Cgolf

I can back you up on this one, I was messing around one day and dead sticked a crappie slider over the side and watched the gills come over and inspect the bait one or two may have bumped it closed mouthed, but none hit it. Pulled the bait out and put a dab of the liquid mayhem, panfish scent ironically, on and put the bait back in the water and dead sticked it again. The difference was night and day, the fish started to attack the bait open mouthed and I hooked up quite easily. Even as a scent user for years this surprised me. I didn't realize how much of an attractant it can be, I had just thought it gave us more time to set the hook. Wish I had this on video, maybe this summer.

What you should do sometime is either bring along a user of scents or grab a tube and have one person use it and one not during a tough bite in an area you know holds fish. When my father in law went fish less and hit less for that hour, I think he was a skeptic when a gave him the scent, but he started catching fish at a similar rate I was. I couldn't get him to use my scent anymore, but he is going to get some this spring before the season starts.

When I was at Menards recently they sold a z rust like product, I believe inhibitor that you were supposed to break appart and put in the boxes to prevent rust. Would guess it is better than the silica packs.

Both, but I prefer boxes for plastics that kink easily. For example Kalins tails get kind of jacked up in the bag, and they can easily be set in a box so this doesn't happen. I also like boxes when I want to carry quantities of different styles in similar colors. I will box a bunch of say water red baits together. Not worried about mixing scents, since I add some before they are fished anyways

Been a Liquid Mayhem guy for a year and a half, atlas Mike's before that, and had really good luck with it, especially during tough bite conditions. Probably helps during a hot bite too, but is hard to tell when it is running hot. The best example I can give is the first vacation trip on the water, I had 8 fish in the first hour with scent and the father inlaw had been blanked without scent. He finally gave in, he really is stubborn about using other people's gear, and within a couple of minutes started to get some hits and landed a couple of fish. For me though the gel scents are the only way to go, they stay longer on soft plastics and cranks.

That thing looks well made, nice attention to detail. If I had a bigger boat that could hold it I would probably pick one up.

Was at a local shop today and they had these for 30 regularly 60. Is this thing a decent stick and is this a good deal? The had a casting rod for the same price too.

Bandit 100s have been my number one river smallmouth Crankbait for many years. I have tried many and not found one that out produces it.

Anybody get the powerbait version and fish it yet? Thinking the powerbait plastic formulation might be different giving it a different action. I always thought that powerbait had a different texture vs other plastics? Personally I vote for the havoc line since I use my own scent anyways.

Their is also a lot of synthetic hairs out there that can be used as well. Fur off a zonker strip may also work although it would be shorter than the bucktail. perhaps tying in some Krystal flash or flashabou with the bucktail could be the ticket.

If you have some really old raps, the silver and gold are really bright, actual foil, vs the dull silver and gold sold now. I got a bunch at an estate auction and it is like a different color compared to the new stuff, pretty cool actually.

Yup that is the one, it has a boot tail as well? Really curious on how it works for you. Over hyped or not, the shadow raps got me fish and big musky bites, they bit me off, but were close enough to see it happen. Scatter raps have been really good to me, River and lake. Rippin rap is a good bait, but need to work with it some more to figure out the optimal triggering retrieve, RES got me more fish the week I fished both. Oddly I do better with their new stuff than there old stuff.

Did they have that weedless shad thing? Still can't figure out if I would buy that thing or not if they brought it over here. Don't like the idea of having a non changeable hook on a crank.

I do remember a time when lure companies put info on the back that showed you how to fish the bait. Back when I didn't have a clue that was useful info. Don't know of any baits that do that now.

separate it for me.

I had good luck with it on a plain old slider spider head. I was tossing it on reed beds with various retrieves and the fish seemed to like it.

Wow just did the numbers and was it ugly. Overall since 2014 I have used 38% of the baits I purchased from TW. The good news is that the most recent order that I counted for this, memorial day, 60% of those baits were used. All is not lost though, because a lot of it was stocking up on jigs, I had maybe 2 before this and craw trailers, Z man stuff and some rapala baits. The type of fishing I have been doing of late has dictated that some of the baits wouldn't have been used yet, and well in some cases I do have a few color options to burn through. Looking at the list though, a lot of the baits that haven't been used yet are on my must try list this year. I have been tracking the baits I use in a log, and then used this data for my BF order, so I am hoping the percentage used will continue to rise in the future. It is eye opening though if you go through this exercise. I would love to show this to my wife and explain that this is why I spend a bit of time researching stuff, but she would just take the wrong side and say I order too much lol.

The Smallie waters I fish are very rocky and I hang up at least once or twice a cast, which tends to be pretty hard on plastics and jigs when I pop them loose. So the area I fish most often dictates using more economical or durable baits because generally they aren't tied on all that long before they are donated to the river.

They cast alright on spinning gear with 10 lb fireline and it forces you to fish them slower which is a good thing. Granted you won't lob them out there a mile, but it's not too bad.

The Rippin rap in 1/2 ounce has done well for me as an alternative to the RES. The standard scatter crank (not the shallow or deep) has been a good producer for me as well. The shadow rap has gotten me a lot of bites in the short time I have used it. Like others the DT 10 and DT 16 have been good to me.

Cleaning up I found a couple of TW packing lists. Which got me to thinking that I should pull up my orders on TW, only goes back to 2014, and figure out the percentage of the items I ordered that I actually used. Not sure if this is smart or not, but I have been really trying to order what I need vs what the bait monkey adds to my cart;)

One thing I found to help with that is using small rubber bands to tie the trebles together. I was skeptical at first, but was easily able to pull a crank out of the bottom of a compartment that had about 20 baits in it, with minimal to no hangups. It is a cheap solution that can save you a ton of time and frustration on the water.

While most of their baits are more than I would normally pay for plastics, the Helgripede looks intriguing. It does look fragile though. How do you rig it and will it hold up to multiple fish?

If you can still find one of these on the shelf, walleye trolling guys swore by these, even pulling planer boards. I got one before they were discontinued. Ugly Stik CAL 1100 or 1102(depends on handle) 7'er in medium action

I generally by mid level brands, Rapala, Bandit, Strike King, and Norman cranks and really haven't found a reason to swap out the hooks. If I tourney fished I might on the baits that would be in the boat, but not on all due to the cost of switching. About the only hooks I change out are when you get a bait with the cheap silver hooks that just look dull, but I buy very few cranks that have those anymore.