Brad_Coovert

There are a lot of good jigs on the market and you will get lots of opinions. I use the Booyah Boo jigs all the time with great results. Brad

There are quite a few, but they are mostly Japanese market baits and not cheap. I use the Lucky Craft LV300N. If you are careful, you can make one yourself as stated. Drill holes where the rattles are, inject some glue and then sela the hole. Make sure you try to keep the rattles centered so that your bait's weight is not off centered. Good luck! Brad

I have yet to get to try one, but they are near the top of the list of my huge SPRO order I will be placing with their rep in February. I spent a long time at the Spro booth at the ICASt show talking about this bait and its design. My guess is it will be a great bait. It will be too early for it IMO, but I plan on tossing it on my Fork trip in March. Brad

Yep, Cordell made jointed Spots a long time ago, well a long time ago to some. That color scheme is typical of older Pradco brands. I'm sure there are plenty of people who collect these. Might be worth some money some day. Hopefully a stump does not take it from you. Brad

If I were you, I'd buy all the ones you can get in the colors and sizes you like. $2.40 is an absolute steal. That's $1.20 below most wholesale prices. Brad

That old worm of yours is a Riverside Big Wag. Disocntinued long ago. Lurenet is Pradco's ecommerce website for all of their brands under one roof. A very close model of worm would be Roboworm's RoboTail, but it is only in 7 1/2" I believe. Brad

The Method Crankbait has some killer vibration and wobble. I've done well with it, but only on green fish so far. Never tried 'em on smallies. Brad

Not a pure square bill, but the Reaction Innovations Method crankbait has some serious vibration and wobble to it. The Fat Boy and LC BDS Series are my favs for square billed, fat plugs. Brad

RI makes some quality products and has some unique items as well. I use several of their products. Brad

Maybe a Gambler Giggy head? Brad

I usually do not have too much problems with baits tearing up. Usually by the time I have one come apart, it's time for it to go anyway from too much abuse from fish. The Rage baits seem to have a stronger plastic when comparing both baits in hand and in use, they have held up well so far. Brad

First, you need to take an inventory of what you have, that way, you will know what you have plenty of and what you lack. Second, what types of fishing do you do most? Jigs, plastics, crankbaits? Now, do you want to try new baits in the types of fishing that you normally do, ie, if you like to crank do you want to try a new brand or type of crankbait? Or, do you want to try some totally different techniques, ie, you have no jigs and never jig fish, so do you want jigs? Nothing worse than a fisherman with $ to spend. When I was young, I would agonize over gift cards trying to get the perfect stuff. Good luck! Brad

IMO, if you fish over submerged grass, this is a must have bait. You can fish these baits in super shallow water better than any other lipless bait made. Brad

But that's a good thing about the soft frogs. I've caught a ton of fish letting a soft plastic toad slowly sink into holes in grass/pads or next to wood. A lot of fish will not hit them on top, but will crush them on the fall. I always rig up a floating hollow frog and a soft plastic toad when I am frogging. Brad Yeah it's definitely a good thing depending on what you want to do, but the advantage that hollow body frogs have over plastic ones is that you can let them sit in holes and twitch them almost in place, which is impossible with a normal plastic frog unless you get a floating version. Thats why I rig up both. A soft plastic toad makes a good follow up to a missed strike on a floating frog too. Toss it out and let it fall in the hole created by the missed strike. Brad

That is a different looking bait. It does look kinds cool though. I'm sure someone around here has used onw in the past. Seldom dows any bait go unfished at BassResource.com Brad

I've used the Inchi Wacky heads from Zappu and they worked great. I was using them to wacky rig in deeper water where waiting for an unweighted worm to sink took too long and using a nail weight in the end of the worm would not give the same action. Yes, a weighted hook could be used, but most weighted hooks I have seen are too big IMO. I like the smaller style of hooks designed for wacky rigging and these jigheads use those types of hooks. The wacky rig jighead has a lot of aplications and I'm looking forward to using it over deeper grass beds, on drop offs, etc. for something the fish have yet to see. You can see more on this technique at Optimum Bait's website under the Zappu product line. Brad

That bait may look weird, but it has some cool action in the water. Too cold for these to catch fish in my area right now, but I will be trying them soon, probably on my Lake Fork trip. Brad

But that's a good thing about the soft frogs. I've caught a ton of fish letting a soft plastic toad slowly sink into holes in grass/pads or next to wood. A lot of fish will not hit them on top, but will crush them on the fall. I always rig up a floating hollow frog and a soft plastic toad when I am frogging. Brad

The legs do have a different action compared to living rubber or silicone like other frogs. The little blade on the back, if you choose to use it, does add some vibration and flash in open water areas when you walk the bait. Some people may find a metal blade odd in a "frog bait", but IMO, it's not a "frog bait" to the fish, it's just something moving on top of the water. These baits are a changeup to the normal frog baits. They are good quality baits and they do catch fish. I personally like the popping version best. It has a big cupped mouth and moves some water. Add the weedless feature to it and it is a great bait to try opooing in places you'd never dream of fishing a Pop-R or the like. Brad

I do not think that there is lake anywhere that Green Pumpkin will not catch fish. My absolute best color everywhere I go. Brad

I usually lift my rod straight up and drag the bait right at me. I will drag, pause, drag, pause...etc. I will also shake the rig in place a fe times. This will cause some clatter with the clicker/bead/weight and will make the bait jump around in place. Another thought to add. Heavy jigs like 3/4 oz or 1 oz. football jigs with big trailers like Paca Craws are a good changeup for a Crig. i fish them the exact same way as a Crig. Sometimes, this rig works much better. I have some friends that fish Barkley/KY Lake and really kill the fish this way. Brad

The new Rage baits kick butt. They have great action and move very easily. The Rage baits as well as the Paca baits swim very easily. IMO, they are much better than the ZOOM Speed Craws as fars as swimming, but as with all baits, everyone has a preference. Brad

I've used snaps on hardbaits for years. They have never impeded the action of any bait I have used them on. I have used Norman Speed Clips, but will not use them any more. I have had them open before and lost fish and baits. If you do decide to tie directly to the split ring, do not let the line slip into the split. You may be sorry if you do. Brad

These are really different types of baits. The Skeet Minis are shallow and mid runners, but they have a really steep dive angle. The Marty 1.2 is similar to the BDS series of baits. You have the RC 1.5, so maybe you might want to try the Skeet Mini. The MS American Shad color is a good color for me. Brad

Cordell Spots are good baits. My personal favorite is a discontinued bleeding shad Excalibur color. The XCalibur XRT series of baits is good. They have a new One Knock model that should be a good bait. pros have been using old one knock spots for years and buy them off of eBay all the time. SPRO's Aruku Shad is a good bait. I use them quite a bit and they have a new, larger size coming that should work well. I plan on having a bunch of these for my Lake Fork trip in March. Lucky Craft has several great lipless cranks. I really like the LV0, LV200 and LV300N. They are unique baits and have caught me a bunch of fish in certain situations. The LV0 is a super shallow running bait. The LV300N has no rattles and the LV200 has a big brass clacker that makes a totally different noise. River2Sea makes a cool bait called the Twin Vibe that has two plase to hook your line to that makes the bait run different. Just a few to look at. Brad