Cgolf

Too the soft mouth thing, I have been seeing bass lately where the hook has created a bigger hole during the fight and the bait pretty much falls out when you land them. I think it is a case of you win some and you lose some. Hooked in the right spot, wrenching them in is what works, but get a soft spot in the mouth and you have lost fish because eventually they get the hole big enough and with any slack in the line the fish is gone. Now we just need a micro camera on the lure to tell how well and where there hooked so we know how to play them lol

Nope, I hit my local river 4-5 times a week for 25 minutes on my way to work. I love being on the water, it puts me in a good frame of mind for work. As for the break, that is when it is too cold or the river is iced up. Also in the spring waiting for the season to open. Guess what the break sucks and I get antsy and can't wait to get back on the river chasing smallies:)

Surprised at how labor intensive the process for making the baits is. It is amazing that they get the paint jobs so consistent. With Crankbaits there isn't much difference between the small shops and mass produced, both are handmade and assembled. Only difference I guess is home shops are usually wood baits. Really cool video.

When on the river fishing for smallies, Below 12" dink 12-16" average 18-19" trophy for the water 20" and above Make my river carreer, got one this year and fish is 9-10 years old Largemouth on local and northern WI lakes pretty much fall into same category with a better chance at a 20+ fish.

Not really. I did have my in laws get me some swing oil baits for Christmas that I am very pleased with, but as a general rule I only purchase stuff I can source locally or order from TW with free shipping. I don't want to order from here and there and get nailed for shipping from each place regardless of how cool the stuff may be. Not sure if this will change in the future or not, time will tell. I do know I will replace the swing oil baits when I run out, so that is a start.

Had it out again and hauled in 3 more fish. It seems to deflect well off of rocks, which may have more to do with the action of the bait instead of the bill. I only really hung it once pretty good on a rock, but it floated loose. I think the fact that it runs shallower than a Bandit 100 will hopefully keep lost baits to a minimum. It seems to have an easy side to side roll action, it is not a hard thumping bait. So far the best retrieve has been slow with some pauses. It floats up slowly, which may be why it is so effective fished this way. Now I need to get it out on a lake at some point to see how it does there, but that would just be a bonus, this will be in my river box for a long time.

I picked a couple of these up after Christmas and finally got around to throwing it. Being honest my expectations were very low based on my lack of success with the standard Strike King square bills. I managed to pull in 7 smallies on it in 30 minutes on the river this afternoon. It came through snags well and really seemed to call in the smallies big and small. Now I just need to see if it stands the test of time and can continue to catch fish, but man this was one heck of a start. A bonus was the trebles out of the box were super sticky.

it does relieve some frustration some times, you just need to remember to throw them in the direction you are going to be walking;)I did read somewhere that in the swamps/backwaters the would do this for I believe crappie, maybe bass, but pretty sure crappie. Not sure why it would work though.

One issue I have seen at times with a single hook, is that depending on where you hook them the hook may create a small hole in the mouth, that one could only assume would get bigger the longer the fight. Over the years I have landed some bass where the hook just falls out into the boat as you lift them in. It really wasn't that they were lightly hooked, just that they were hooked in a weak spot of the fishes mouth. I also would assume some of the single hooked fish I lost for no apparent reason we're because of this. Wish I had a fix for this, but there isn't one other than Lady Luck.

I second the net, and when I am doing the catch and release thing, I personally count the fish as a self release if it shakes off as I am lifting it out of the water. I just figure it saved me the time of unhooking it. Saying that it happens very rarely, maybe one or two fish out of 100. I also agree with the others that sometimes the fish win the battle, makes us want to go back and get them all that much more:) If fishing was easy all the time, most of us would hang it up, the challenge is what makes it fun.

To the ops original assertion that the GYCB grubs are the best, I Say look a few more places before you go there. I too do not like the two you mentioned because they are ineffective for all but mor active fish. They may be good and catch fish, but you should definitely check out Kalins 5" grubs. I have tried most on the market and I really like the tail design on the Kalins. The are soft and it doesn't take much to get it moving. On top of it they are very durable I have been using them for years and the fish love them and they have far outfished any grub I have tried.

Personally I like braid off both plastics and Crankbaits. I like the extra feel that I get especially with plastics around snaggy cover. I think I hang up less because I know when I hit a snag and I can work it out. One thing with Crankbaits is braid works best with a slower tipped rod. If you have a rod with a fast tip, lighten up on the drag a touch to have a little give when a fish crushes a crank.

For me it is a bait of last resort, if I have to wait for a bite, I would rather look for active fish first and then come back and try a senko like bait if I couldn't find any active fish. They just aren't that efficient to fish. If I have to use them I will, but really not my style of fishing. Now that I have started Ned rigging when the bite is tough I don't see myself ever making it to a Senko anymore in my lure progression. 90 percent of my hits on a Senko are when they pick it up off the bottom, I have had very few hits while the bait is being worked/sinking.

I don't fish tournies, so can't say yes to that, but I did do ok with my wife's spin cast reel one trip. The only issue I would see is that I like fireline and braid over mono so that would really be the thing that holds me back the most. I did pick up an UL under spin cast reel for panfish. Those things are great and it brings back a lot of good memories.

I have used braid for years with Crankbaits and really like the results. I had always tossed with a med heavy slow to moderate tip graphite rod. Recently I have been using the Blue (forgot the brand name) Rick Clunn series square bill glass rod for anything under 8 FOW and I love it. I generally river fish 4-5 times a week during the season and lake fish as much as I can which isn't much right now. I don't feel I lose any fish due to it, and the cast ability and lifetime of the line is a bonus for budget conscious anglers. I will say though the one huge advantage to braid is it breaks at the knot. I get super frustrated shore fishing on the river and snagging lures with huge tag ends of mono. Lost a bait this morning that I had just put new gammie trebles on snagged up on some line, off soap box now.

Largemouth a 2" yellow grub bought prerigged so I could fish a pond that was in the area we were vacationing at in Florida around 30 years ago. Still remember I cast out what I thought was a good cast and thought I was snagged on something. Yanked back hard to free it and the water erupted. I know it was big, not a giant, but being a punk kid I didn't know to measure it. Smallie was with a Ned rig. Finally got a 20 on the river. While a lot of guys probably catch 20s all the time my river system produces a lot of 18 to 19" fish, not many Giants. I know with 95% certainty that this fish is over 8 years old which also gives me an idea that giant river smallies will be few and far between for me on this system.

That was part of my point, at this point many musky baits are cheap compared to many bass baits available now. Not too long ago I decided to stay out of the musky game due to the price of the tackle. I only have two setups and a few buck tails and cranks of different styles for those days I feel like chasing them. Maybe ten years ago musky lures ran 20-30 and bass lures were 4-6. Now there are many solid musky baits under 20 and of course many bass baits are pushing that range, raps for one have really shot up lately. So it is weird that musky bait prices are holding or dropping and bass bait prices are really climbing right now. That was why I had wondered if guys had looked at musky baits as a cheaper option to some of the pricier bass baits.

I truly am not sure what you get in the more expensive glasses. I was given a pair of I believe are solar bats that were well above your price range and I have three pairs of strike king glasses I got on clearance with each pair being packaged with 3 KVD squarebills. The funny thing is I really like the strike King glasses, and don't see a lot of difference in viewing quality between them and the more expensive pair. I would just recommend if you go cheap, at least buy from the rack that lets you try them on, that is where some of the cheaper pairs fall down for me is fit and they don't last as long.

The bonus in the Midwest is that the color patterns are perfect for both. The downside is we really only have a handful of bass worthy of that sized bait. Personally I have seen 2, a giant I had hooked up briefly last year and a female on a bed that bumped my tube and just swam away earlier this year. Unfortunately we don't have bows in our lakes, just lakers in some of the deeper lakes. Savage Gear does make some nice baits that aren't too rough on the budget.

For food Kind bars and rice crispie treats. Being gluten free I am happy to finally have a bar that tastes good. And for drinks start with 5 hour energy and then switch to soda, hate water. Used to drink some alcohol, but fishing has taken top billing lately.

The Norman Deep Little N is a great lure too

Here are three I have, not a big musky guy, 2 savage gear, the larger is 18 bucks and an LC LL Pointer that I think set me back around 30. I put a baby king shad in the picture for a size comparison.

Can't really say I have one. I do have a progression I work through depending on the conditions. If I had to say I had one it would be a 5" kalins grub or a tube. The problem is I start many trips with that and end on something different if they didn't work.

No way in WI, it would end up being a Musky/pike bait and would need a steel leader because of that. I would guess that the leader might have an impact on the action of the bait which would defeat the purpose of buying it.

I didn't want to hijack the 250 buy or not thread, so I will go with a new thread. Has anyone used musky lures in place of the giant mostly high dollared swim baits for trophy bass? Those lures generally run in the sub 50 buck range and tempt many of trophy musky. While the paint jobs aren't always the most realistic, the actions of the baits should be spot on. Also big soft plastic baits like the Bull Dawgs and others should work great. The Musky lures are available in a lot of styles including some swim baits. I would think a serious trophy hunter may give some of these a toss? Or Am I way off base here? I can only speak to the difficulty of getting big muskys to strike, it sucks, I have never had a 50+ follower take a bait at the boat. I have yet to have an opportunity to fish trophy bass waters, the biggest fish I have had on or hit in clear water would have only went in the 23 - 25" range.