Cgolf

I have used Liquid mayhem gel scent for a few years now and atlas mikes gel before that. It works very well, especially during a slow bite. Best example, in an hour of fishing boated like 5 fish and the father in law had no bites. Finally got him to add scent to his bait and had first hit in 5 casts and a fish shortly after that. I have given up trying to convince non believers, but all I can say is try it for yourself.

The 1.5 and 2.5 SK KVD square bills have caught less than 5 fish for me while I have caught hundreds on bandits and other baits. The 1.0 SK KVD square bill on the other hand has been a great river bait. No idea why the other two are such epic fails for me. Even the 8.0 version catches bass for me, go figure.

Last year on vacation I picked up a couple of packs of the 3.5 size on a whim while picking up tackle for my buddy watching our house. They worked great on a couple different brands of 1/4 ounce swim jigs. Not sure if I would even try the bigger one, maybe on my 7/16 jigs? To me the profile just seemed right with the smaller size.

In a way I started out similar to you. Due to starting a family and getting married at 23, while finishing college I have pretty much been on a budget the last 23 years. I still fish an ugly stick and have many 15 year old rods and reels that I am still slowly upgrading. I have built up a pretty decent stock of tackle, but it took years to happen. I basically asked family for gift cards to different tackle shops for gifts. It definitely didn't happen over night. Ultimately I started by getting stuff I new would catch fish anywhere which for me then and now was slider heads and kalins 5" grubs and tubes, they still whack em today. I remember when I was excited to upgrade my Shakespeare excursion with a 29$ Shakespeare Cattera. That being said that Excursion reel that is at least 20 years old now is still catching me fish on my trout rod, got my money out of that reel. I have just slowly expanded my tactics as money allowed. 13 years ago I was able to get a 16 foot package aluminum boat new for a good deal and that opened up more tackle options. So patience is the key, and just focus for now on the staples. Also shopping sales only has helped me feed the bait monkey more efficiently.

Straight Green Pumpkin just does nothing for me. Add some purple and gold too it and fish on. Same goes for watermelon, but Water red is one of my best colors. Maybe Wisconsin bass just need a little color in life.

Since I am logged in I will close the loop on my Edge jig box. The jigs on the left are 3/32 and 1/4. How it is sitting on the table is how it will sit in the bag. The open spot now has some swing jigs in vented bags labeled by weight.

Alright, last night they were sold out, this morning in stock again at 3 bucks still. Not sure what happened last night.

Looks like everyone was excited for these to be back. Cabelas is showing them as sold out. I got my order of 17 of the 200 size, hope everyone else got theirs.

I know I was bound and determined to become a lurker on the site, just looking for the sales only and of course watching this thread. But I owe a huge thank you to @ABart61 for pointing out the xcalibur XC 200 square bill is back. I was down to like 3 and was honestly a bit afraid to fish them because the lure fishes so big, aggressive action punches a big hole in the water, that big musky and pike love them too. This was/is one of my special cranks. I now have some back stock and will likely add more on Black Friday.

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I watched the same video, and my take is they will be fine with the cover on but will fall out if you flip it over with the cover open. His test flipping the box upside down and nothing falling out is stupid, no point. If anything stays in it is a bonus, if something falls out, well we deserved it for tipping the box. I fully expect my 1/4 ounce swim jigs to move around a bit, a couple have wire ties instead of the rubber band thing, but ultimately not fall out of the slot. Hoping to have it at some point if it ever comes off back order.

I do a lot. On a lake where bluegill is the main forage, I have found that water red works best on overcast days and when the water is choppy which breaks up the light getting to the fish. During these times it is very difficult to get bit with smoke colored baits. When the water is relatively flat and the sun is up the opposite is true and smoke colored baits rule the day and water red is tough to get a bit on. This makes some sense if you look at a gill on an overcast day, it looks mostly green. When the sun is shining down on it you see the metallic colors of the fish and a smoke red or smoke purple tube would match it pretty closely. Not sure if this is why, but after years of this happening, this was the best explanation I could come up with. I have found a couple of colors Ron's Craw and Motor Red that seem universal so there is some wiggle room. I have been having good luck with the menace in Hard Candy the last couple of years, but haven't gotten to try it on flat water with sun, because it has been windy on those trips, so not sure if that will be a universal color.

I think some of it is marketing. I have about 15 years of data from a dirty water river I fish for smallmouth and the color selection is all over the place. There really isn't a color that stands above all as outproducing others. Used a lot of watermelon based colors especially water red, pearls, some chartreuse based baits, and some green pumpkin baits with various flake colors. A few baits have stood out though, Yum small Crawbug, Rage Menace family, and Bandit 100. While there are times color can be huge, most times it doesn't seem to matter all that much. I also have 9 years of clear water largie fishing data, and there plastics run the water red/water candy to smoke based colors. Some outliers though like rage Hard Candy which is an amazing color. This lake color does matter depending on how the light is hitting the fish, but as long as I have those colors with me I am covered depending on the situation. Probably an OCD thing on my part, but these lists help me to combat the bait monkey and not buy every color in the book;)

I have used it cut into Ned sized pieces (3 pieces per bait) and got bites on it. Once they got tore off or lost I didn’t go back to them. Honestly they caught em as good or better than other baits, so maybe next season I will give them a go again. Not sure why I stopped using them.

We are pretty close on our definitions, I think we just vary on hook size which allows the tube and grub for me. Probably the 10 fireline too, but when a bass wraps you around a reed it gives you a fighting chance. I bought the slider kits 20+ years ago which came with the snagless slider 3/0 hook. I graduated to the spider heads and depending on the bait use either the 2/0 or 3/0 version. I haven’t looked back, the slider heads have worked well for me. So for me that is what I grew up as a bass fisherman being finesse. In WI I don’t always see the need to finesse fish to get bites. Only exception would be post front bass up north that are really specific in how they want a bait presented. I generally just like that style of fishing because you really have to think about what bait you use and how you present it. I think you have a lot tougher bass to catch out Cali than we do here.

Realistically my season doesn’t start till May, but organizing tackle in the offseason minimizes my fishing withdrawal. Still amazes me that a pricey box is in that high of demand. Being mostly a budget angler I cringe at the high demand on high end gear and what ultimately happens to prices on some mid range gear, it sadly goes up a lot too. How long have you been waiting? My order was December 31st so not long for me.

I think you are replying to me. So I will attempt to answer with comments in your quote. Plus a couple questions below. Do you consider the netbait slim shake and finesse worms, finesse baits or are they too long? is the 3” number you mention related to only skirted jigs?

I disagree that it can be a finesse bait depending how it is fished, and in reality a 5” grub isn’t not very large. The attached picture has a kalin’s 5” with the tail at rest and extended compared to some finesse standards, Netbait finesse worm and slim shake (basically the same sizes as zoom finesse worm and swamp crawler) and 1/2 a 5” stickbait. I use a 5” Kalins all the time on post frontal days on 1/4 and 3/16 slider heads around vertical cover like reeds on a medium light spinning rig, current favorite Dobyns Sierra. I let the bait drop to the base of the reed, reel up the slack so I can feel a take, and let it sit a bit. Give it a shake and reel it back super slow till out of the strike zone where I then burn it back and repeat. I also do toss it as a swim jig trailer on bait casting gear and also toss the slider head into the reeds and bring the bait back at a quicker where it is no longer a finesse bait when you hit the days they are chasing. The 5” grub and 3 1/2” tube imo are the most versatile baits in my box. If I could only fish 2 lure styles the rest of my life those would be it. They cover most situations we encounter and can be rigged many different ways. I do agree with Dorado on the Kalin’s Ron’s craw color suggestion. I have used it in water you can see bottom in 15 feet to water so green, the boat spray that is kicked up when you are running is green.

I am waiting to get my Plano Edge Jig box, and can't wait to organize it lol (different problem than bait monkey) Does TW send an email saying the back order shipped or does it just show up? Their website still says the box arrives in stock Jan 11th lol.

Tried many over the years, and it is always Kalin's 3" and 5" that stay in the box. I have given up trying to find a better mousetrap. The Kalin's tail seems to move at really slow speeds while still being durable. Of course I mainly fish them on a slider spider head, but will switch to a darter head sometimes on the river where weeds aren't an issue.

I can see both sides. I was on the staff of a company that created a new website and they wanted team members to put some 5 star reviews out there. I of course did it, but can justify because those were my real reviews. I was an early user and promoter of the product and believed in it before they offered me a spot on the team. What I hate is the folks on social media that jump brands every year to get the best deals, and watch them trash old brands and promote the new brand that just a month ago the old brand was better than;) As far as Amazon goes, looking for a garmin for my daughters car, the off brands had great reviews until reading them you could tell they were fake. Even the product promo page had misspellings. Almost as bad as fake reviews are the clueless reviews. Looking at soft tip darts, people would rate a high priced set 1 Star because a tip broke lol.

I usually fish 10 or 20lb fireline on my spinning rods. I have been using a 10 or 12lb FC leader, but not always. This is fishing around reed beds mostly or on flats with sporadic heavy weeds (not millfoil). If I have to attack millfoil beds I go with heavier gear and jigs. Unfortunately the clear water lake we fish has millfoil taking hold, but we fish early enough in the season that it isn't too bad. The years we fished the lake later in the season with the millfoil I was amazed at the stuff. It was outside one reed bed and there were 1-2 footers blowing into the bed, the stuff was so thick it actually knocked down the waves and it was calm behind it. The one thing I don't like with a baitcaster and light lures, is the spool drag causes the bait to pendulum down to the bottom. Not a big deal on the home lake, but when fishing reeds where fish hold at the base of the reed and aren't moving to get a bait, that vertical drop you can get with a spinning combo makes a big difference in the number of bites you get. Could make a difference when fishing docks too. I like baitcasters a lot, but still use the spinning combo for many presentations.

Or a more expensive reel;) There is a huge difference in cast control between a Lews crush, and the 60 buck Lews Mark rose model I got on sale. The Crush is very difficult to backlash, almost have to try, where as the cheaper model actually takes some skill not to backlash even with heavier lures. Daiwa also has great spool control and are fairly easy to cast, even in some of their cheaper models.

Not sure where your accuracy issue lies, but for distance control I keep my free hand near the spool and feather the line with my hand to slow the cast down and then put my hand down to stop it, similar to using your thumb with a baitcaster. As far as the timing of when to cut the line loose on the casting motion, not sure how that is learned. When I was a kid I used a lot of spincast reels and then spinning reels. Baitcasters weren't until later in life when I really got back into fishing. Their is a timing aspect with baitcasters, but it seems a different beast than spinning reels.

Unfortunately the pic came in upside down, but I thought I ordered the 1x 2x short mustard hooks you suggested, but looking at them, they are only slightly shorter than the gamakatsu standards. Did they send me the wrong ones? Just checked the part numbers on the mustads and they match the site at least. That Jackall perch pattern is amazing. They have just the right amount of orange, most companies overdue the orange.