the reel ess

Nanolight? Uberlight? Microminiairweightflyweight? If you cast it it goes up.

Storm has a medium (for swimbaits) sized line of swimbaits with a gold looking perch and bunker patterns. I ahve the bunker, but I haven't used it yet. it just came in the mail a couple days ago. My buddy has used his perch pattern one and got a 3 pounder on it. It's about 6" long, 1 3/8 oz. https://www.rapala.com/storm/soft-baits/kickin-series/kickin-minnow-/Kickin+Minnow.html?cgid=storm-softbaits-kickinSeries&taglist=Storm|Soft Baits|Kickin' Series#start=1&cgid=storm-softbaits-kickinSeries

If it's a deserted island, it better be something for saltwater. But seriously, it would probably be a Trick Worm.

Same here. I'm 50. I had 20 some odd combos for different species. My dad died and he had bass stuff that I needed to make room for. I wasn't ready to part with his stuff yet. I gave my crappie stuff to my buddy when I sold my boat because I still crappie fish with him. I gave some stuff to a neighborhood kid. And I donated some to our local charity thrift store. They love getting guy stuff. I decided to concentrate on bass and occasionally panfish.

We did this every year after Christmas when we owned a lake house. We would pick up all our neighbors' trees and sometimes put out 15-20 of them near our place. They're great for crappie. IMO, not as good for bass. But if it's the only cover they'll go to it. I'd rather spend a little time and make up something from PVC or ABS so you can fish treble lures around them without losing them. What I've read is that feeding the bluegill is supposed to cause them to spawn more often during the summer and produce more small bluegill for the bass to eat, thus increasing the average bass size. When there aren't enough bluegill for the bass to eat, they find themselves in direct competition with larger bluegills for minnows only. This is the situation in many small ponds.

By trying different things to change that.

I'm using a 7.something:1 for almost everything baitcasting. The one rod I don't have a high speed reel on is just because it's an old reel I haven't cycled out. I should. BTW, I almost never deep crank.

I didn't grow up poor, but we did live paycheck-to-paycheck. Luckily, my dad worked for a big company and never missed a paycheck. Now I'm married and we have a cushion in savings and a good retirement saved up. My wife is a state employee so she has a pension. We still live like we're a paycheck away from financial ruin. If you lived frugally in your formative years and had to labor for your wealth it's difficult to break that cycle. Not that you need to break it. That said, I use my stuff. But I don't buy $500 rods or reels. I don't have a bass boat anymore. My truck is 12 years old.

We have gold shiners on my local lake. We throw Cordell Super Spots, Rapala Minnows and X-Raps in gold. I throw the Houdini colored Zoom Flukes and swimming flukes. One of the best baits here is the War Eagle gold series double willow spinnerbait in gold shiner pattern. @cadman made me some custom gold shiner swimjigs. Other than those specific gold baits, we catch them on the usual stuff. Honestly, here bass seem to prefer other soft plastic colors. But they love gold in the hard baits.

IDK. Maybe they've been almost completely replaced by black or black/blue. I must admit I use black/blue pretty much exclusively. I have other colors, but that combo gets the job done 'round here. If course, you could certainly make your own.

I "go cheap" everywhere. LOL. Just kidding. But I do save money wherever and whenever I can.

nm

I'm a decent fisherman who specializes and is familiar with the waters he fishes. I usually don't even target any other species. I'm not the kind of person who can be good at a lot of things. Nor do I have 3 days a week to devote to fishing different locales. i have to concentrate my efforts for results. Sometimes I want to go somewhere different because the bite has not been good at my main lake. But I go there anyway because it only takes one fish there to make a trip worthwhile. It actually only takes one big fish every few trips. I'm also mostly confined, voluntarily, to smaller waters because I use the kayak. I'm 50 years old so I'm not really chasing twenty 1 lb fish anymore. I'll fish a place with big fish for fewer bites. I had to abandon a lot of things I learned running and gunning on the big lake. And even then i was fishing familiar water.

I have friends, a married couple, that have a small back yard pond they let me fish whenever I want. I go there and catch more and bigger fish than they even thought were there. And they'll ask questions like "How did you know that fish would be there?", "How did you get bigger ones to bite?" or "How do you know what they'll bite right now?" And I'll tell them it's from lots of years of experience and watching YouTube videos and trolling this very board for advice and ideas. And they'll act as if they're interested in catching more. But the next time I go they ask the same questions. Most people just aren't as interested as we are. Most of us are fanatics.

NM

I rigged it with a small Zoom chunk with the swimming legs. When I took out I threw it from the dock, looking down on it. It looks like a mouse swimming through the lilies. I hit the hook with a hone just before I went out because of what I read in this thread. The 4 fish I caught on it hit it hard. One of them hit and swam toward me so I had to catch up to it to set the hook. It held on several seconds. This technique calls for a heavier combo and heavier line. I used my frog rod, which has 50# PowerPro braid. It helps set the hook and drag 'em out. I'm going to rig another rod for this so I can use my frog rod for frogs.

There were a couple of threads about the Johnson Silver Minnow this week. That got me thinking I should try mine. To tell the truth, I've only used one in freshwater once before today. So I rigged one up on my frog rod with a pumpkin chunk trailer and took it when I went this morning. I'm glad I did. It's the only thing I caught fish on. I got 4 on it pulling across small lilies much like a frog. I missed several others. Two that I caught were on top of the lilies. Two were at the edge when it dropped off. Mine is a gold one I bought for saltwater fishing. I did also lose one on the jig.

I went in once to retrieve the side plate from a BPS Johnny Morris reel. It was cold. And I didn't actually find the side plate. But they sent me one for the low, low minimum real repair price of $19.95.

I get bites on the jig from bluegill and whatever other bream there are in my lake. They'll take a claw off the trailer if I yank it. I feel like I HAVE to change the trailer if it only has one claw. If I suspect the bream bite (feels like a sharp tick-tick, I'll just apply light pressure to the jig. If it moves off or pulls back, I set the hook. If it's a bream, they'll drop it. Unless it's a warmouth. I've caught them on a frog.

What about the Abu Garcia Revo Winch? I use the reel on my jig rod as a winch. I cinch the drag down. When I set the hook I have to drag the bass out of heavy cover. You can only sweep that rod up once to start the bass in your direction, then you have to crank that bass out. If you try to reel and pump the bass will bury itself and you'll lose some fish and jigs. I'm in the third year doing this with a $100 reel (not the Revo Winch) and it's still going strong.

My last time out I had to break off a black/blue jig. I had a gold shiner pattern swimjig Cadman made for me tied on another rod. I put a black/blue Rage Craw on it and, much to my surprise, caught fish. I think if you put that jig in their face, on the drop, they'll attack it. But if you hop one that's the "wrong color" along and they have time to inspect it, the odds of getting a bite go down. But you know what they say. "Show them something they haven't seen" or don't see often. Probably so they could see the bait when the fish picked it up. I know people like white lizards for that as well. I'll use a limetreuse Trick Worm on beds a lot.

I generally do not use toads due to the terrible hookup ratio.

You'll still do that with jigs. LOL. There's nothing like easing up to a perfect laydown and getting hung on the first cast, ruining the spot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But you'll get used to working the jig through it and get better at it. I don't know who it was, but I heard a pro say working the jig too fast causes you to get hung up. You're trying to ease it over limbs so as not to bend the weedguard and expose the point. But I've also noticed lightly hopping it through gets me hung up less than just dragging it the way I would a conventional T rig. Also, the lighter the jig, the less likely it is to hang up. That seems to be my experience. Also, I asked a guide once whether I should be pitching and flipping T rigs or jigs. He simply said "T-rigs in vegetation, jigs in wood". A lot of times I'll run a spinnerbait through the easy part of a laydown before I get closer and pitch to it. That way i might pick off a fish before getting hung up. ?

You can minimize the monetary losses. One of the best baits I've used for this is a plain weedless Arky jighead with a Rage Craw. That's a cheap combo you can afford to lose more of. I use the skirted jig to increase size. I'm not sure that it does though. Jigs don't have to be expensive. I just bought 4 "blemished" wire tied Seibert jigs for $2 each. I caught some hogs on the plain craw as well. You can also just use a T rig and bypass the entire jig. Just use a superline or a flipping hook.

I decided a couple years ago to tie on a jig and never take it off and I haven't. It really is a big fish bait that works year round. After having some success with it I bought a dedicated combo for it. I use 50# braid with a 20# mono leader (so I can break off if necessary). I've been experimenting with jigs between 1/4 and 1/2 oz and different trailers. What I find is they all work well as long as you put them in a fish's face. Fish won't swim far to get them. But if they drop in his face, instinct tells him to kill it. This is low tech, cheap fishing for me because I use a kayak with no electronics. But I know the offshore game nets big fish as well. I used to do that some when I had a boat and they were above average fish. I'm just better at the low tech stuff. I'm not the kind of person who can be good at a lot so I specialize. That's why I decided to target bass almost exclusively in the first place.