Sylvaneous

So that happened to my favorite jig pitching rod. I believe the tip top is hot glued on. Where can I order a new tip top? How do I determine the right size? Thanks!

I have to say, super realistic lures like that can be a problem. They spin. They don't look ALIVE when fished, when in action. A crayfish like that is walking forward or sitting still, and that's probably not what you want to do with it. I have a very impressionistic weighted crawfish streamer fly that looks so much like a craw MOVING over the bottom...

My fishing partner does this BUT even worse: he lets them dangle INTO the water.... in a river. None have gone overboard yet, but as the river current and boat movement do their thing, they can interfere with my cast & retrieve. Sometimes I flip them back over the gunnels with my rod tip. He's a great person, don't get me wrong, but slack-a-daisical in this regard.

Are there other companies making lures out of a material like Z-Man's ElaZtech? I LOVE them for jig trailers. Paca Chunks are often torn after 1 fish. The Z-Man craw and GOAT are great trailers and have lasted as long as some jigs I've worn out (chipped head paint, freyed-out weed guard) I'd like a few more color choices.

I've never tried pink, but I have had some evidence that purple can be an effective trigger. And a color of purple is close to a color of pink (what's magenta?) I wish there was some pink or purple "Dip-N-Dye".

Most smallmouth fishing I do is on the Allegheny. The fish are widely dispersed, as in you cannot sit on a good looking spot and pick it apart and find a few fish. You have to cover a lot of water to find the fish as any place in good habitat looks as good as anywhere else. Sometimes the fish show up but usually not. The big rocks are in water that is too slow and the runs are gravel and cobble without much or any mid-current cover. Most all bass are caught within 30 ft of the bank, and usually closer. It's really a better walleye river. Jerkbait lures and the most common productive lures and you change the lure when you alter your technique, like fluttering-in a Senko in slower water boulders or a jig in the eddies and cuts along a run, approaches that aren't cruise-and-cast. I want to have a good, alternate technique to cover water. I was considering a craw-colored crankbait. I have some but I'm iffy on that. I've used Wee-Craws while wading in the past with 'eh' results. But it's still an option. My idea was a 3/8 oz bass fishing jig with a cut-down skirt or (what I just bought) a small, more finesse-style jig; something smaller that I can fish, I suppose as a swim jig, down along the rocks and heavy enough that I can stop-and-drop and the jig falls fast. My idea is to through to the bank and reel in at a fast clip, but allow the jig to tick along the rocks. I'm also thinking about using an over-weighted tube jig to do the same thing. I could cover water with a technique that doesn't imitate a fish higher in the water column. It seems to me, in my experience, that I could better control the small, heavy jig better than a crankbait. It's going to be a while until I try this. The rivers up here look more like the local resident glacier than flowing water.

I've only been pitching/flipping for 2 seasons and these jigs are new to me, (even though I've been fishing for 35 years or so). I recently learned about the durability of hand-tying jig skirts. I have several Nichols and Santone jigs that are rubber banded. The Santone jigs have rattles. I don't want to lose that. Before I start this, are there any issues with tying on the skirts around or over the rubber skirt holder? I'm an adept fly tyer and can probably work my way around the skirt 'flyers' and maybe even the attached rattles. I think I can take those off and replace them when I'm done. I'd be using my old, left-over Kevlar thread that I never did used to tie big streamers. (Polyester works perfectly.) I don't want to start barking up the wrong tree, trying to fix something not broken and make it worse. Thanks for

I use a 4" regular fluke or the Fin-S-Fish. I nose hook it with a Gammakatsu 2/0 or 3/0 Shiner hook. The body 'flaps' and darts and swims, but does not glide that the T-rigged Super fluke. This bait is for the SMB living along the banks of the river, where the most and most aggressive fish live. That specific hook provides, of course, a wide gap, a straight pull, and also a keeling or low center of gravity effect for stability. SMB almost always take the head of bait, so I rarely miss fish. Color? Mostly pearl. In clear, warm water (July, August) I use Albino. The pale purple top makes it look a lot like an open water river shiner and its bright blue sides. Also baby bass. Oh, White Ice, too. That's it.

Yes, I try to find a reason why NOT to use green pumpkin. I RARELY find one! I loved the Bama Bug color which is something like 1/2 plum or junebug with 1/2 green pumpkin, again. They now make red/pumpkin, which is essentially the same. Differences make it more fun. Thanks about the suggestion to have sparkle help distinguish the bait from the weeds and junk it's being fished through. I thought the same thing myself. My lakes are very weedy (millfoil) and the bass orient to that shallow cover and so focus on bait further up in the water column. I wish there were more soft plastic pitching baits that had bluegill/shad color schemes. (gold, silver, white and gray) That's what bass are eating up there, not crayfish, which is what most colors represent. I may start flipping swimbait lures more intentionally. I've done it in the past, just basically pitching and swimming out baits in tight cover over short distances. Nearly all my pitching strikes have been instantaneous reaction strikes. But using more baitfish color and shape baits might get more delayed hits from the more choosy bass. Thanks again.

I was a fan of the Berkly Havoc Pit Boss in the old Lime/Purple in clear water. I frequently fish shallow (less than 5 ft) clear, weedy water. I bought the watermellon green / orange flake bit boss because it looked good. But it is HEAVY on the sparkle with lots of orange metal flake in the pour. It makes me wonder if it's too much for clearer water. They make a blue shiner color (I think) that looks perfect to me, but it' only in 3" and 5". I want the standard 4". So, in fairly clear water (4-5 ft vis) are brightly sparkling soft plastics good? There seems to be a lot of BLUE baits, Okeechobee, saphire and such. What's your opinion of the Blue Perfection for clear water? Thanks Syl

I'd suggest you're describing Orvis. Cabelas is Jim Shockey. Bass Pro is Bill Dance.

Underwater springs shouldn't have much of any oxygen in them, so that's a factor that makes them less attractive to fish. Up here in Coal Country, the acid mine drainage that comes from deep doesn't turn red (the iron doesn't entirely oxidize) until it 'daylights'.

Thanks, folks. I'm asking the question because I thought the 2 things were kinda redundant. This week, I did see the Pit Boss plummet to the bottom, flapping madly, with the 3/8 weight and the 3/8 oz jig with the swimbait trailer ( 5" havoc grass pig with the head bitten off to size) falling much more slowly. And of course, a WAY bigger profile. Bass bit the crap out of that swim jig, but that was a better fit to the situation. it wasn't pure flipping. half the time I was fishing the swim jig through cover like a spinnerbait, the other times, I was pitching it into willows and reeds. It is nice to not get your bait ripped up after 2 fish, or lose an arm/leg/wiggling appendage, so jigs excel there. I haven't worn-out a jig yet. Thanks again. Syl

I'm a kayak angler that got entranced by flipping while watching the first Jack Links Bass something-or-other on near-by Chautauqua Lake. So I bought a bunch of flipping jigs and craw trailers along with a good assortment of Pit Bosses and all the asstd. sundry and a nice pitching rod. I've done OK on the plastics, but only got a couple on the jigs. Part of this is due to the generally poor bass fishing over the past 4 years due to weather. I rarely fish any weight besides 3/8 oz. A few 1/2 oz jigs and sometimes use 1/4 oz bullet sinkers. What conditions or situations make you pick a jig vs. a plastic beaver bait or some such thing.

It seems that everything is focused on sit-on kayaks. OK, fine, but they are heavier due to all that plastic and moldings across the top and the need to enclose everything. So how are you going to handle the kayak? If you trailer it, you begin to lose some of the advantages of a kayak, as you have to buy a trailer, hook it up, register and license it... I kayak fish because I don't have lots of disposable income and don't want to mortgage my future to buy a boat to play fish games with. I car-top. Not an option with stand-up sit on fishing kayaks, unless you are really tall and really strong. Sit-ins like the Native Ultimate and Jackson Kilroy (i have both) put your feet lower and are more stable but don't weight 92 lbs. I stand and fish plenty. duck hunt out of my Native. 2 years ago I shot all my ducks while standing IN the Native. I have found, with kayaks, less is more. The Native Ultimate has very few features, basically none, and it easier to deal with and more functional than feature packed boats with the center lift out consol and standing pads and compartments.