MassYak85

Because it's addicting and when I am not able to do it for a while I literally feel withdrawal. I enjoy just being outside, but that doesn't always satisfy my itch. As to the part of fishing that makes it so addicting, I guess it's the hunt, the never ending effort to try and fool a bass into biting a piece of plastic. And to be honest, I have found that the funnest part of a catch is actually the hookset, it's that tiny moment where you actually connect with the fish and feel it resist, and feel it's weight. There's something more exciting in that moment than the rest of the battle to me, not sure why.

Scum frogs are probably your best bet. I personally don't like them because they are on the lighter side and I can't cast them as far, but with lighter spinning gear they should do fine. Although a medium rod is definitely not my first choice for frogging, but it sounds to me you don't have the option to use another at the moment. Just make sure your hooks are sharp.

You can still tuck the tip of the hook under the skin of the bait on the top to make it weedless, just make the slit on the bottom maybe 1/3 of the way into the paddle tail you are using. It will look the same as you have it now, until a fish takes it.

Shimano and Lews you should be able to just call and order the part, your reel schematics should list the part number of the spool assembly. I needed a part from lews once and they actually gave it to me free, you'd probably have to buy the spool assembly though. The spare spools is a great idea, allows you to switch up line very quickly and with no waste. I did it on my Conc. A this year, one with 40lb braid, one with 20lb fluoro for jigs and t-rigs. It has worked great. I'd imagine this idea would be best applied to a cranking rod, where you could easily switch between 10, 12, 14, 17 lb lines to adjust diving depth without the need to carry 4 setups or stripping off and wasting line.

Hook looks good length wise, too much longer and it's gonna start interfering with tail action. As for the gap in the hook, it seems a little small. What you could do is take a knife and slit the bottom of the bait before you put it on, so that the hook can go into the slit when you set the hook and give it more bite to hook the fish.

I think it goes beyond even us sport fisherman. If people who fish for food take and take and take....soon their food source will be a lot less plentiful. Everyone needs to be careful of the impact on their local places, some can take the pressure, some can't.

I would definitely recommend at least one walking spook style bait and one popper. Whopper ploppers are great but aren't exactly subtle by any means. The walking bait can be fished as fast or as slow as needed, and is a more subtle. The popper can be thrown to an area and worked for very long periods of time, just sitting their popping it. The benefit being it can sit there and spit water, attracting fish to an area, causing commotion without you needing to bring it towards you as much.

It depends, and hence why there are different types of spinnerbaits. If you are using shiny long and thin (like a minnow) double willow leafs on a sunny day, it's probably because the bass are keyed in on the side flash of baitfish, see your spinnerbait imitate that flash, and hit it. If you use big black chrome or bronze colorado blades in muddy water, they are probably keying in on the vibration. And I'm sure sometimes it's a combination of both. Then there are times they just see something wiz by them and hit it without thinking too much (raction strikes).

Here's my stance on the ethical part. If everyone who was licensed always took their creel, the laws would have to be changed very quickly to avoid species endangerment...and that's not considering all the people who poach. So I think whether you fish for sport or to put food on the table, taking a creel very often is plain irresponsible, even if you are within the legal bounds to do so, as many populations can't take that kind of pressure. So I think the "catch and release" sport fishing becoming more popular is a good way to offset the people who don't know any better, or worse, know full well and do it anyways. I'm not against keeping fish, but be reasonable, they aren't an infinite resource obviously, even though some seem to treat them as such.

Good thing it floats It is a good tip though for heavy lures. I have backlashed with it without issue though, but that's with 40lb braid. Anything over 2 oz I use my swimbait rod for, which has 20 lb CXX on it for the exact reason you describe.

If you are a licensed fisherman and are taking a daily creel that is within the bounds of the laws, then they have the right to do whatever they want. I frown upon people putting trophy fish on the dinner table because of the obvious impacts, especially in smaller lakes, but there's nothing I can do about it. To be honest though, licensed and educated bass fisherman are rarely the people taking too many or too big of bass from places. At least not around here. It's the family's that show up with a bucket of shiners and keep whatever they catch, laws be damned.

x2

The way I understand it, Matt designed the flat tail specifically as a bed fishing bait. I'm sure you could catch fish dead sticking it in key locations, but I think you would be better off with the boot tail versions and swimming it. No reason you can't bed fish with the boot tail version too.

Haha, I wouldn't be surprised if this became a thing with lure companies at some point.

Many guys never use a leader, I do. But it depends on the technique. For a lot of things I still like straight braid. Like topwaters.

I start out fast, and slow down until I deem it less viable than what other techniques might produce elsewhere in the lake. Sometimes they want it paused for long periods of time in pockets and intermediately twitched, other times they want it walked very fast.

x2 actually. Can be fished through some thick stuff, they flutter nicely, and you can add trailers of you so choose to give it a little something different.

It depends. If I catch one fish, regardless of size, on a long outing, I don't really feel like I did that well, since anyone can chance upon one fish. Now that being said, obviously if I am going to catch one I would rather it be big. And one 5lber beats any number of 1lbers any day. But I also don't feel good about beating up on dinks. My goal for every trip is to go out and figure out what the above average fish are doing and how to catch them.

I fish the 90 on 20lb braid too, although to be honest i haven't fished the 90 this year because I've been doing so well on the 130. Part of me is tempted to try the musky version just for kicks, but it's a little costly to be doing that. I tried from shore this afternoon for about an hour (130 WP). Was there about 20 minutes before a small one around a pound came up and hit it about 10 feet from me. Next cast I got it way out there and the last few coils of line before my electrical tape were a little lose so I tightened them a little while the lure was just sitting there. Well while messing with the line I must have moved the rod just enough to twitch the bait in place after it had been motionless for like 20 seconds. SLAM! I was on a causeway so I didn't hear it with the traffic noise, and I was still looking down at my reel, by the time I look up the lure is already underwater and I start reeling like crazy to try and get my slack back, as soon as I do I set the hook......into empty water. No idea what the fish size was, but no more action after that.

They are very nice lures, however. I only own one, and that's because I got it on sale. LC Pointers are awesome jerkbaits though. Main reason I only have one being the odds of a pickerel chewing off a smaller sized crank/jerkbait is fairly high, and it's not worth the risk to me, especially being in school still and not having a ton of money to spend. Whether you are using a 3 dollar bargain bin bait, or a 25 dollar "high end" one, the thing that will most impact your success is your own skills and knowledge with that type of lure. Simply upgrading from a strike king 1.5 to a Megabass Knuckle isn't going to make you a better squarebill fisherman, or dramatically increase your chances of catching fish. The reason people are willing to pay premium for those baits is their extreme detail and quality components. Whether a 5x price increase is worth it for a higher quality bait, that's for you to decide. If I was in your situation I would say no, I might get one to try but I certainly wouldn't be upgrading my whole arsenal.

Yea they do. The 130 is a missile. I have a Conc. A spooled with 40lb power pro, no backing. Color me speechless when I looked down after a cast and saw just electrical tape and maybe 10 coils of line. Good call on not using backing I guess. I don't spool my bait casters as much as some guys do but still, that's some serious distance. I'd say 50-60 yards. Normally I don't really care about casting distance,but fishing this thing open water it is nice to cover that much water.

Yea don't go out in lightning man, but rough weather can bring good fishing.

Order placed, Bait Monkey collects his paycheck.

Oh nice, thanks so much!

Megabass Magdraft, the entire way it swam just did not impress me.