matuka

I had the Velcro straps also, and yes mine wore out too. I didn't like that I needed both hands to secure them anyway. I changed to the bungee system. Clean, and one handed. I wasn't a fan of the retractable system, though it seems most are. I kept getting line or lures stuck in them.

There's some serious wood knockin goin on here. I guess the guys that love em never had a problem with them. On the other hand, I've know a few who have, and hate them now. One guy had a failure on the freeway coming back from a tournament. The bearing fried, seized, something failed, (the axle?) and the wheel broke loose. It rolled off into a dry field with summer wildgrass. It all caught fire and the fire dept ahd to put it out. I had them too and was lucky I guess. My current boat has old school grease and bearing buddies. At least I can maintain these, which I do.

I guess I'm a little late on most of the hottest baits. After watching the Classic I tried to get my hands on some chin spins for some spotties on my home lake. Too late, all sold out. I had a few, three, that I bought a few years ago and had limited success. But watching Casey Ashley use them gave me some new ideas. I was fishing them too fast. So I put out a few hours with them today, slow grinding them on the bottom and was pleasantly surprised. I caught about twelve spots and smallies, and over half of them came on the chin spin. Thanx Casey!

Congrats Man! But the Eagles Cap? (just yukkin)

That's a goodun Hank!

Take a two pound smallie and a two pound spot and tie their tails together with say a two foot section of line. At the end of the day, who's pullin who backwards. Opinions?

My style? Who knows. I love pitching to heavy cover with big line in dirty water. Early morning topwater explosions? Perfect. Bouncing squarebill off sparse logs and rocks, rocks. In the same day I will dropshot with a fairy wand or drag a finesse worm and be ecstatic about any fish I catch in all of the mentioned above and anything in between. That's why I carry so much esoteric crap in my boat and it looks like an entire preschool was allowed to play in it after a day's fishing. The only common vein I display in any style is impatience! There's got to be a better way, and I'm going to try to find it in the next two minutes. One day that slow rolled super spook on a C-Rig is gonna get nasty! Perhaps the real question should be, if you had to spend a day getting skunked, how would you like to do it? Oh yeah, don't get me started on swimbaits.

How bout two LV 500's on successive casts. I was using braid and the volcanic rock at the lake cut it like sewing thread.

I found my Albright, which is very small, was still bothersome to me when pitching lightish lures with micro guides, The ones used by Dobyns. I still like the rod so much I bought the identical rod with standard guides, (as the baitmonkey grins)

I've been doing the fluoro leader thing for about seven years now. I like it a lot but nothing is perfect. I favor the Albright/alberto but use whichever knot YOU tie properly. I recently tried a blood knot (if you are old enough to remember) and chucked a new umbrella rig into the drink on like the fourth cast @#$%%#!! My Alberto is stronger than my double uni, and I've proven that to myself many times. Long leaders are fine, even with the knot on the spool but make sure your mono tag is as short as humanly possible cuz it will catch the overlying line now and then. If that bothers you then use the shorter leader. One problem I have had, and more with the uni than the Albright is if the knot just catches a guide on the way out, and slows down, the fast following braid will catch up to it, loop it up and when the rod tip stops bouncing around you have a mess in guides. I think I try to cast too hard sometimes and promote this. The guide who taught me this rig is one of the smoothest caster I've seen, and of course he doesn't snarl up. A local big bass guru showed me how he throws his swim baits in clear water, with about twenty five feet of fluoro leader on his baitcaster. I guess the possibilities are endless. Of course I had to try it and took the skin off my thumb as the knot was spinning on the spool for about a dozen revolutions before clearing the spool. that guy must have a thumb like tree bark.

Oops! That four star typo above is suppose to say "pop".

I snell only for punching. Albeit, I'm not convinced it's necessary. The way I see it, if a bass takes a bait and closes its mouth, the pressure it exerts on the bait nullifies the amount of directional pressure a snelled hook is supposed to impose. Make sense? Take a snelled bait and let it dangle. Enclose your hand in a circle around the line and run it down to the hook, and watch the hook pop laterally. I don't think that little bit of force that that movement provides is enough to stick a point in fishes mouth. Now close your hand downward around the bait and watch that angle created by the snell flatten out as it will in a basses closing mouth. Now it's like a bait with any other knot on it. Unless there is a big hollow cavity in that fishes closed mouth, (and I think not) there is no room for the snell to **** that hook up. I know there's all kinds of big name people using and making video's etc on this but I also know of a camp of quiet gurus who don't bother, and trust me, these guys can punch their lights out. All that being said, I still snell because, I've not seen convincing proof of either method and I've never broken a snell knot.

I started a thread similar to this on a new curado I as well. It seems the grease issue is common. rip out the bearings, get out the grease that shouldn't be there in the first place, relube the bearings and spool shaft properly with oil and you, as I and others were, may be amazed! Read that little blurp on the yellow piece of paper in the box also.

Next to nothing these days.

Where I fish there really aren't many lilypads. I'd have to guess that where you fish there is some matted grass around as well that will hold fish too. The point is you really may need several weights handy. And several rods handy too! (bait monkey made me say it)

French pearl has worked for me in a variety of water clarities. I want a clown color. Other shad colors have come in a not so close second. Beware of changing the hooks on these. It took me quite awhile of switching a variety of hooks to get it to suspend properly.

I have the Dobyn's you mentioned. Just my opinion, but you may want to test drive it first.

Do you actually punch in that yak?

Medium hands here. That is why the palming thing is no big deal to me. Back in the day I couldn't palm anything so I adjusted and I really don't do it. When I tried I didn't like setting the hook that way, ergo I love my Tatula!

I know of a lot of really good sticks out here who crank with flippin sticks. And not just deep divers. They feel that you need the extra backbone to drive a few treble points into a bony mouth of bigger bass, say at least five pounds. The smaller "tournament" fish can shake off easier cuz there is no give to these sticks and they are using braid too. But they really don't want two pounders anyway.

A lot of docks have abundant grass around them but not under them. If they are buried in the grass you may need to punch. If they are way underneath in the dark, you likely can downsize a bit.

Just my opinion, but my unpainted shaky heads, (Owner) match any soft plastic I wish. OK, so I don't dress well either. By only using unpainted, things are simpler, (remember KISS principle), and cheaper too!

The bottom line for me is whether I know that a certain pricey bait is catching fish where I fish. And pricey is obviously relative. Where I fish you likely will catch more fish on a LC pointer than an X-rap. So I pay the price. Unfortunately I've seen my catch rate go up even more if I'm throwing a MegaBass 110. So I pay the price. Thankfully I've also found I can catch fish on the Delta or Clearlake on the economical Trick worm and don't need the pricier handpours. So I let someone else pay the price. Right now you can't get your hands on any S Waver 168's. they art probably catching the same fish and keeping up with the more pricey gliders. How many times have we heard "let the fish talk to you". I just wish I could listen better.

Out here reaper style hand pours are pretty popular. 3 inchers for dropshot and mojo rigging on the lakes. They used to be very popular as a flipping bait on the Delta. For some reason they aren't used here as much anymore. I guess there are a lot more sexy flippin baits these days.

I went out this morning for a few hours. I was throwing An S waver on windy flats. Got thumped real hard and the rod loaded up, Sweet! My first on the S waver! A few hard pulls then the line goes limp, &%$@#**!!! I reel in a broken knot. I did manage to get to smallish fish on a BBZ though. So the first thing I do after plugging the batteries back in is get on line to buy a replacement S waver right? $138 dollars later, I end up with $120 worth of God knows what and a backorder on an S Waver. Go figure... I'll probably dream about a monkey prying an S Waver out of some poor spotted bass slouch tonite.