BassFishingMachine

If I find alot of the products of a specific brand to work well, and all in all like them, then yes, I'll be more likely to buy more of their products. Although I do not buy a product simply because its a brand I like, it has to look good to me, and be what I am looking for, or interested in at the time. The main thing that gets me to buy products, especially higher priced products, is reviews and credibility which I hear from other people

I bet it'd work on stripers in the surf, especially in a pink, white, or black color.

3/0 here.

The size I use most often is 5/16oz, I bank fish in small ponds so the water im fishing is typically shallow, I don't need much weight to get down. Although when I believe the fish to be very aggressive, or when im brekaing through thick muck I'll use 3/8 or 1/2oz. I like the 1/4oz when im fishing in a little deeper water then normal or want a bigger profile jig, as most 5/16oz jigs don't have too big of a profile, although I find this size to work nicely regardless, I don't know, the 5/16 is just my favorite size to throw mostly..

Agree 100%, they'd make a great starter jig. I don't have smallmouth in majority of the lakes I fish, but theres no worries, these jigs catch largemouths just as well. I work them as I would any other jig. By the way, what sizes in ounces did you get? Oh, and great color choices .

Those two videos in that link are extremely informative on the all about of jigs, definetly recommend watching them if your new to jigs. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I also fan out the weedguards, it makes the "shield" of the weedguard larger.

Suspending jerkbait fished as slowly as I can force myself to go. Meaning short jerks, long pauses.

Out of those two, the paca chunk for sure.

I don't really trim the skirt of the jigs, but I do trim the weedguards, I like the weedguard to be BARELY above the hook point and if I feel the weedguard is too thick, I'll cut a few fibers out. That is unless its a heavy jig that I plan to use in the thickest of weeds, then I leave the weedguard alone.

I prefer silicone jigs, one reason, they stay in the right shape. Majority of the rubber jigs I've fished, the skirts became contorted in different positions after stored in a plano, kinda like a soft plastic slightly changing shape after being in the same position for awhile. Now I don't know if this effects the action of the jig in a positive, or negative way, but I don't like it for some reason. And all my big bass have come on silicone jigs, but then again they're the jigs I throw most often.

Well, I made a search on "shakey head", and couldn't find anything relating towards what baits work best on this rig. So I decided to post on it. I just started getting into this rig, and have had minimal success, and I plan to try to get more experienced with the shakey come spring. Now I know straight tail worms are typically the favored bait for this rig, but from what I've seen in various posts, there are many other baits that work well on the shakey style. Can you name your top 3 most used baits on the shakey head? Thanks guys .

If you haven't used the ragetail chunks, or paca chunks, your missing out IMO.

Union county over here. Yeah, I find the pickerel don't mind the cold water too much. But thank you for reminding me about picks, they slipped my mind for what ever reason. Once the ice melts a bit I'll be givin it another shot. I find March to be the best time of the year to fish for pickerel, they're all over the place, and the bass are still pretty sluggish.

Well the cabin fever just got to be too much for me today, so I set out on an attempt to find some open water and cast a few. Know that 95% of my freshwater fishing is done on small local ponds/lakes, or local rivers. This being said, I went to check out a pond nearby that I caught crappie/sunnies in during january of last year, the pond was completey frozen over, and there were even kids walking on the ice out to the center of the lake, so to say the least it was pretty thick :'(. Then I headed to another lake that I normally fish, and the entire lake was frozen, but this lake has a dam on it, and the water fall kept the small river below from freezing. The river splits into two as it goes around a small wooded island in the middle, and on one side there is a deep hole that drops to about 6 feet or so, figured if there was anything around in this area of the river, this is where it'd be. Well I played around with the fly rod using a small sinking fly in an attempt to catch some panfish, but no luck. The eyes on the fly rod kept freezing, and at times it was hard to strip the line through the eyes, because of the ice. At one point I couldn't even move the fly line what so ever. Other then that my hands were freezing, and there seemed to be no sign of life what so ever in this river. Its funny because in the middle of spring you wouldn't be able to make a cast with a small fly and not hook up with a sunny or crappie. And all the small sunnies and guppies you see while walking through the river is amazing. Just amazes me how in the winter the life tends to magically disappear. All in all I got out of the house, and enjoyed being out on the waters edge, though a fish would have been a nice treat too ;D. Next time I make an attempt at going out, I'll give you guys another report, but it probably won't be until one of my ponds defrosts, atleast enough for me to make a cast, until then, I'll keep the fishing gear indoors..

This an extremely complicated question to answer. I believe the only way of finding out for sure, would be to put the time in, and see for yourself.

The only lure that works for me in cold waters are jerkbaits. I believe in the winter the fish's forage is primarily baitfish (atleast in the waters im fishing), this being said I don't want to imitate worms, frogs, or anything in that line. I just want to imitate baitfish. I also believe the fish's metabolism slows down, meaning it takes them longer to digest meals, I think in this case a small meal is the best bet, so I don't like to use large jerkbaits, I prefer small 1 1/2 - 2inch jerkbaits in the cold. My favorite cold water jerkbait is a rapala husky jerk, in the smallest size, which I believe is 2inches. So, a suspending jerkbait does this pretty well, and I can fish it very slowly. I can give it long pauses, and short twitches. This is the only lure which I will use in real cold water. Once the water warms up a bit come late march, I'll start throwing lipless cranks. I have heard jigs work well in cold water, but I have yet to have any luck with them in these conditions so I don't list them in my arsenal as a cold water bait. Though im sure they work for many in the cold water, because of how frequently I hear about them in the subject of cold water baits.

Lol, I had an arguement with one, on why they hate fishing, and they said one of the reasons was because fish have families. Families!? These people honestly believe a fish's "family" has the same meaning as it does with people. Like they reproduce, buy a home in a stickpile, and all live together happily ever after. I told them that fish eat their own young, and after their young are born, they put them in the class of "fair game" eating wise. Hahaha, their stupidity is mind blowing.

Do you believe, that PETA truly believes every fish you catch and release, dies. No I am not bsin you. And the worst of it all, is these people are actually spreading this bs to people who don't know any better, and actually believe them.

Ah, im going to have to give this way of rigging it a try. Do you ever t-rig it while fishing it "backwards" like this?

Oh, incase you guys didn't know, the whole theme to the sashimi baits, is the color of the lure changes when you look at it from different views. One view it may look black/yellow/gold, another view green/silver, another view green/gold w/black spots, another view yellow/green/gold. Now I don't know if this makes the lure more attractive to fish, but it sure is a pretty lure to look at. Dicks has been carrying them lately, next time your in Dicks, take a look at them, I know for sure they have the saltwater versions, don't know about freshwater. Its incredible all the color changes, pretty sight .

Funny no one mentioned the Lucky Craft Splash Tail, I bought this bait awhile ago, and have yet to fish the thing. I don't know why, it just looks funny to me, and I don't have the confidence to throw it, im going to try and raise the confidence this year and fish the thing. I don't know why I bought it either, I think at the time I was having great luck with the heddon torpedo, and was on the whole "prop bait craze".

I typically rig them as shown in this pic. http://www.tackletour.com/images/picyamamotokreature5.jpg As for fishing them, I use them as a pitching/flipping bait, and usually peg them with a bullet weight. Though im sure fishing them with a free sliding bullet would work too, I just prefer to peg because I don't want the sinker to get caught up on any sort of cover when I pitch the bait to a stickpile, I want the bait to fall straight to the bottom like a jig. I've even heard of some guys using them weightless and fishing them ontop of weed mats, I've tryed this and I found the bait to catch alot of weeds, dunno, maybe I was doing it wrong or somethin, but my best luck with them comes pitching/flipping them with a pegged bullet weight.

I said it once and I'll say it again, I use Megastrike on my soft plastics, and Yum Crawfish Spray on my jigs.

I'd take that bad boy down to the surf, pencil poppers are great striper plugs. Come spring take that plug down to the surf, and hook into a few cows.

Yeah, this is what I typically use. Very effective. Though after a few good hooksets, I've had the sinker start sliding up the line a bit..