fishwizzard

I hate the Palomar as well for the same reason, it’s too cumbersome to tie on anything othet then a bare hook and it wastes too much leader as well. I use the Alberto and have never had one break on a fish, but about 1 in 10 times the leader knot will break before the tt connection knot breaks when pulling out a snag. I am going to give the FG a go at somepoint however.

I also bought some random china ones but maybe 60% of mine have a center pin bent enough to be annoying to get rigged stright. They now sit in a drawer and I am back to the Owner L ones for every plactic that will fit them. I tend to save up and buy a lot of “boring” tackle and accessories whenever I can find a 20% off sale.

What shop? The one I used to go to down there closed up sometime last year. On topic, I have tried both and don’t really like either. I think the Toadrunner is better overall but I hate the tail and how fragile it is, I have had the wire pull out of two of them so far. I am going to give the homemade ones a go at some point, I have maybe a half dozen frogs sitting around that I never fish and a few Big EZ swimbaits with ripped-up heads to steal the tails off of. I think the idea of “a frog with a spinning tail” is a sound one, but no one has prefected it yet.

I have recently discovered the joys of old school floating worms for any and all bottom contact worming At this point all I really use are Jelly Worms and Producto Tournament worms.

For me, the difference is that the Ned never touches the bottom on purpose and is allways moving. A shakyhead is allways on the bottom and is sitting still a lot of the time. For me, the Neko/Shaky divide is the most blurred, the main dffetence for me is weedless or not.

If you can go up to around $400 then I would say get a GLX MBR in whatever length and power would suit you the best. You will have a great rod that will do most everything in its weight range well. I have a mbr783 and love it other then finding the handle overly long. They also offer the MBR rods in the EX6 series in the $200 range, but I have never gotten to fish one of the new models yet.

I keep a few combos and tackle in my car year round so long as the water is soft. The rods/reels have covers and the tackle is in planos in a large tackle bag and everything is covered in a few layers of bath towels. I got bored one day (very very bored) and hooked up my remote bbq smoker thermometer and set the probe next to my reels and parked my car in the full sun. Under the towels the temp only got up to around ~105-110f. I make a point to park in the shade at home and try to do so when I am out. I have noticed no heat issues so far. However, today I did crack open a new tube of Megastrike and notices that it was way closer to clear then the yellow-pearl my last tube was. The old tube lasted almost a year and was in the car 24/7, so I do wonder if it was affected by the temp changes.

The Rat strikes again! I picked up a smaller 40 sized one and it seems to get hit just as much as the big 50's. I had a painful day today fishing a Huddgill. I had six bass on and didn't land a single one. All where solid hits and I had weight on enough to bend my rod anywhere from 5-15 seconds. Two of the six came to the surface and thew the lure, the rest just came off during the fight. One of them was painfully big too, he grabbed it right at the bank, I had like 10' of line out, didn't stand a chance. I know they are a low-hookup lure, but it is driving me insane. I have a Mattlures top hook but the action stinks compared to the Hudd and a SG gill with two small trebles, but it does not seem to get hit nearly as often as the Huddgill. I am going to keep at it but man it is so frustrating.

It seems like anywhere from 2-10. The last tail-break came on the first big bass I got on the lure, it somehow snapped as the bass thrashed in open water. It happens often enough to be annoying, esp as I am either on foot or in a yak, so storage is limited in terms of just bringing backup lures. I want so badly to believe that, but I swear that I get more hits on the Chartreuse tails vs the Purple one. A Trickworm will fit in the 50, but not well. Trimmed to match the factory tail, the worm is too thick to fit in the hole. Left full length, it does fit but only the slender tip of the worm gets pierced with the toothpick and they don't last long. I am also still left with finding a worm that works with the smaller 40 rats.

Hi, I have been fishing the BBZ Rats for a while now, both the 50 and 40 sizes, and have been having a lot of luck with them. However, I have been losing tails at an alarming rate. They are a pain to replace on the water as once the toothpick is wet, it's very hard to get out. I would rather not lug around a spare Rat, so I am looking for a solution to make the tails a bit more durable and easier to replace. I know some other Rat lures use rubber worms as tails and I was thinking of trying that. The only worms I have on hand that are close to the right size are Trickworms, and they are not a great fit in the 50 and far too big on the 40. Before I go order a bunch of different yellow worms, can anyone recommend a brand that they know is a good fit? I am going to use small finishing nails to hold the tail on, that will be super easy to replace on the water.

Cool, thanks!

What accounts for that difference? The bigger hook would pop itself free of the worm when the bass went to crush it?

I have the old model TV and while I like it a lot, it is far better at the upper end of it's range, a 3/16 weight plus a normal plastic is going to be doable but not amazing. People rave about the tip on the PP, so I would go for that model in the new range.

That's a staged photo, no way a Crosstail would have stayed on the hook after the bite ?

For me, anywhere with a soft muck bottom is dropshot water, no matter how shallow it is.

I am now up to two lost "swimbaits", a S-waver that an osprey stole and a huddgill that a snapping turtle ripped apart. Most of the places I fish are full of both of these jerks so the ~$30 range is about my limit. The turtle really ticked me off, I had a nice little bit going on with that gill and when I set the hook into the turtle I was sure it was a new PB.

I also use the 11lb and 25lb Armilo mono after reading about it here. They are both excellent lines and I would use the 11lb a ton more if I could get it in a bulk spool. The red mark at the halfway point is nice, but I run short mainlines with a lot of backing and I can never get three respools out the small spools.

Hah, I think the same way. I more or less gave up drinking and it was amazing how much more money I had to throw at tackle! Only downside is that when I do drink now I have to really watch myself, my tolerance is a lot lot lower than it used to be. My "limit" for rods and reels creeps up a little every time I spend a little more. Reels I have no issue spending on as they *can* last more or less forever if you take care of them. I have smaller hands and churned through a bunch of reels before I found a few models that are comfortable to palm, there was definitely a noticeable tick up in smoothness/feel around the ~$250 point vs the sub $200 reels I have fished. Most of my reels are used ones I pick up on ebay or forums. I don't care a ton about appearance and with the yen being so low I have gotten some amazing deals on used reels from Japan. Rods are more or less the same, but the the added risk of more easy breakage. I have paid msrp for a a few rods in the $300-400 range and been perfectly happy, but I am even happier to find a old model GLX for $200. I have yet to break a high-dollar rod, I might change my tune after that happens. People have different priorities as well as budgets, my cars are always old and awful looking and I think even a $5 carwash is a waste of money. If I throw a few combos and a full tackle bag in the car for a day of bankbeating I bet the fishing gear would be worth more then the car.

A $10 digital scale was one of the best fishing investment I have made. It amazed me how much plastics in general weigh and how most hardbaits are pretty far off from their listed weight. A 5" GYCB Senko is right around 3/8oz, a bit more with hook. A 6" Zoom Trickworm w/ 3/0 hook is right around 1/4oz.

I have almost found "the one" for Ned Rigs, an inexpensive custom on a CS722-MHX blank, but in my inexperience I had the builder put a really minimalist reel seat on it when I now think I would prefer a fatter cork one. The power and taper are almost perfect, but the tip could be just a bit softer. I prefer lighter and shorter spinning rods due to a dislike of large/heavy spinning reels.

I saw that method in an Aaron Martens video and it works great. It is hell on plastics, but so long as the cover isn't small enough to fit in the hook-gap, it is very snagless.

I would think that the worm would fly off during the fight most of the time, but am pleased to hear it isnt the case.

Yea, I throw them mostly on a 3/0 Owner Offset and the hooks gives it a slow slightly nose down fall with a little shimmy. But the rigging in that video looks like it will sink slower and more horizontally. I would also be comfortable going down in hook size a bit, it looks like it would give very good hooksets. It also looks like a great way to weedless rig a Neko Rig.

I prefer little 1/4" bits of shrink tubing over o-rings most of the time. I use Trickworms and 6" Jellyworms most of the time and I cannot get o-rings to hold well on those worms. I need to go to a good hardware store with some worms and look at different sizes of rings. Also, the body of a Sharpie makes a perfect o-ring tool for Neko rigging, thinner finesse worms fit perfectly and you can cut the tube to place the ring where ever you want with the worm bottomed out in the tip.

Small paddletails are always in style..... While new for 2018 are chubby little tubes.... I have never found a weedless rigging method for the 4" Easy Shiners, ideally I want a small, thin-wire twistlock hook but with only like a 1/16oz belly weight. I also want it to ride really tight up to the body. Those draggin head's I use for the tubes are almost perfect, but I wish the weight was further back. They are still the best I have found though. EDIT: That was not a Chubby Little Tube, the correct pic is now up. The are great rigged on the draggin heads, they are heavy enough for a decent current but still do a slow gliding fall. The hookset raito is outstanding as well.