Dangerfield

I love that paint job, I've got a 1st gen Ike crank rod and I get comments on it everywhere. That huge handle with the EVA knobs is a nice touch.

FYI, River2Seas website has some closeouts on a couple of their baits: Bully Wa (3 colours - $6 each), Bubble Walker (1 colour - $6 each) and Biggie square bill (2 sizes, multiple colours $6 each). If I hadn't just bought a ton of plastics and jigs last week, I'd be all over those sq. bills and frogs.

I have the same experience on my cranking rig and it chopped up my blood knot after a heavy day of fishing. I use 12lb fluoro with 40lb braid. Same here, I have both, the Fuego is more forgiving on a connection knot but will fail eventually. This is the best advice from a purchasing perspective AND keeping your connection knot in front of the 1st line guide. Your guides will wear a connection knot down as well. I'm waiting till the winter when the new Tatula is out and I can scoop some old ones off fleabay for 50%. One can dream

I don't know what it is but the whole setting up a neko rig is undesirable and probably why I gravitated to the shakeyhead/shroomz setups. Although I do have quite a jig passion and seeing those VMC skirted nails, I'm definitely going to invest in a true neko rig when they become available. For those of you buying the TRD, may I reco that buying the Zinkers and cutting them in half is much more economical. I think you get 8 TRDs/per pack vs 6 Zinkers/per pack, cut em in half and you've double up on "TRDs", but they don't have those little pimples on em.

check your PM

Mattlures posted one of his Bluegill swimbaits in this thread

This is interesting insight and I can confirm it likely works because I haven't had success using a 3.5-4" swimbait on a heavier(1/2oz) Freedom Tackle Hydra jig. The heavier head almost kills all the wide swinging thump from the paddletail. I've lost all confidence in that bait, I'm going to pick up and try the Strike King Jointed Structure Head in 1/4oz and see if it makes a difference.

I like em on the back of a swimjig or a chatterbait but I've only used the 4" model. I just picked up the 4" Skywalker for black and black/blue jigs and 3" Blue Shiner Gold for everything else. Didn't notice I purchased 3" in the BSG until they arrived, it looks good for a finesse swimjig or a bitsy bug. I've got a dirty jigs finesse swimjig in Crappie, i think they'll pair up nicely.

Some seem to think the WP is meant for choppy water, if the wind picks up, I'd tie one on.

I count 3 Mississispi's before I jack em up, I also bend the hooks up and out a little bit to assist hook ups are smoother. If you can't wait that long, I recommend using a slightly slower action rod. One time when I was trying to set the hook with a frog too fast, sent my bait back to the boat like a rocket and almost took my brother's head off lol

I won a $20 Amazon gift card at work and they have free shipping deal for orders over $35. So I spent $60 and got a bunch of goodies: Nichols 3/8oz Sabre Swim Jig - Bluegill (x2) and Black Plague - I was on the fence, I really like the Dark Knight and Black-eye options but I figured I could get that desired look with a trailer. These get rave reviews, so I wanted to give them a shot. Megastrike 1/2oz Evolution 2 Heavy Cover Jig - Black/Blue - this jig was cheap as chips and had good reviews, I'll report back on the quality. Zoom Bait Fat Albert Twin Tail Bait - Black (x2) and Chartreuse - these are hard to find locally and I haven't given grub style baits a shot yet. Berkley Havoc Pit Boss - Sky-walker and Blue Shiner Gold - I love these baits as jig trailers and have had success in other colour options. Strike King Twin Tail Menace Grub - KVD Magic - I can't find these locally either, but saw KVD using them on WFN and had to give it a shot. Berkley Powerbait Attractant, Bass Scent - never used attractants before but I plan on marinating some pit boss and paddle-tails in this stuff to see if it produces.

Dobyns Fury 735 or a St Croix Premier.

I've gotten blow ups on my sunfish but never landed one. Frog fishing ain't easy, I've experienced a ton of blow ups and no hook ups, bass smashing the bait into the air on impact, setting the hook too quick, no setting it fast enough, too much slack from walking it etc. There's a million reasons to miss one but the second you land one it's the BEST adrenaline rush. Caught that one on a Bully Wa 2 (Firebelly).

River2Sea Bully Wa or Wa 2 will start to dance with the slightest twitch. Spro Bronzeye Shad is another one that's easy to walk.

Mike's craw looks like a dark pumpkinseed bream

http://media.giphy.com/media/S3Ot3hZ5bcy8o/giphy.gif

thanks for the bump - good info in this thread.

Last week when I went out west (Alberta) for a family event. I picked up a huge score on Kijiji, For those not familiar it's basically Craig's list with PayPal. For $30 USD, I got 2 Flambeau waterproof lure cases which are perfect for kayak trips. Now for the baits, the guy had a huge bag of rapalas, so I grabbed what I had confidence in or which straight up looked like good baits. Which lead me to get 4 BX Swimmer 12s, 4 Xraps jerkbaits, 2 xrap shads crankbaits and a shadow rap shad deep. They should all do wonders for northerner pike up here, the lmb love the shadow raps. I replaced the hooks on all of them to Mustad KVD triple grip trebles. I hit up Cabela's last night to pick up some hooks for the rapalas above, disappointed they don't carry odd size hooks at all. No 3 or 5 size. I supplemented with 4 and 6 size, upsizing didn't seem like a good idea although I'll pay close attention to the action with the lighter options. I picked up 2 packs of Rage Tails, summer craw and my fav bama craw, 2 hack attack 1/2 oz jigs, both were green pumpkin, one with purple flake and the other has a bit of red, Gammy offset ewg worm hooks and a pack of daiwa neko fat worms. First time I'll be casting a worm... Ever. Tight lines.

I'll echo what most have already stated, the spro is more versatile and the rad is the most realistic. The SG has a more difficult hook up ratio imo. The Spro can be straight retrieved as a wake and subsurface, and walked like a dog. I feel like it's more of a knocking sound then clacking. I've had smallies and tons of northerns on my 30 morning dawn. My brothers all went out after I slayed a ton of pike one day and they bought each colour and size. The Rago Rat is supposed to be the bee's knees same goes for the smallest version of the MS slammer.

With mono, because of the stretch, you don't feel the crisp darts (jerks) from the bait like you would if you were using braid or fluoro. I believe and I think most will back me up is that you still get the same darting/ripping action using mono, you just don't feel it the same way. I noticed the exact same thing when I switched my cranking rig from fluoro to a mono leader. It's d**n near impossible to know what's going on.

My cranking rod does double duty for my jerkbaits - 7' Med Moderate with 14lb sufix siege. I'm not crazy about the mono for this technique as I can't tell how my twitches and jerks are being presented due to the stretch in the line. I have the same issue with cranking, might go back to braid to a short leader.

Considering most of the West except BC, don't have bass in their lakes/fisheries etc. What's your experience with their offering?

Those little local business are good, if the shop keepers is keeping up with trends. There's half a dozen of them in Toronto but I can't be bothered to drive around in the city. I've yet to do this because I feel like I'm circumventing my inner bait monkey and I feel like I could get more for my dollar going the eBay route. I'm not knocking the 2 services, but I think I could hand pick better items myself. On top of that, you might end up with a bunch of stuff you won't use because you don't have the right gear.

I switched from Braid/Maxima Flouro leader (6' - 12lb) to Braid/Sufix Siege Mono (25' - 14lb) on my cranking rod and lost all sensitivity with cover and bottom contact. Will that be the case with any mono/coploy? Or Should I try something like straight YZH?

I've done this twice this year and I won't be whip casting anymore... unless the lures a floater lol. I lost my favorite DJ swimjig and a brand new duo crankbait - with that said, I'm hitting up Siebert's soon for a jig order. So glad they have PayPal.