Cgolf

Or I would also ask about the scent of the chlorine, can't think that it would be an attractant.

My top 3 are 1 Bandit 100 caught hundreds of smallies on this bait and a lot of largemouth too Cheap and something about it triggers smallies like no other Crankbait I have tossed. 2 Bandit flat max great when the fish are off due to a front or in colder water 3 Xcal 200 moves a ton of water Those three cover a wide range of conditions and I have a lot of confidence in all three. It is cool to see as a front moves in the Xcal bites drop off and the bandits really start to crush them. On the river though nothing can touch the 100 in shallower stretches, and believe me I have tried all except for the pricier options due to too many snags and lost baits. I also have other SB I am trying to gain confidence in to work them into the rotation.

Actually the weather could be the culprit this year. The weather up here has been really inconsistent. In southern Wisconsin, I have seen multiple days where I have seen 15 to 20 degree temperature shifts in the morning. In northern WI I saw 38 degrees in early July in the morning. With the wild temp swings and storms this year throw out your memories from previous years and run and gun to search for the fish, especially since you have limited time on the water. Go with search baits, spinnerbaits, square bills up shallow and deep divers for the weed lines.

For me it is my kid going to college this fall, the bait monkey will be held in check for a while. My wife will get me a 50 buck gift card to cover the TW 25 days of Xmas sale and my in laws and parents will hook me up with the essentials that I used up over the season. Not sure what will happen when she is done with school though, have to be careful that I don't suffer from rebound shopping lol.

Crocs, these are the most comfortable shoes I own.

Color choice with soft plastics on clear water can be huge. One lake i fish shifts between water red and smoke purple depending on light and surface chop/no chop. When one is working, you won't get zip on the other. It is amazing how picky they can get.

If I had to choose 3 colors of soft plastics to fish for the rest of my life I would do great with these. Watermelon Red - great in dingy and clear water with overcast skies or a chop on the water breaking up the light. Smoke purple - bass kill this color on clear water lakes when there is sun and the water is flat. Also have found water red doesn't work under these conditions. Motor oil or Kalins Rons Craw (very similar to motor oil depending on brand) - great all around color for clear and stained water. Of course I have lots of other colors, but these three dominate my boxes based on what the fish have told me over the years. A color I did good with this year and many years ago is bluegill, if it keeps producing, I could end up with a fourth color on this list.

For swim jigs, I really like the Santone Rayburn swim jigs. I recently fished milfoil and this head came though clean more times than not and it also has a flat bottom which is a bonus. As for Crankbaits can't go wrong with the Bandit 100 for shallow lake and river bass, they flat out catch fish.

The book is still available on the Charlie brewer site for 6.95, it hasn't gone up at all since I bought it a few years ago. Well worth the cost, and you can stock up on slider heads. To the ops question, when lake fishing I did well with the Ned rig around reeds/bullrushes while the wind was down, once the wind came up it was unfishable. I stuck to finesse worms on a slider head fished the same way as the Ned at that point, cast to cover, let sink, let sit briefly, pop or twitch a couple of times reel back in slowly. I will say even when the wind was down I don't think one bait had an edge over the other it was pretty equal. As for detecting bites with the Ned, you just have to line watch and set the hook any time you see the line move in an unnatural way. It reminds me a lot of jigging for deep walleyed with lighter jigs.

Longer than that, I believe they used to be called the vibra King leech or something close. And I don't think I am that far off on the name either as goofy as it sounds. I had some of these over 8 years ago and pitched them because they didn't work for me. Not sure if it was the bait back then or the guy tossing them.

I did update the thread, the scent is Liquid Mayhem, and it has worked well for me.

The scent was Liquid Mayhem and it saved my bacon last week.

So I guess rereading that, as long as I don't own the company I am ok. My post was pretty heavy handed on how awesome something worked, in a way that surprised me, so it was fully experienced based. I guess I can go and update the thread and mention it. As for reels, if I spend 50 for one that is about the top of my price range so I stay out of those discussions;)

I like this site a lot, but have a question about the potential of being banned for promoting tackle. This is really relavent to this board since we are supposed to talk about tackle here. I had a recent post about scent products that I was worried about mentioning the brand, because one could read the post and say it was promotional when all I was doing was relating my experiences with a certain brand. I erred on the safe side to not get banned. I will say I am not sponsored by the company, but do promote it on social media, but that wasn't the goal of the post, it was to relate something I saw over a week of fishing the same body of water. I have noticed though if you are talking about a board sponsored product, everyone can pretty much say go buy it this stuff is the best. Just curious where that line is?

I won't mention the name of the scent because they aren't a board sponsor, but was amazed this week how much a scent added to my soft plastics made a difference in my catch rate. I have always believed that scent caused fish to hold a bait longer and covered any trace of our or any other off putting scent, but last week made me believe it could attract fish too. We got hit last week with one of the worst cold fronts I have seen on a trip. Catching fish was easy before the front moved in, after that was a different story. Once the front settled in, if the bait was new without scent, or all the scent hand worn off I got zero hits. As soon as I added fresh scent I might get a hit, all fish or hits were with fresh scent of scent visible on the bait. I do want to add that the color of the scent was not the trigger, because some worms were permanently stained from the scent being on the bait. Also did a test with panfish over the side of the boat, and a bait with no scent got the fish to inspect it, but not hit it. Added scent to the same bait and the fish attacked the bait and we hooked a small rock bass. The bait was held still both times. It was very interesting to see this.

I have been using the Ned rig with good results this year, as far as other baits it truly depends on current and water depth. If it is on the shallow side, I have found that Bandit 100s track well in current and catch a lot of fish.

I am first and foremost a river fisherman, so my Hooksets are quick, like as soon as I feel a take. This is because if I don't the current will sweep the bait out of the fishes mouth. When I lake fish I do the same. On the lake I fish tubes, grubs, finesse worms and 6 to 7" ribbon worms so nothing too huge I have read that when worm fishing, you are supposed to give them some slack after a take, wait a moment, then cross their eyes. Is this the case,or is what I do ok? I don't feel I am missing many fish with my technique, should I stick with it, or change it up? Also if you let the fish chew on it a bit, don't you get a lot of deep hooked fish? If this is in the wrong board, please move it.

Nope for the split shot and no for the mojo at the current prices. Mojo would be interesting if the prices dropped.

If I remember correctly bps had some baits that had all the bumps on the sides and I think they did the triple tail thing like that. I never had any in that style, just some that shared parts of the design, so in saying a bass pro bait hope I am not steering you in the wrong direction. I think I had them 10+ years ago.

It really depends on the lake and the cover available. I have a local lake I fish that is featureless with inconsistent weed lines where you need to cover water to find fish. Here I mostly use Crankbaits. I fish a lake in northern Wisconsin that has a lot of reeds and well defined weed lines so soft plastics work really well. I generally decide what to toss depending on the cover. I do toss both on each lake, just the ratio they get tossed changes. But for me the more cover there is, the more soft plastics I throw, on featureless lakes I search with a Crankbait or spinnerbait.

If your talking about D and S I asked about them too.

Yes it was.

Just want to give props to Z mans customer service. I sent an email asking about availability in WI and they got back to me that they didn't have the answer, but would ask the sales rep and also asked if I knew of any stores that I would like to see carry the baits. They got back to me that they talked to the sales rep and that they knew the shops I had suggested (they carry some Z man stuff) and they would talk to them about carrying Ned rig components. It was refreshing to get something other than a canned response, you could tell that they cared about getting their product into their customers hands.

Check out tackle warehouse, they are cheaper on pretty much everything, it will help you stretch your budget.

I have always loved the Norman deep little N and the dd22. I have the NXS to try on my next lake trip and based on the comments here I grabbed a 5xd to try too. Will be curious to see which I like better. One thing in Normans favor is their colors, they have a ton of options.