Cgolf

How does it do in faster current, does it blow out or run true?

I have had tremendous luck with Bandit 100s. Over the last 7 years probably have accounted for 40% of my river smallies. This year I also did really well with the new Strike King shallow square bill, they really liked it best paused once in a while. These baits were worked in 4ish feet of water with a lot of rocks. I have also used X the tail dancer some when I fished deeper stretches, but generally I have stuck to shallower stretches. The only recomendation other than the baits is to go heavy braid, many times I can get them pulled free from snags, but do lose my fair share of cranks to the river gods.

When I am out alone I have my iPod on playing through the internal speaker on deck at a level so that I can just hear it, but not much louder. I still like to be able to hear the wildlife and fish busting on the surface near me. Surprised that some find it distracting, I actually find the opposite. When the inevitable lull in the bite happens, the music helps to keep my mind from wandering so I don't whiff when I get that first strike in an hour. A little off topic but the coolest sound I ever heard on the water was the air over an Eagles wings as it came in to grab a perch of the water not ten yards from the boat, really awesome to witness.

A+ Finally caught my PB 20" River Smallie and also got my PB 45" Musky while fishing with my dad this year. Also never got skunked in the boat which is a first for me. River numbers were down, but still caught a mess of smallies.

I talk to the bait shop that I have always gotten my bait from about the generalities of the bite. Depth, type of weeds relating to and depending on the time of the year the trip is, what phase are the fish in. In WI I have caught a bass still spawning in mid July and seen them done much earlier. Asking about the lake on lake link is pointless, they won't even answer general questions about water temp, weed growth, etc. It is a trophy musky lake so that might have something to do with it.

I do know the Musky guys really seem to believe in it for big muskies, at least a couple of articles a year in Musky hunter about it. As for that stuff and Bass, I haven't seen any difference in the bite during the peak bite times even when I spend a week on a lake, 12 hours a day. One thing I found that was interesting is that the peak times differ depending on the magazine you look at, so it isn't like there is one set theory on this.

I am going to do the cast test on the river and I can retrieve with the line counter. And then yeh definately will leave a bunch for reties because I break off a ton on rocks. I just want to be able to use the spool of line properly, whether I use it on two or three reels. It is tough to judge how far you can really cast, I will probably be surprised how far it actually is.

Thanks for the answers, I figured for once I would actually measure what how much I put on instead of winging it and ending up with 40 or 50 feet left on the spool. I do have one reel that has about 50 feet of three different colors of fireline spliced together because I was too cheap to toss the partial spools out.

When I spool up with fireline, I always use mono backing and tape the Uni to Uni knot junction down to the spool. Being economical, is 125 feet of fireline enough? If I do this I could spool up three reels which would be really nice. I do have a line counter from walleye trolling I would use to get it pretty close to right. I am thinking it is good, throwing plastics with these rigs, not putting the heaviest lure I can find and bombing it out there.

The Santone swim jigs will actually stand up a bit, flat bottomed head, and of course are a nice swim jig. I had one tied on most of last year and generally fished them by bouncing them off the bottom. I have some videos I have posted on other threads that show how these stand up with some trailers. They also have stout hooks too.

For used baits I have a couple of Rubbermaid shoe box totes I keep in the boat that I drilled a bunch of holes in the bottom to let the water drain out. I toss greenish rigged baits in one box and more natural Shad hues in another. Eventually they end up in a box of prerigged stuff I keep ready to go.

Don't fish DS a lot, but when I do I go with Netbait finesse worm and the anglers choice killshot. Of the two the killshot is my favorite, almost a leech like action.

I really hope that they are bringing the weedless shad to the US market, that looks like a really cool bait. only downside is that you can't replace the hook.

Let's see if this link works, they even carry a 10" bag. http://store.do-itmolds.com/Laminated-Bags-8x4_p_290.html I haven't personally bought any from here, but had seen them when I was searching for a specific mold.

Got a lot this fall including this skinny 21" Brown. It is a lot of fun when you got a shot for both big smallies and browns when fishing the same run or lake.

I picked up the 7" finesse worm on the 25 days sale, split it in half. Hoping that it will do good once the river warms up and the fish get active again. We do have catch and release trout open right now, thinking this combo may be good for that.

I have done well with both, so excited to see what's next. The only downside to the shadow rap is I lost 2 to musky strikes.

There is a new worm coming on the market that they said was sumilar in diameter to a roboworm and they thought it was too skinny for a jig. Well I put a roboworm on a jig and really like the looks of it, now I can finally try the 3 bags I bought years ago, and will also be picking up some of the new worm. Thinking it would be great in current, just need to decide if I shorten it a bit?

The squarebill rod works really nice for that purpose on the river. Tossed SK100s along with their new shallow SB and bandit 100s with it.

I actually really like the turquoise sticks. I carried one in my truck last summer and it saw over 100 trips of use and abuse. A tad heavy but very comfortable to fish, and I scored 2 of them for 50 a couple of years ago at DSG

On the river it will be on a Ned rig pearl or PB&J, it just works there. On the lake it will be a sun perch Santone swim jig with a Kalins Rons craw grub trailer.

I tried them at the end of the season and got a few smallies on them, they are in the box for next year. They look pretty good on a jig.

I use the slider heads a ton and was going to pair one with a 1/2 Zinkerz and see how it works. Kind of a cool thing pairing an old school finesse rig with the new school finesse rig.

I have the split tail trailer rigged up to try next year, it looks awesome in the water, unfortunately the fish had moved to wintering holes on the river so I didn't get to see how it attracted fish. I also got the 7" finesse wormz on the 25 days sale and cut them in half and they look like they will be good too.

Ike, polarizing figure, but heck of a fisherman, and dude loves to promote the heck out of the sport. From listening to him and reading about his fishing a lot of what he does would help me out. He also sounds like a genuinely good guy from chatting with guys who have met him so I am betting it would be good times and good fishing.