alzun664

I think the problem is when fishing big rocks/boulders. The football shaped head will fall in there and really get wedged tightly between the rocks making it hard to recover from any angle. Most of the lakes I fish have this type of bottom and it's gotten so bad that I rarely throw that style head anymore. I also forgot to mention that I don't think any retrieve you're trying to catch fish on the bottom with is going to keep you from getting snagged. I feel like its more of a design flaw than an angler mistake. On a more positive note if you can invent a snag-proof jig you'll be rich in no time.

I've noticed football head jigs tend to get snagged (or really wedged) between rocks a lot easier than other style jig heads. Which is strange considering they're supposed to be good for rocks and more snag-proof than other jigs. If you can't get to the opposite side of the snag, bow and arrow method works well most of the time.

4" Pit boss

Popping style frogs don't walk as well as the keel shaped ones because of their overall shape. So if your only reason for trimming the legs is to help them walk, I wouldn't bother with it on the pad crasher.

I would look up your local lakes online and see what types of baitfish if any are in your area. I did the same with all the waters I fish a while back and learned a lot. As for shad color, I think you would have better luck with colors that imitate your local forage, but shad is a very effective color even in lakes where there aren't any shad. Bass don't really have to 'know' what a shad is to try to eat it. Sometimes you need to throw something entirely different from what everyone else is throwing.

3. I like to keep it simple so I change out the blades or skirts if needed to better fit a specific situation. Or I'll just fish something else entirely if the spinnerbaits arent getting it done.

Firetiger colored Skitter Pop

I'd have to go with baits I have the most confidence in, so from top to bottom my list would be; 2.5" Skitter Pop - Firetiger Livetarget HBF - Black 3/4oz Rattlin' Rap - Chrome Blue 1/2oz Swim Jig - Bluegill/Green Pumpkin Grub 1/2oz Casting Jig - PBJ/Electric Blue Pit Boss I'd be fine with this list without the frog, but I'd rather bring it in case there's some really thick cover I can't swim jig my way through. I could replace the casting jig with a texas rig but I have more confidence in jigs.

Haven't tried this yet but It's one of the things I'm looking forward to trying this year. I was planning on rigging up the teaser in front of a walking style topwater, but flukes/small swimbaits sound like a good idea too.

Top to bottom, fast to slow is my usual routine. Unless there's obvious factors like cold/muddy water where certain techniques would be eliminated then I wont waste time trying to get bit on them. You can save a lot of time just by realizing the conditions you're fishing in and selecting your lure accordingly. There's always exceptions, for example I have caught fish on bright blue summer days on topwater but they are few and far between. I'd much rather fish what works best in the situation I'm presented with.

Besides live bait? I'd definitely start them off with soft plastics. Once they get more into it they can start to expand at their own pace whatever that may be.

Berkley Havoc Pit Boss is easily my hands down favorite. I mostly use them as a jig trailer but you can do just about anything from topwater to punching with them. They have a ton of colors and at 2.99 per pack they are very hard to beat.

I have tried the Keitech Swing Impacts but they didn't have as much action as I expected. I should have gone for the Swing Impact Fats instead. That said I use a Zoom Fat Albert Grub on all my swim jigs now since they're much cheaper and more readily available.

Title says all, for me it would be the Shad Rap. I have some with the lip completely beat up from banging off rocks and haven't had any luck with them. So I don't think the problem is not fishing them as often, I just tend to do a lot better with the Flicker Shads. I'd also like to add that the purpose of this thread is not to bash popular lures/brands but rather to compare results. Looking forward to seeing what popular lures haven't lived up to expectations and more importantly which underrated or less common lures have produced better results.

I do own a 1 oz trap but I mainly throw 1/2 oz or 3/4. If I could only pick one size it'd be 3/4oz. Most of the time I have a lipless tied on I'm ripping it through grass or yo-yo'ing it. Most of my fish have come out of the grass and I very rarely catch them on just a steady retrieve. Rat L Trap and Rapala Rattlin Rap are the only lipless cranks I throw.

Flicker shads work too well for me to bother picking up the 'newer' versions. As an added bonus they will just be even cheaper.

Favorite jig type for me is definitely a casting jig in PBJ with an Electric Blue Pit Boss trailer and I'm mostly throwing them around rocks. Second favorite would be a swim jig fished through grass or weeds in more natural patterns like bluegill or shad with a matching Zoom Fat Albert Grub.

I'd definitely be throwing a texas rigged Pit Boss. It's probably the most versatile soft plastic bait I own. As for color choice Perfection is both dark enough to give a good silhouette for muddy water and natural looking enough for clear water. I also have a lot of confidence in bright colors like Electric Blue and Sapphire Blue for a reaction strike in those situations.

All of the above including Buzzbaits and Squarebills which I recently picked up and am going to try out this spring.

I would bring 2-3 and store the rest. No sense carrying extra weight.

I agree with whats been said so far. You dont "need" to be rich to enjoy fishing and you certainly don't "need" to spend thousands of dollars to catch fish.

Firetiger is easily my most productive hardbait color, including topwaters, and it happens to have an orange belly. I think it has more to do with the overall bright color of the bait and not so much the orange belly. I don't think I've had as much notable success with other color hardbaits featuring an orange belly, so it would fall under the 'easy target' theory for me.

I'm not a sponsored pro angler and I don't have a specialized rods for every technique, so I use braid as my mainline for all of my fishing. Crankbaits, topwaters, jigs, ect. That said I will always have a FC leader tied on (unless im fishing frogs), especially in clear to stained water. I like braid because it lasts longer and I don't have to worry about breaking off my lures in a snag as often. You definitely don't want to do any major league hooksets without any slack in the no stretch line on crankbaits. However hard you set that hook is going to pull on the other end, so I have learned to keep those hooks sharp and just lean into the fish and keep them pinned when using cranks. The only time you really want to drive the hooks home on braid is if you're using jigs or hollow body frogs with big stout hooks. Of course if you have the means to get specific lines for different techniques then i'd recommend FC for cranks since it has some stretch and will last longer than mono.

The best advice I can give to someone new to frog fishing is to not get carried away with colors. Black, White and Yellow or any other bright color are really all you need to get started. If I could only pick one of those colors it would be black. Most of the time I'm throwing a frog its on those really hot days of summer and a black frog shows up really well against a bright blue sky. If you're wondering which frogs to pick up, go for the softest frog you can get. Booyah frogs in particular are great, especially if you're new to frog fishing because you want to get the hang of the hooksets. I'd also recommend Koppers frogs if youre in the market for something more realistic looking. River2Sea makes a good frog as well but I have found that there isn't much gap between the hook and the body with their frogs, making hooksets harder. The only frog that I have tried and would not recommend is the LH they look great in the water but the legs tear very easily and they require a lot of modifications to keep them from sinking most of the time. I have never had any sinking problems with the other frogs I mentioned. Another tip is popping vs non popping frogs. I use the popping style frogs when I want to fish the frog as slow as possible with lots of pauses between pops, especially in pockets between slop or lily pads. I also like popping frogs because they can call fish from a wider area compared to a regular style frog. As for non popping frogs, I'll throw them when I want to work the frog a bit faster. The body is more streamlined so this type is a little better for really heavy/thick cover. I like to twitch them in a straight line to give them a 'swimming' motion on the surface of the mats. Besides buoyancy first aid, I don't make any other modifications to my frogs, I like to keep the skirts long.

I mostly use either Berkley Havoc Pit Boss both texas rigged or as a jig trailer, or Keitech Easy Shiner swimbaits 4" on a 2/0 EWG hook, weightless.