fishwizzard

I started fishing with a spinning reel so the idea of a well-made spin caster is appealing just to have one to play with, but the weight and bulk of this thing is a complete turnoff. If that thing were as big as an egg and was much lighter I would absolutly buy one.

So 6lb is the line weight people like for this technique? I have a pair of spybaits but only keep line that light on my L and UL spinning rods, so I have never fished them.

Someone on here posted a little tutorial about tying heavy mono into a weedguard, can't remember who but I found it a few months ago when searching for threads about wacky hooks.

I have used it to decent effect in small ponds, but it makes a senko even more fragile. I like the Biospawn sticks, the blade really stays put even after a few fish and they have a nice wiggle when you swim them back. I tend to use a largish calorado blade as I want the drag to be high so I can swim it back super slow. Honestly I don't use it at all on larger water, but as a small water search bait it works well enough.

I have been dipping my toe into swimbaiting by throwing a huddgill on my frog combo, which has a 9.1 reel. I can fish it for about two hours before my eye starts twitching.

I want a small pond with defined weedlines and light pad cover. Weightless soft plastics all day long. I am starting to care less and less what kind of plastic I am using, so long as it casts well and can be twitched back when I am feeling impatient.

Cool, thanks! I swear I checked that size, but it's cheap enough to order some to try. I was checking with a watermelon red/black flake.

I have tried two places near me but cannot find a tubing that is a good snug fit but is still able to slid on the worm without ripping it. Once time the guy who wandered over was very weirded out by my test fitting, the second time the guy was a fisherman and was interested in the idea, but they didn't have any tube in stock that worked.

Yep. I have still been unable to find anyone else who makes mushroom heads with small strong hooks, so I am just glad to see they are still alive!

Caffeine Shad's are great if you can accept the durability. They are also almost twice as heavy as a Zoom Super, so you can use heavier tackle and fish them around cover a bit more fearlessly.

Welp, I just got an order from them delivered today! It is one I made on Friday, March 3, 2017. The quality is as good as ever and they were shipped with a new photocopied "catalog" then my last order did.

Also note that on some reels you can install the anti-reverse bearing upside down so your reel will crank backwards. I have not felt that dumb in a long time, I tore down and rebuilt that reel a dozen times before some kind soul online clued me into what I had done.

If you are willing to order from overseas, look at the japanese brand MajorCraft. They have a dozen or so different lines of rods and offer a lot of 2 part options. I have had three of them and the quality has been great on all of them. The shipping on 2-part rods, even from Japan, is pretty reasonable. You can find them on ebay or any of the big JDM tackle sites.

I have a pair of spinning rods with Microwave guides on them. The builder recommended them as I was still bouncing around reel ideas and for increased casting distance. One of my rods is a 6' ML and when I first got it I had a 7' ML with standard guides. The 7' would still cast further, but the 6' w/Microwaves was surprisingly close and for middle distance casting the Microwaves seem to let me use less force to get a lure out the same distance, but with the greater accuracy a short rod will give.

That is a really intresting way to look at it, I am going to have to give that line of thinking a try.

For simple stuff like that I would think there are any number of small custom plastic companies who could help you out, especially if you can describe what you want so clearly.

That is the only way I can summon the patience to fish a wacky senko. Cast it, let it sit, pop it twice, then burn it back on top and let it drop back down right where I loose bottom visibility at the bank. I seem to catch about 70% where I cast it, 10% on the burn back, and 20% right at the bank. I will say that even with two o-rings, the worms that get hit on the surface rarely last more than one good hit. I will also sometimes cast past cover I want to fish and burn it back so it drops right where I want it. I do this when the cover is something I wanna get right up next too, but is too snaggy to want to risk casting that close too.

Interesting, I have a 5'6" boat rod rated to like 1.5oz that I have used for a little catfishing, but have maybe caught a cat half the size of your small one there on it. I guess a frog rod should work good enough, assuming I can get away with a light enough sinker. More chatterbait fish. I have gone from skunking at that spot 9/10 times to always getting at least one bass per trip. My record is only three in one day and that was an all day grind, but it's nice to be able to consistently catch my one. I also fished a new spot today and like a lot of the small park ponds around here, it looks like a shallow featureless bowl with a soft muck bottom. My usual approach is to walk the bank and fish the shoreline about 3-8' out, stopping to cast to any structure I can see or suspect is there. I have tried bottom contact lures cast out to the center but even with a hopping retrieve I find that my jig/worm gets loaded with muck about half way through the retrieve and then I can't feel anything. I will catch the occasional fish by running a chatterbait/spinnerbait/swimjig/etc right off the bottom, but it has a very low rate of return and isnt much fun. Anyone have a favorite way to fish this water?

Dude that is amazing. What kind of tackle did you get them on? It looks like I am going to take my nephew out there tomorrow, but the water looks a little high to have him scrambling around the rocks, so I think we are going to try for bass in the canal and if that isnt working try for cats from shore.

Cool, thanks for the info. My current Light spinning rod is a 6' SC Premier and while it is great for small spinnerbaits and cranks, it is awful for soft plastics and I am looking to upgrade it at some point this fall or winter.

Boom: Chatterbaits. I have tried them on and off for the last two years, but after getting a heavy power rod I am finally getting them to work. My lighter rods would vibrate my arm off and I never really had any confidence that I could make a good hookset. Now I can run one all day while still feeling it run and tick off the bottom. I have been catching with them all over, from working cover and weedlines, to just fan casting them across open water. Bust: Full sized straight tail Texas rigged worms. The old classic has never worked for me and because of that I have a really hard time making myself fish them. I use other t-rigged plastics, smaller worms, and curly tails to good effect but my little box of 6-8" worms has never caught me a fish.

If you do an creek/river fishing around here the heavier heads work well for that when the current is fast.

I am super interested in that rod, please keep us updated as you get more time in with it.

Yea, I just started using them this spring and have really gotten into them so far, they are really versatile and the Pro ones have a great hook, even with two small pliers it takes a bit to get them to bend. I think for elaztech plastics I prefer to have the hook lying parallel to the worm as the are so stretchy that I feel like it's hard to get the hook to consistently punch through with light rod and line. As I move away from elaztech worms I think I am going to shift to jigheads with a more perpendicular hook angle.

Just mine. It isn't bad per se, but it is noticeable next to the other reels, especially the sv103.