Glaucus

6'6" - 7' Medium Heavy Power / Moderate Fast Action The Okuma EVX 6'8" MH/MF would be the only rod I own if I could only have one rod, or the only rod I would take if I wanted a "do everything" rod for the day. $50 left over to line it up and buy some lures.

I learned from the internet.

I'm going to be honest here and I feel foolish and like I've been completely out of the loop: I had no idea about this cork sealer. I'm definitely buying that.

My wife is ordering some shirts online and asked what size I want. I said, "Medium Heavy" thinking 'large'. Took me a second to understand the, "Whaaat are you talking about?" response I got.

These are the Berkley PowerBait Swim Shad in 3 inch Fire Tiger. They swim well (although I had to straighten the tails out in boiling water), they catch fish, and they're only $4 for a 5 or 6 pack (can't remember). The hooks aren't the sharpest and they start to rip out the back of the plastic after one aggressive strike. For the money and instant fish catching, they're good, but they won't last and you might lose a good fish. Is it worth it? Depends on the person. I'll be searching for something similar of better quality but I'll also get another pack of these since I know they work.

6'6" for almost everything, 6'8", 6'9", 6'10" and 7' when I have to. Typically throw a frog on a 6'6". I don't like to walk anything on a longer rod. Others will say you need the longer rod. Comes down to what feels good in your hands and what you can best work with. It's all preference.

It was actually my search for a good pack of Rage Swimmers that triggered this post. There wasn't a single pack of 3.25" that all had good tails at BPS or my local store. I've gotten a couple packs of Trick Worms that were permanently zig zagged. I attributed that to prolonged heat exposure in shipping or storage. I also had to stick the tails of each and every one of those Berkley PowerBait Swim Shads in boiling water to fix them.

2 more caught and 2 more than came off in the pouring rain today for an hour or so. I really need to get my rear to the store the get some better quality similar baits and sharper hooks. Very happy to have found what they will eat.

Definitely buy a Fuego CT. They can be found for 50-75 dollars, especially on eBay and Amazon. Don't get a Black Max. If you ever try pitching with one, you will instead want to pitch the whole setup into the water. The Silver Max is a huge upgrade for a little more.

I've heard River2Sea is really good about replacing lures.

All the ponds around here are private. I won't bank fish a lake, and I won't put a kayak in one until it gets warmer. The rivers are flooded so that's a no go too. I'm stuck here for a couple more weeks at least. But I figured something out today. A more subtle moving bait, downsized.

Good info all. Found the ticket. I went through the stuff I already have searching for something I haven't tried. I found 3" PowerBait paddle tail swimbaits in Fire Tiger. I bought them a couple years ago because I have a friend who swears by them for river smallmouth. I wasn't a fan so I put them up and forgot about them. Well these fish loved them. I went out for about 40 minutes before dark and caught 6. 3 more came off. I left when the bats came out and I could no longer see where my bait was landing in the water. These baits catch fish apparently but they're not good quality. The hooks start ripping out of the back of the bait after 1 fish. The hooks also aren't very sharp hence 3 that came off. I'm going to get some good quality Fire Tiger/Bluegill-ish 3" paddle tail swimbaits to use (Bluegill and minnows is the forage along with frogs).

We - or at least I - still have to boil water to get the baits back to the shape they're supposed to be. I can dig through the whole row of whatever plastic but there's rarely a pack that is 100% intact. It gets to be frustrating. Paddle tails are by far the worst offenders. Is there not a way to make these more secure?

The absolute dumbest thing I've ever done while fishing is ignore my wife's phone calls. I still haven't learned my lesson.

Well, bass don't eat what I would eat. Imagine that. To be fair I fished a terrible fishery. I also fished every finesse tactic known to man after power fishing failed. Skunked

I'm in Central Illinois (mods please don't move this thread as it has little to nothing to do with Illinois alone). Due to water temps and flooding I'm still not comfortable kayaking or wading, I'm bank fishing a local pond while I wait for my preferred waters to become fishable. I live in the boonies more or less. I really "hate" this place for fishing. My town has 150 people and the town where the pond is, 5 minutes away, has 100 people. It's not too heavily pressured. However the pond is loaded with bass. 4 and 5 pounders are in it, and I've caught them. On a good day you can see dozens roaming. But over the years, the fishing gets worse and worse every single year, despite catching a good one once in awhile and consistently seeing bass roaming. This year is continuing the trend and it's the worst it's ever been. I've tried jigs, craws, creature baits, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, lipless crankbaits, Senkos rigged every way, Ned Rigs, drop shot, inline spinners, worms, weightless worms, squarebills, everything. Sometimes you can see them actually turn their head away at your lure. I've caught maybe 10 in a month. Most days are a skunk fest. I just don't know what to do about this place anymore. It makes no sense to me. I've live in the area a long time and know that this pond doesn't see pressure. Most guys fish for catfish and bluegill out of here. Outside of me they rarely see a bass lure, and I only fish this place when I have to. From May to September I'm scarcely seen here (after learning my lesson over and over again that they just don't bite). I've never seen more finicky fish who shouldn't be close to finicky.

Looks good. I'd eat it. Going to give it a go now.

One of the first setups I ever owned was one of those cheap like $30 Shakespeare baitcasters with the $15 Shakespeare rods you get at Walmart - I think they're called Excursion. You know what happened? I caught fish and it never broke. Next I stepped up to Lightning rods and Silver Max reels and I still use them for some things to this day. The old Shakespeare rods got spincasters slapped on them for my wife and kids.

I use cheap $1 Zebco mono to back everything - braid, fluoro, copoly, other mono. No reason not to do this.

If I can fish, I fish. I don't care about the rest. I worry about conditions for my own comfort and/or safety, that's it.

Anyone ever do this? I have a handful of GP Trick Worms that are ate up. I cut the top end off of one of them and put the tail end on a spinnerbait to see what it looks like. Looks decent. I'm going to try it tomorrow.

What I'm seeing is that you need to down size your jig and trailer, not necessarily throw a jig without a trailer.

I absolutely hate fishing in wind of 15mph+ where you have nothing to break it. Open water. Just miserable. The best way for me is a spinnerbait or a crankbait thrown with the wind.

Googan plastics are good.

It's true that I fish them on M/MF rods and I do use fairly loose drag with treble baits.