IndianaFinesse

Thanks @scaleface, @gundog, and @scout. I ended up pushing a wire thru from the bottom hook hole down to the tail, then doubled it back over to the nose of the bait, and back into the popper. I then sealed the holes with two part epoxy and added a tiny bit of lead to the tail to help the nose ride up a little. Any ideas for common water proof materials to coat the popper with to keep it from getting water logged and to protect the wood?

Has anyone tried the g splash popper? Does it walk? Having a hard time not getting the g splashes and slender pointers.

Like Paul said, do a ton of research on everything bass fishing, especially seasonal trends and locations. When I first started seriously bass fishing, I literally spent tens of thousands of hours researching and learning. Even once you think you know what you're doing, you can never known it all.

I've never tied a hair jig before, but bucktail is the way to go for cold water.

In cold water, my favorite crank is definitely the shad rap.

I was wondering why Glenn was showing off any jigs other than seiberts... I am also curious to see if booyah suddenly becomes one of the top two manufacturers of jigs alongside seibert (it used to be north star jigs that everyone loved), at least on these forums.

A fast reel will work better for most of the baits you mentioned, especially jerkbaits, frogs, walking baits, and poppers. The fast reel helps to pick up the slack for a hookset, which is important for the baits I mentioned because they are all slack line techniques, so you will usually be setting the hook from a slack line. As long as you can force yourself to slow down (not everyone can) you can use a fast reel for anything. The only real drawback other than that is that the speed of a reel is inversely proportionate to the amount of power it possesses, which is not always important. But you will work your arms off throwing a deep crank on an 8:1 ratio reel all day, so they are not by any means a catch all.

Don't worry about it. I use medium powered spinning and casting bass rods for big 10-15 pound channel cats all the time, and I have yet to break a rod. I even once caught a 38 pound carp on a medium lite rod, although I was way out gunned that time it still did not break my rod. And they are always pulling double duty on all of the other species to, the only thing I pay attention to is which rod is best at what lures. For instance, I have a 7'medium fast spinning rod that serves as a general purpose bass rod, and excels at wacky rigs. This rod also is used for throwing weighless cutbait when bass fishing for catfish. You will find that you can go quite a bit beyond the rods suggested weight range for lures, and rods do not break on fish unless they are previously damaged, high sticked, or are being used to dead lift the fish into the boat.

Same here. Cherokee's going to play more to Aarons strengths, but Ott defoe has a fair amount of past experience on the lake. Haven't decided which one I think will do better.

Yes, and it's called Gliss.

First off, never use a leader on frogs. Anything besides straight, heavy braid will be broken. You need a very strong line with no stretch to set two big, thick frog hooks into a basses hard jaw, and then drag her out with five additional pounds of slop attached. I do sometimes use a leader for other baits, but not always. If I do plan on using a leader, I'll tie a FG knot the night before. If I have to retie for some reason while on the water, I use the Alberto knot because it is so much faster and easier to tie than the FG.

Called it.

I don't remember them doing that much for sales, seems like they only brought a few items down in price to where most companys charge originally anyways.

I know it needs to float, but the way it is now the nose of the bait is parallel to the water, even facing down a little. All of the store bought poppers have the nose facing slightly upwards, so I figured a tiny amount of lead in the back would help the face of the popper sit at a better angle.

Anyone on here won it in the past?

Mine is just made of pine, would the wood still be strong enough to rely on the screws? I think I'm going to have to add some weight to the tail to make it sit right in the water, so i was thinking of drilling a hole near the tail and inserting a small piece of lead before filling the hole in with epoxy, would that work?

Haven't finished it yet, but I'm working on carving a popper. I don't have a lathe, so I've just been using a pocket knife, some sand paper, and an electric drill. The electric drill fitted with a large bit drilled the majority of the mouth out, then I cleaned it up with a knife.

Thanks, what do you use for the wire harness and what do you coat the wood with? I would use a lathe, but I don't have one.

You can do the same thing with a circle or an upsized wacky hook, without having to call it the "chicken rig". Using a circle hook to weedless wacky rig works well for fishing in weeds.

In Indiana it is legal and encouraged to kill gizzard shad in any way possible, including snagging them. It's actually illegal to release a gizzard or threadfin shad alive after capture. I don't eat them, but I like to stock up on them to use as cut bait for catfish.

If you're trying to catch gizzard shad for bait, the best time is during the shad spawn using a big treble hook jerked through the visible schools. Another good time is in the very late fall when the shad die off happens, sometimes you will find an entire school doing the death swim on the surface.

Thanks gundog, I will use that method. I also figured out how to carve the concave face, a power drill with a large bit took most of it out and I finished off with a knife. Does anyone know of something to coat the wood with, I was a thinking maybe a couple coats of outdoor primer paint? I don't plan on painting it real fancy, I just need something to keep it from absorbing water.

You can do it with any buzzbait, but i prefer the ones that don't have the skirt tied on with wire cause i prefer to takentye skirt off when i'm using a toad on it. It works when the bass want something different, plus the buzzbait can be retrieved slower with the toad as a trailer.

1: It wouldn't necessarily be me taking him fishing, it would be me watching, learning, and taking notes while Buck Perry worked his majic on off shore bass. 2: A Pfluegar President spinning reel and a medium fast St. Croix Triumph, or a medium fast Abu Garcia villain on sale. 3: Don't assume that something you read in an article doesn't apply to your lake, but also don't assume that it will be exactly the same either. And I could have saved a lot of money by realizing that basspro is not the cheapest place to buy tackle.

Do you like the shaky head worm better than the trick worms and finesse worms on a shaky head? I've use both the finesse and trick worms on shaky heads, but I have yet to buy the shaky head worm.