MGX for 64.88 (and check the banner at the top of their homepage for additional promo discounts): I prefer a size 30, but a 35 should be good for an MH rod.

After seeing numerous references to spoonplugging without really knowing what it was, I found a used copy of the "green book" cheap. It is a very interesting, but strange read, and I'm still trying to get my head around it -- you get the impression of Buck Perry giving a series of lectures in front of you with blackboard full of hypothetical depth-chart diagrams. You can practically smell the chalk.

I think this is really spitting hairs! I mean, I like having jigs with both brown and green pumpkin heads -- they sure look nice arranged in the box -- but aside from (very, very) vague compatibility with skirt and trailer colors, I don't pay much attention the precise head color itself.

Strike King had a 3X elaztech ribbontail a few years ago -- I have a few packs. You can still find them occasionally online.

Huh. I witnessed none of these magical happenings at the DSG closest to me last week.

Yep...I'd fish that.

It does sound like you're talking about a ribbon tail; Original Culprit or Berkley Power Worm, maybe. I don't honestly think there is any such thing as a bad worm.

In more ways than one:

I got my first baitcaster this fall after a few decades of life fishing only with spinning reels. The one thing I knew going in was that, despite being right-handed, I would use lefty baitcasters -- cast, work a bait, set hook, fight fish, all with my dominant hand, and reeling with the left, just as I do with a spinning rod. No changing hands, no awkward adjustment. I have three lefty casters now, with a little research on how to dial in a reel, and some practice figuring out what to do with my thumb, it now feels like I've been doing it all my life...and in a way, I have, since I didn't need to learn how to do it all over again with a different hand and a switch.