Cgolf

Wondering when the Tax Stimulus sale will start? Over the weekend I had a screenshot on my iPad where it started today I believe. I will likely pass unless they do the extra off on some brands like the BF sale.

On the same page as everyone else, backpack, sling bag, etc for the shore. In the boat though I use the tackle bags with hard waterproof bottoms to keep my tackle dry. I got learned that the soft bottomed bags pick up a ton of water on those early morning trips when the carpet is still damp.

If you through some reeds up on that sandy flat, it is a magnet for all gamefish, especially bass, pike, and musky. Both lipless and SB work equally well in the reeds as long as you work them carefully to not snag a stalk. Then it is just a case of which action they want on a given day and you don't need to bounce the bait off the reeds to trigger strikes. I truly think that they don't see many cranks in that kind cover so that is why they crush them.

When I fish clear lakes, my go to baits are still a tube, AC killshot, and kalin's 5" grub rigged on a slider head. The Rage menace did well for me last year on a slider as well. I just try to match the colors to the situation and prey on clear water and those baits really seem to shine in clear water. Does this lake have reeds? Bass really seem to like this kind of cover on clear water coupled with a sand bottom. I will catch them in 5-6 fow in the reeds early summer to august. As for line, I use 10 or 20 lb fireline for my spinning reels and 50 lb PP on my baitcasters, many times with a steel leader. Growing up near a gin clear lake and fishing XT solar a lot has me unconvinced that line color and size matters. I have played around with flouro leaders and not noticed any difference in catch rate, including when deadsticking stickbaits. That being said I will continue to try it off and on and see if it makes a difference.

Honestly I will try both and stick with the one that works best. I let the bass tell me what they want, because every time I think I have it figured out they tell me that I don't have a clue;)

Scent so works, I guess I should quit trying to convince guys, because it means more tough bite bass for me;) That old horse and water saying comes to mind any time this topic comes up.

As much of a bad rap those types of lures get, a lot of tail weighted rigs used now to go under docks us a similar principle. I shudder to mention it, but the banjo minnow has an action not all that dissimilar to a lot of baits right now, maybe it was ahead of its time, and unfortunately to serious anglers got a bad rap because of how it started and those cheesy infomercials lol.

Liquid Mayhem has a flip cap on it, I always assumed Megastrike did too.

Liquid Mayhem is my favorite secret sauce after using Altas Mike's gel scent for many years.

I have plenty of proof, was out with the Father in law last year on the vacation lake. I used scent for the first hour and he didn't and for part of that time we both used the same baits. I caught a bunch of fish and he couldn't buy a hit. He put some LM on and had a hit in a couple of casts and a fish in 5 minutes. second test was I dead sticked a crappie slider over the side of the boat and watched panfish inspect but not bump or attack the bait. Added scent and dropped the bait back in and dead sticked it again and watched the same pod of panfish now bump and attack the bait. That showed me that it does trigger a response from fish, and oh yeah they probably hold on longer too;)

Kalins 5" single tail grub, in Ron's Craw - Color catches them in clear and stained water Other colors Bluegill Tube - Smoke purple, Smoke black and red, and water red. Anglers choice Wart hawg - Okee Craw and Royal melon ned rigged Zman Zinkerz Purple haze, pearl and green pumpkin goby ned rigged Could probably get through life just fishing the top two baits in those colors and do alright for myself.

5" Kalins grub or a tube texas rigged on a slider spider head. Something that I need to try more is a 1/2 zinker on a slider head around docks, this worked well for me last year.

Yup his sponsors baits worked well for him. What surprised me was Ike using a lizard on the much despised c-rig. You don't hear of lizards being used much anymore on the tourney scene.

I rember reading about this as a doodling rig in Bassin magazine many years ago. Sure enough a quick Google search came up wth this. https://www.bassmaster.com/news/don-iovino-doodling

Don't need to wait even that long, it has been a better bait for me than the DTs and Deep Little N. Not sure why it never caught on.

Storm also had, not sure if the still have a really good walleye following with the hot n tot and the deep jr thunderstick. In fact for awhile I believe one of the storm brothers created Dave's kaboom lures and had some walleye baits. They were always cheaper, but really solid lures. Pre Rapala I believe their main focus was walleye lures.

I use mostly RES and the newer rippin raps. I have a few traps, but previously didn't do well with them. Now that I have stepped up my lipless game I am going to give them a toss again to see if I can build some confidence in them.

I have one of those too that I can't wait to toss this year. I have heard that smallies in particular are very curious fish, maybe because craws are a staple in their diet, especially River fish. To the results, I found that some baits showed a wider frequency range, while others had a more narrow range. Some baits were centered on the top of the range while others were centered on the bottom. Haven't analyzed the results fully yet, but the biggest test will be on the water. I will say that comparing the RES, RES 2 Tap, XR 50, Bill Lewis Trap, and a Rattling Rap, they were all in the same frequency range, so that must be pretty important. Now of course some were louder, different rattle sound, but the frequencies were pretty consistent across brands. One thing I didn't do was test multiples of other brands to see if they were more consistent than the RESs. This was a really interesting experiment, now I will let the fish finalize the results:)

I am starting to wonder now about even some mid priced gear. Take the RES which still has issues with stuck rattles. Is this just an SK issue though because I haven't noticed this issue with rat l traps or rippin raps which are the same price or cheaper. I do want to try the academy baits sometime, as I am told their lipless baits are really good.

I leave mine in my truck at work, but make sure the Liquid Mayhem is in the shade or goes into work with me. My gear bag is in the shade too, but goes in on super hot days, which in WI there aren't that many. I have been doing this for years. I guess it depends on where you work too as to if you would feel comfortable leaving your gear in your vehicle.

I am very analytical, keep a log of my fishing and have a list of baits that have caught fish for me on a couple of different bodies of water. For example when I saw two completely different tube colors work at different times on a clear body of water, with very little overlap, I spent time thinking about why it was, and came up with light penetration in the water and what the prey fish look like under the prevailing light conditions. While the colors are particular to this lake, the thought process serves me well on other lakes. This is why I am trying to figure out the rattles on the bait to see what works when, frontal bass, active bass, etc. I can use the data to figure out when a higher or lower pitch bait works best. Probably more info than I need, but it keeps me thinking about fishing even when I am not out there. I do go with my gut at times too along with throwing random baits to expand my knowledge base and learn new stuff, but I feel the prefishing analysis helps me optimize my limited time on the water.

I have never had one do this, but I have a few with the rattles stuck from when it was made. Perhaps if enough of the rattles are stuck, it could throw of the balance of the bait causing it to run goofy. From the RES thread I have going, somebody said that SK said to wrap them in a towel or something and rap the bait on a hard surface to free them up. Mine I skipped the towel and rapped them on a table. Either way you do run the risk of breaking the bait, but if that was causing it to run funny it was useless anyways.

They appear to be at least relatively stable, I had one with at least 10 fish on it including a decent musky and it stayed in place. I was able to smack some of them loose as well. Seeing that I have multiple baits that have this issue, they were never able to fully fix the problem, except it might not be a problem. I did get a device to capture the frequency of the different baits, I will need to take multiple readings and try to capture the max value for each bait. It will be interesting, because I have an orange craw that sounds like it has half its balls stuck. I will label the baits and as the summer progresses note which ones do better, stuck or unstuck, or heavy paint or minimal paint. Agreed, but with all the R&D companies put in, I would imagine that the pitch of the rattles definitely plays a factor. The scientist part of me wants to know why one bait works better than the other. If they seem to want a bait with a certain pitch, i can give it to them. What I am finding with the RES is that the variability bait to bait seems to be pretty high. If I am buying them in store, I can of course check, but mailorder sites make it a crapshoot. The other reason for doing the work of finding out what pitch each bait is in the off season, is that it will save me time on the water, I won't have to waste time weeding through all the baits in my box to find one that works, because to be honest, if they didn't hit the RES, I would try a rippin rap or XR 50 first.

Just got home from Costco and picked up a breathable lightweight rain coat for 20 bucks. Since I only fish in the rain on vacation, I didn't need a high dollar coat, hoping this one will work out for me.

This is where tossing the bone copper head RES where I have one with stuck rattles and another with them free, will give me an idea if it makes a difference. If I had a fully rattling bait last vacation would the musky have jumped at the bait as I was pulling it out of the water? All I know is they killed that bait, this summers test will be more telling because I will know which bait is different. Until last night I had no clue the gill bait had a stuck rattle. Obviously rattles or no rattles make a difference since SK makes three versions of the RES and XCalibur had two versions. Even saw a new bait on TW that has two types of rattles in one bait. Just not sure if minor changes make enough of a difference, but will be marking the good baits this summer. If I did buy multiples of certain colors and some were better than others I would want to know why. If I could pinpoint the reason and like someone said with the Cordell spots pick out the good baits in the store that would save me some cash and fishing time weeding out the bad baits. With a lipless bait I would think sound matters much more than color, just due to the nature of how they are retrieved. A Jay's magic bait is proof of that.