BassFishingMachine

My best deal was at a fishing flea market, got a pack of real Gycb senkos, like one of them was used, the rest were all fine. Got the pack for a buck.

Hmm for the Yum Crawbugs, I'd cut them in half, and use them as a trailer. As for fishing it without a jig, I believe their hollow, you can probably rig it with a weighted tube style hook and fish crawl it along the bottom, or t-rig it and peg it with a bullet weight and flip it through cover, although I have never tryed using a soft plastic craw, so Im not going to go on anymore on that. Also some great trailers I suggest are: Yum Chunk, Netbait Paca Chunk, Zoom Super Chunk, GYCB Hula Grub, and I've also been hearing great things about the Strike King Rage Tail Chunk, can't really say anything about that though yet as I bought a pack but haven't had a chance to fish em yet.

In No Particular order 1. Black/blue 2. Black 3. Watermelonred or Greenpumpkinred (either one works for me) 4. Greenpumpkin 5. Brown, brown/green or any brown/black/green combination. For trailers I use plastic 99% of the time, and I match the color of the trailer to the color of the Jig. Although sometimes I'll make a black/blue color out of a black jig by using a black/blue trailer on a black jig. Or a greenpumpkin trailer on a brown jig etc.

Hmm which Yum craw are you talking about?

Hmm, sounds good and I'll keep it in mind for the future, but im looking for a cheaper way of painting it. I don't believe I have any spray paint, so I could just buy a new rat-l-trap for the price of a can of spray paint. Is there a cheaper way? I heard somewhere aluminum tape? What do you think about the nail polish idea? Oh and thanks for the sanding tip, I never thought of that, and I'll definetly sand the paint off before I repaint the lure.

I found this old Rat-L-Trap in a unused tacklebox of mine, and its paint job was firetiger. Although it has dirt stained into it that I've tryed to wash out, and just can't manage to, its also missing some paint but its still pretty much firetiger pattern with a "dirty" like appear to it. Would you fish it with this ugly look to it? Or would you give it a paintjob? I was planning to try painting it with nail polish and seeing if that would do the trick, what do you think? Also if I paint it with nail polish can I paint over the color with like a white or red or will the firetiger color show through. Whats your advice on fixing this lure up? Any paint ideas etc? Also it needs new hooks, but im sure I won't have a problem finding that.

Hey Muddy, I searched for pictures of the crankbaits you were talking about, and they all had fairly big lips on them. The crankbait I have is a Luckycraft shallow fat cb, and the lip is very small, are you sure I can fish it in the heavy stick piles without getting caught up with a lip that small? Heres a picture of it, you'll see what I mean. http://www.angelrausch.de/angelrausch/images/cebbra/L-5204.jpg By the way, those lures you listed, are they sinking? floating? or suspending?

Yeah, those swimbaits would probably work good for bluefish but I rarely target blues, and I know a few striper are caught off them, but they just aren't quality. I want to find a quality swimbait with amazing action that I could throw for striper, anyone know of one?

Hmm, well out of the 2, I'd go with the chigger craws. The Yum Wooly Hawg Craw IMO is better for t-rigging and pegging with a bullet weight to flip/pitch into cover, like a Sweet Beaver or a Baby Brush Hog. Now I wouldn't say chigger craws are the best trailers, I use them for a cheap trailer that I have no fear of wasting. But my top producing trailers (majority being craw trailers) are Yum Chunks, Netbait Paca Chunks, Zoom Super Chunks, and a GYCB Hula Grub for when I plan to have a little more action/or fish the bait a little quicker. I highly recommend the Yum Chunk if you want to try the Yum baits as trailers. They are without a doubt my top producing trailer.

I have a few unfortunately :-/. First has to be a fat shallow/medium/deep diving crankbait, I haven't put much time into them, but the waters I fish are fairly shallow with 4-5 feet being the deepest areas (and I don't fish that deep too often at all) So I rarely ever use the medium/deep diving cranks. But I have thrown the shallow cranks here and there, just can't get a hit with them, I been fishing them in open water or around the sides of cover with a steady retreive or jerk jerk pause nothing bites em for me. But I recently heard your suppose to toss them right into the cover instead of around it, so I plan to give them another shot with this approach. Lizards are another thing I can't seem to get bit with. The bass don't seem to like them for me, I don't have many salamanders around here (if any) so maybe thats the reason. The pickerel seem to like them though, especially the big ones (but what "don't" the pickerel like is the question). I tryed throwing them on the nests during spawn, but the bass just seem to ignore them. I only caught 1 bass on a lizard, I seen him sitting along side a lillypad, casted it to him and he hit it IMMEDIATELY as it hit the water, which leads me to believe he would have hit anything I had on there (I don't think he even had a chance to look at it he bit it so fast). Another lure I don't do to well with is a chatterbait/or chatterbait knockoff, they just don't catch many fish for me, I do get bit with them, but nothing spectacular at all. I don't see why I should fish these when a spinnerbait seems to be the same kind of thing and I get alot more hits with them, so I don't think I'll be buying another chatterbait as I've snagged my original one. The last 2 baits I don't do good with are long curlytail worms (anything 7inches or above) and Zoom Trickworms. I hear so many good things about these baits, Culprits etc. I don't have a problem with the shorter curlytail worms (under 7inches), they catch me fish, its the longer ones that give me issues. I try rigging the curlytails with small bullet weights and bouncing/crawling them along the bottom, almost like you would a jig but I just don't get many hits. I do catch a few fish with the 7inch curlytails, but its just like the chatterbait, not enough to keep me using the bait. As for the Trickworm I tryed this many times, weightless/weighted and I just can't get anything to take it what so ever, so I've pretty much gave up on them. Seems funny to me, alot of baits I don't do well with alot of people seem to do great with, and the baits majority of you listed I do fairly well with. I can catch a good amount of fish with spinnerbaits, jigs, topwaters of any kind including buzzbaits, lipless cranks, Fat Ikas, any stickbait, pretty much any creaturebait, hard jerkbaits, softjerkbaits etc. But the long curlytail worms, the zoom trickworm, lizards, and chatterbaits I just don't do well with, go figure .

On my Jigs that I plan to fish rocky/muddy areas, or small stick piles I'll trim the weedguard to where its barely above the hook point like brians_screename said. And if I think its too thick I'll cut 3-4 strands of the guard off. Although on my Jigs that I plan to fish in weedy conditions or flipped into heavy stickpiles/lillypads and weeds, I will usually leave the guard alone.

I voted for Rapala because they make some great baits with great prices. I use a decent amount of Luckycraft hardbaits too but the Rapala hard jerkbaits produce better for me then the LC hard jerkbaits. The action of the Lc jerkbaits are alot nicer, but the fish just seem to hit the Rapalas more for me. My 2nd choice would probably be a tie between Lc/Yozuri.

Hmm, I voted GYCB because I use a good amount of their baits, but Yum also makes some great baits I use so it was hard to choose between the two, the yamamoto Kut-tail takes the cake though. Berkley and Zoom both have some great baits I really like, but I use alot more GYCB/Yum.

I can usually always catch some fish weightless t-rigging a softplastic such as a Fat Ika, Stickbait, Super Fluke, Powerworm, Gycb Kut-tail etc (or t-rigged w/ a free gliding bullet weight). But flipping/pitching Jigs and softbaits definetly comes in as 2nd, followed by topwaters .

Hey, I will probably delete this post as soon as I get a good answer. My question is I plan to order a couple of these http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/descpageJIGBSTALKER-BSFRJ.html# jigs, but I want the black/blue color, but the thing is notice if you look at the black/blue color, in the image it is black/blue w/purple, and if you look at the black/blue w/purple color it is black/blue. They mixed up the 2 pictures I guess. My question though, is if I order the black/blue am I going to get the black/blue w/purple like shown in the image?

Hmm that peanut bunker does look cool, but Im going to resist being caught by the bait company as there known for catching fisherman with pretty looks hah. Thanks for the suggestion anyways though, might work good on cocktail blues when their feeding on the peanut bunker so I guess its worth looking into.

Yeah Micropterus hit the nail on the head. If your throwing it in Heavy muck choose the lipless, choose the lipped for more open water type areas. Man if only they had that V-Joint lure in a larger size, looks like it would make an amazing striper plug for throwing off the surf.

Well from the way you talked Im guessing your talking about a hollow bodied frog. Just try out the Original Scumfrog (Non-popper version) and you won't be disappointed. They float great, and give pretty darn good hook up ratios. Just cast it in the thickest of slop, and thickest of lillypads and slowly work it along with small twitches and constant pauses. Trust me, if fished in these types of cover it'll produce results. Only hollow frog Ive had that ever gave me a problem regarding floating was the Spro Bronzeye, some do float and work well, and others don't, its like taking a 50 50 when buying one, and there too expensive for me to be taking that risk.

Ive heard many good things about their wigglewart though, and their Chugbug is great. I used their large wild eye swim baits for striper off the jettis and they work ok (nothing amazing). But they are cheap to throw and you can fish them around the rocks with no worries. You get caught up alot when fishing the jettis I fish so I do have these in my arsenal for cheap striper baits to toss around the rocks. But if im casting off the beach instead of rocks I'll most likely choose a bomber or a Gibbs pencil popper over these swimbaits. As for freshwater I never tryed them, I seen a guy throwing them once and he caught a couple fish (nothing to brag about). He was throwing the 2-3 inch version I guess it was. But it didn't get me to buy a bag. For my freshwater bass fishing I like to throw only quality or things im very confident in, thats why storm swimbaits aren't in my arsenal for freshwater because I don't see them as quality (Just my opinion). By the way I'd love to know of a more quality medium sized swimbait to throw for striper that I would use off the beach instead of the rocks. Particularly in a bunker pattern or yellow/black pattern. Sorry if im hijacking a thread but, can I get a short response, or a PM on this?

Does Yo-Zuri make a line that is similiar in strength/diameter but is fluorocarbon? I'd love to be able to use the fluoro but if I have to I'd probably just settle for the mono. But like I said if they make a line that is the same diameter/streth and is flurocarbon I'll definetly prefer that, anyone know if yo-zuri has a fluorocarbon version of the this line out there?

Yeah I'd definetly try a 4-5inch Senko(or a knock off) mainly because its the easiest soft plastic I can think of to fish and it catches fish. Size 2/0 Gamakatsu EWG Hook for 4inch Senko, Size 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG Hook for 5inch. Another thing I'd try is a Stanley Ribbit or a Zoom Horny Toad (Even though I can never get the Horny Toad to run right it works for others) Rig them with a 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG Hook and just slowly retreive them along the top over lillypads, around weed edges, and over/around stickpiles. You can also try a Spinnerbait, White/Chartreuse to be specific. Just cast out around structure and give it a steady retreive in. Last thing I'd recommend is if you know how to fish a Jig, pick a Black/blue or Green/brown Colored jig and rig it with the trailer of your liking and cast it in the thickest stickpiles and through the thickest weeds/pads. That should catch a big boy . Good Luck

Hmm, Sounds good Roadwarrior, do you think 6lb test Yo-Zuri Hybrid Ultra Soft will have enough power for setting the hook with Jigs though? I just read a little about it, and it says its very flexible, aren't you looking for no/barely any stretch in the line when setting the hook with Jigs?

Strangest bait I've ever caught a fish with has to be either bare hook, or a peice of yellow grass wrapped around a hook. Caught sunnies with both these techniques, those things will hit anything.

Seems too good to be true IMO, im scared to make the order :-?.

Hey im thinking of buying one of these reels for throwing jigs and I want to put 10-12lb test on it, although the reel that recommends 12 feels too big for my liking, (which is the 4000). If I were to buy a size 3000 and put 10-12lb test on it, do you think I'd have enough line on it to fish the banks? I really don't need tons of line on it. What do you think, can I get away with 10-12lb test on a 3000 fishing off the banks? Also I understand that braid has a smaller diameter and I'd be able to use that, but I really don't like using braid for freshwater unless im throwing frogs or in situations wheres theres a much smaller chance of the fish seeing the line. I guess if I have to though I'd just use the 8lb and get the 3000, the 4000 makes me feel like im fluke fishing and I'd end up turnin the setup into a fluke fishing setup .