Cgolf

Color can be huge on certain lakes, and on others not as much. On other threads I have talked about a clear water lake where sunny and flat equals smoke and some kind of flake baits being hot with watermelon red getting blanked. Under choppy conditions where the light is broke up with sun or no sun and overcast and flat it flips 180 and water red gets all the bites and smoke blanks. I have seen this over the years and this is a very repeatable pattern, my thought is I am matching the gills in the area, and they look different to bass depending on how bright it is below the surface. Bring me to my home lake, green water, and water red, green pumpkin, junebug, etc catch them, color really doesn't matter that much. So yeh color really matters on some lakes especially with soft plastics that are worked slower. Crankbaits I am a bit on the fence about because they are more of a reaction bite unless you are tossing jerkbaits. Just curious, I fish tubes a lot on a slider head, which can be used to mimic an injured baitfish, the way I fish them most of the time, or dragged like a craw or a goby. I do realize that the tubes do sink vs being suspended, but since they are being fished up in the water column, wouldn't the color selection be just as important? Same with a grub being yo-yo retrieved slowly back to the boat on a light jig?

For me a medium to medium heavy slow tipped rod, seems to come of snags better, for soft plastics and cranks and maybe a medium baitcaster for cranks. For baits a few shallow and maybe medium depth cranks depending where I am at, a couple of top waters and a lipless bait. Soft plastics would be a small box of prerigged Ned's and some other prerigged plastics in colors to suit the water and cover I am fishing. I carry a small amount of terminal tackle, lip gripper, piers and a scale in a 3500 size bag The beauty of bank fishing is generally you are going to be fishing shallower water so that helps to limit the baits needed. I tend to stick with the KISS principle here. Even the last trip to the lake in the boat for 2 hours I didn't take out much more than that either.

I haven't seen them in a while, but I truly hope they never go away, pipe dream I know, but they are my reading material on long car rides and when we visit grandparents that don't have wifi. I also tend to keep some articles, and it is much less of a pain to pull something out of a magazine than go to the trouble of printing it out. Also, it gets me away from the screens, be it laptop or ipad that we all have become addicted to, I am trying to start reading actual books again instead of spending most of the night on the ipad or laptop.

When I think custom rods, I think like Catt does. Let's say I have a jerkbait stick that I want a touch slower tip. I would go to a custom rod maker with the stick I essentially want tweaked and have them build a rod that in the above case had the same backbone, weight, but a slightly slower tip. One I could see myself having done is having someone build up a stick very similar in weight, od, backbone, balance, but a faster tip than my ugly stick. Due to a wrist injury, that stick is the easiest for me to use for 12 hours on the water. Would be curious to see what someone could come up with and at what cost To me looking at the MHX site it is pretty similar to ordering a rod from TW, other than the fact that you put it together. What would be really helpful is if they had a flex graph showing how the different blanks load up.

No I figured it out, your talking rod builders vs even the smallest maker with a standard product line, my mistake for posting in the thread.

This ^^ , last trip I did I found myself using my ugly stick spinning rod more than my st croix eye con or the other 100 buckish series and you know what I did alright. Sure it is a little slower, but it works well fishing snaggy cover, reeds and rocks. The only place I have seen expensive rods make a huge difference is in a fly rod, I was lucky enough to get 4 really nice for the time fly rods that were 500+ new and they really did cast better then the 100 buck rods I had at the time. As far as spinning and bait casting go, I feel we have gotten too specific with rods, when in reality a guy could get away with just a couple of each. I currently only have off the shelf rods, now I am not familiar with MHX rods, is this like Doybins or some of the smaller stick makers on TW, or are these truly guys making a few sticks a year?

The standard Senko and any of the knockoffs, for me are complete garbage. It might be my add, but I just can't catch fish on them, way to slow of a presentation for me. Strike king series 1 cranks, really is the one crank that really does nothing for me, the KVD square bills had sucked for me but I caught some fish on them this spring.

100-300 a year depending on what is going on with the family. It has taken me a while, but I really have all the tackle I need. Yearly now I restock what I depleted and add a few new things to try. Can't wait till the kiddo gets out of college, life will get much easier lol. I really need some new spinning reels, I have gotten almost 7 years out of a couple of shakesphere excursions, not sure how much longer then will last, but for mid 20 buck reels they have been rock stars. I do really try to shop sales a lot and my in laws get me fishing gear for Christmas too.

Is there the holy grail of dirt cheap hooks like this that are reasonably sharp? I do a ton of river fishing and lose a lot of baits on rocks so I don't want to add expensive trebles on. The one bait I put Gamakatsu trebles on, I lost on the 3rd cast after having used it for a month. Brand and model number would be a bonus. The megabass aren't horrible, but cheaper would be better. When the fishing is good it isn't unheard of to lose over 20 cranks a year.

For my vacation boxes, similar to your situation I have 3 plano 4700 double decker boxes with over a 100 different style color combinations. These 3 boxes fit in a standard 3700 size bag and there is room in the pockets if I need a few extra bagged plastics. For some color/styles of baits I only pack a few because they are baits to experiment with. Other plastics I pack 2 or 3 bags worth in the box because I expect to use them. I do change up whats in the box for each trip. It could be a bit tedious, but it works really well for me. I do find that stocking the boxes does really gets you thinking about how you would use the baits you are packing which can be a side benefit.

Has anyone used either for smallies? I have had some success with top waters on a river system, and would think the extra noise these things make would make them easier to find in a loud river environment. I will say the unmatched in originality line in the first sentence of the Jackall baits description on TW cracks me up when it is clearly a new spin of a classic bait.

Generic needle nose pliers for the bass fishing bag and the 2x extended needle nose in the boat when toothy critters are around. For cutting line I carry a small pair of scissors from my fly tying box. For split rings I use a bps pair and some other generic pair, one is better but not sure which one is which at this point.

I am curious if that is a common way to finish lures? I have never had a lure do that and I leave some in my truck all summer and I never vent the Windows. I could see using the wrap to get super consistent finishes, but would think toothy critters or the hooks would tear them up.

Reminds me of a couple of Musky swimbaits I have that will do a 180 on a twitch to tick off a following fish enough to slam the lure.

I agree with ya, some baits like this and others are imo made to catch awards while lures like the StutterStep are made to catch fish. I wasn't kidding though about the duck landing thing, watching the videos, it definately looked like a duck splashing down. Not sure that is a trigger for bass though.

I just want one to scare the crap out of my boat mate when they think a duck landed right next to them;) As for fishing I see it maybe as a musky lure, but not our bass up here.

Although the price recently went up, Bandit 100s and Shallow Flat maxxs are about as good as anything out there and probably better. In my experience smallies don't get dialed off them either, so their sound must be natural enough to continue to fool them.

The Bill Lewis Stutterstep looks pretty cool, I want to see how it looks in the water, if anyone knows of a video let me know.

The Rapala Shad Dancer looks like a winner, will have to pick up a few of them, darn bait monkey

x3 on the where and how, either you are super lucky or found a giveaway with little participation, that is awesome!

This was kind of my thought too, it is just a pain though when boxing baits. I had some old yum wooly hogs and generic ring worms where they looked round because there was so much salt that it completely filled the ribs on the bait. Quick rinsed them in the sink and they are now drying before I box them.

Why do some companies put so much salt in the bag with soft plastics that just washes off on the first or second cast. One of my favorite brands recently did a pic of an unpigmented bait, one with all the salt, very milky looking, and the salt less bait was of course clear. The baits in the bag have zero salt on them, which is nice when handling them. So is it just a marketing gimmick to get us consumers to think their baits are loaded with salt, or does it actually have a purpose?

Snap to the split ring for me.

For my lake fishing I mostly use the 1/4 ounce heads, and on the river I use the 3/16 ounce heads because the current dictates that size. I have used the Lighter heads, but I rarely fish that slow anymore.

I use the spider classic heads, and the spider pro heads for all my weedless bassin. The only caution is the weights aren't exact, but they do go from lighter to heavier at least. Leaving some high salt baits rigged for a long time, you will see some rust on the classic hooks, but I haven't seen that happen on the pro heads. I have only had one classic hook fail and it was this year, in over 10 years of use, a rather large WI bass straightened the hook out on me, not sure what happened, because I have caught 5lb bass and pike on those hooks. I also like using these, because since they are over an inch, the likely hood of a loon or other water bird ingesting one and getting lead poisoning is very small. I honestly can't remember the last time I tossed a traditional Texas rig setup. The football head one has also done well for me as well.