fishwizzard

I resisted buying a pile of the Havoc baits, going to have to unsub from this thread for a while so my regret doesn't becomes overwhelming.

Thanks for the info. I am going to pick up some chartreuse and pre-dip some plastics.

How long does it take JJ's to dry, and how long does the color last? I only bank or kayak fish and I have heard too many JJ's horror stories to want to lug a bottle around in those circumstances.

I have found the same thing to be true, except for the days they only bite a black/green pumpkin one. I tried splitshoting them a few times, but I was having an issue where panfish would attack the weight, messing up my perfectly executed casts. The odd thing was, if I fished the senko weightless, the panfish would hit it, but with the splitshot, they would ignore the worm and only hit the weight.

My GF also has had a series of older Subarus. Taken care of, 250k isn't uncommon and the various 90-00's ones she has had have been decently easy to work on.

On maybe my second trip out in my kayak I snagged a monster blue crab by the back of his shell. It took me a bit to get him off without getting pinched. Crabbing without a license in MD is taken very seriously and every moment he was in the boat I expected a warden to pop out of the weeds and ticket me.

What's the logic for using a casting reel for frogging then? I assume it is a winching power issue, as I suspect you would need a surf-sized spinning reel to really pull a large bass through heavy pads? I have a surf reel spooled with 65lb pp and a 4'9" M boat rod, I might give it a try sometime.

I struggled with the jointed Rapalas for weeks before I tied them on with a loop knot. It was amazing the difference it made in the action. Question, would attaching a split ring to the lure allow me to tie a standard knot and still retain the action?

No, I either kayak or fish form the bank, but due to the aforementioned smallie obsession I have been wading more then anything this year. Lot of the local kayak guys use FW bass tackle to fish for stripers/blues and they seem to be satisfied with how they hold up, my inexperience with saltwater and metals had me wondering if there was a hidden "gotcha". I had though of using WD40 to drive the water out, but didn't know if it would damage my line if it came into contact with it.

I live south of Annapolis. I do most of my LMB fishing in southern MD or the MoCo/HoCo resevours. Lately I have been on a smallie kick and fish the Patapsco a lot. This season is my first "seriously" fishing for bass and I plan to expand my area over the winter and next season. I posted this thread with like 4-5 tabs open to auctions around that price. I am thinking getting a used one is my best bet for now. I can see if I like the idea enough to drop serious money on a fancier setup.

Thanks for all the input guys, sorry it took me so long to respond. I am working like a mad fool, which is what will enable this whim. The little I have read about this reel seems pretty mixed, especial in regards to lure rating. I would like to be able to get down to around 1/16-1/8 lures, but the 1/8 of things is more realistic. Is this true even of magnesium reels? I admit I know very little about them in specific and magnesium in general. I would love that, I don't know much about the northern spots. My GF has been bugging me to take her to the drive-in up there. I was looking at the Aldebaran but that is approaching "too expensive to take in my kayak" levels. I think I am leaning towards stalking ebay for either a used alphas sv and fishing it as is, or looking for a used Pixy and slowly upgrading it as I find time and money. I am also feeling better about using a FW reel and just being diligent about cleaning it. I am general pretty awful about stuff like that but should make myself be better and having a fancy toy might help. I guess I also should buy a cheap little scale and actually weigh some of my finesse lures. Other then weightless 3" senkos and tiny inline spinners, I am not sure if I really throw anything less then 1/8oz. You guys have given me a lot to think about.

I am going down the dark road of finesse casting and am looking for some advice on reels. I live by the Chesapeake bay and as such do a lot of fishing in salt/brackish water. It seems like a lot of the more common finesse casting reels have magnesium frames, which I understand to be unable to be safely used in even brackish water. First, is this true? Even with diligent rinsing with a water bottle asap when I land and then again with a hose when I get home, is a magnesium frame going to be damaged with short exposure? My second question is, if a magnesium framed reel is a non-starter for brackish, then is there a good finesse option that will work for me? Thanks!

I started using the 1/0 Rebarb's a few months ago and am a big believer. My hit and hookup rate rocketed up compared to the small EWG hooks I had been using. For thinner/softer plastics, the ReBars are great, for thicker/harder ones, the 1/0 Troker finesse hook works better. They both also seem to allow an unweighted/light weighted plastic to have such better action then a EWG which imho makes small plastics roll and not slowly flicker and twitch. The only downsides to straight shanks I have seen are an increase in snags and shorter plastic life. The first is due to the hook having a much easier time punching out, so while you get better hookups on fish, you also get better hookups on sticks. Lure life is the same thing, the hook point tears a much larger hole on a hit or catch and often the plastic runs up the line and is hard to re-set without damage. Both are totally worth it to me, the increased catch rate has been astounding. Also, try the 1/0 Roboworm hook is amazing on a weightless 3" senko. It seems to catch anything, but you will burn through worms in a hurry.

I struggled with a baitcaster for a long time before it clicked. It was a combo of two things. First, someone here suggested spooling up with 8lb Hybrid and using KVD Line and Lure. It was like night and day compared to the 30lb braid I was using before. It was so much easier to get the brakes dialed in and casting seemed to take much less force. The second thing was watching pro-fishing/tournament videos. Most instructional videos are filmed with a really tight shot, usually only upper body. Pro-shot videos, with much larger budgets and multiple cameras, will give you full body shots, which was huge in showing me how to make different kinds of casts.

Dibs! I have gotten hooked on 1/16" worm weights for my finesse plastics fishing. They still let the plastics have so much free action and pop through cover very well. I have a few bags of hula grubs, 4-5", that I want to start throwing, looking for lighter ones, around 1/4oz. Can anyone recommend one of the Seibert's heads?

I am saddened to hear the level is still so low, it is one of my favorite fisheries.

I like short rods for both bank and yak. I prefer the 6'-6'6" range, but I do have two casting rods that are 6'9", but I got a great deal on them. I find that in my yak I often fish close to cover and we have a lot of overhanging trees. I also prefer to present soft plastics (which is like 70-80% of what I fish) by side arm casting them low to the water, or skipping them if I can. I find my 6" rod is much easier to do this with then my 6'3" rod. My main kayak is also only 10' long, so I can get a fish over the bow with even my little 5'6" perch rod. For bank fishing, I am often fighting undergrowth and tend to bushwhack a lot to find good spots. I also agree with Darren about short butts. My two main spinning rods are customs from SmallieStix out of PA. The owner's specialty is rods for smallmouth fishing out of kaykas. I have two from him, a 6' ML and a 6'3"M, both with microwave guides (to add back some casting distance) and short butts. I also have a 7'ML St Croix and it now seems so cumbersome when I switch back to it. I recognize that longer rods are far better for a lot of techniques and presentations, but so far I have found the positives of a short rod for bank and yak are still greater than the downsides.

When I used to be into shooting, I settled on ATF fluid as my oil and white lithium grease as my grease. Obviously high temp was a concern for that application, but I use them for everything else and have never had an issue.

Welp, you guys got to me, dispite being almost exclusively a soft plastics guy, I just received a WP90 in the mail My plan is to fish it under some docks, how sturdy is this thing? Will a single hit on a piling destroy it or can it take a little abuse? When I throw a t-rig under there I like to hit the pilings both as accuracy practice and because it seems like having the lure just drop in the water gets me bit more often. Obvously I will not do this with a hard bait, but I do wanna throw it as close to them as is safely possiable.

I am just getting into frogging and have been using a mix of hollow frogs and the Z-man Pop Frog plastic. It is super buoyant and will easily float a heavy 5/0 hook. They are a bit light (for me anyway) to cast well on a casting rig, but I'm sure a more skilled person could get good results with them. They are also pretty bulletproof, I have caught and landed two or three huge snapping turtles one a single one and even a huge snapper can't seem to bite the legs off.

I fish a lot for perch and panfish with inline spinners and small cranks. Perch especially seem to have a knack for getting all three points of a treble in their mouths. I have switched all my spinners and mico cranks over to single hooks and they seem to catch just as well. I use Cox&Rawle hooks I find on ebay as replacements, as I have never found any really good smaller single hooks. For bass I really never fish treble hooked lures in the first place, but have been getting a little topwater collection going now that I have a rod for them. Once I get more confident with them I will likely switch the trebles out on them as well. For now I just pinched the barbs on all of them. I also fish out of a kayak and often hike in miles to fish and really don't want a hook in me in either of those situations.

I have the Cabelas version of this and cant recomend it enough. With a tank top on underneath it is almost as cool as a tshirt and I have found that if i wear a ball cap the hood stretches out far enough that I don't even get sun on my face.

They look exaclty like the "bath bombs" my girlfriend likes. If someone here will promice to let me sleep on their couch I will buy a Baitcloud and slip it into her supply. I am not sure what flavor she would like best though.

I have been using more and more Straight and Offset hooks in recent months and I feel like I am getting more hookups. In particular I have been using the Trokar Finesse worm hooks with a 1/16oz weight and a GYCB 4' worm. They are super sharp and strong, the only downside is that almost every missed hookset costs me a worm as that hook does not mess around and almost cuts the worm in half.

I use a rain jacket hood and one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Research-Radar-Pocket-Cap/dp/B003P8QPIA It is the perfect size to "tent" out my hood and it folds down to fit in a pocket.