Smalls

You’re confusing “search bait” and “reaction bait”. A search bait doesn’t have to be a crankbait, swim bait, etc. It just has to allow you to cover water quickly. You’d be surprised at how well a shakey head works as a search bait on some days. I use a crankbait as my first search bait 90% of the time. But if I walk the stretch of available bank with no bites, then I tie something else on and walk/cast back towards where I started.

Get rid of the wife and buy 4 more

Because I fish from the bank, I’ve found that using a 3600 box with no dividers allows me to keep the greatest amount of cranks in one box. I use hook covers to keep em from tangling. Also helps keep hooks out of my hands while I’m tying em on.

Don’t overthink the frog. Some probably hold up better than others, but I haven’t noticed much of a difference. Other than that, they all do exactly the same thing. I wish they would stop making 45 different colors with the exact same colored belly, which is the only thing they matters ?

I’ve got a rechargeable hand warmer I bought from amazon for like $20. I work in a freezer, so I usually turn it on as I go out for my smoke break and let my hands warm up for 15 minutes. It gets real toasty real quick

Your grandfather may have a large savings account, but at 90 years old, what is it doing for him other than sitting there? Its not not wise to put yourself in a large amount of debt for a boat. But at the same time, what’s the point of life if you’re not enjoying it? Work hard play hard.

You’re not really looking for structure, per se. Find where rock meets grass, or where different grasses meet. St Clair is pretty much just an empty bowl, there ain’t much “structure”.

At like $12 each, I don’t have an issue tossing them into places I’d never throw some of my other swimbaits. Added bonus- it gets hammered. This was a real producer during prespawn for me.

I try to keep anything I care about much inside, especially during extreme heat or cold. Might hurt, might not, but I’ve got more money invested in rods n reels than I’d care to spend again. So inside they come.

That made me wince in pain.

Have one of their last models. I love it, but hate the proprietary reel seat because of the hood. It wasn’t letting me seat my reel close enough to my hand, and had to take a file to it. But it with a Fuji reel seat, I’ll definitely buy a new one. The one I have is so well balanced and sensitive.

I had a broken buzz bait and a spinner bait that I hated, so I took a pair of needle nose and made something similar to this the other day- https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/catpage-VMFISHING.html?from=basres Even on the water, took me less than 10 minutes. Got a few blow ups on it, too!

I love tubes. Especially in a pond, they don’t see them as often as everything else. For me, they’re a pain to rig straight, so I’ll rig a few at home if I know I’ll be throwing em.

I learned how to skip using Keitech’s version of a horny toad. It’s super flat and extremely wide. It’s as close to a skipping rock as you can get, and ridiculously easy to skip. Once I felt like I could make more difficult skips with that with ease, I moved up to jigs and what not.

I think it’s probably important to note that if you use a snap, you should still check your line often. Since I normally bank fish 90% of the time, I only carry a max of 3 rods with me, and my crankbait/reaction bait rod gets braid to a mono leader. Switching out lures often would have me cutting my line down to just braid without a snap. But I’ll check my line often, and retie it whenever necessary.

Alright, it’s exactly what I was thinking it was. I’ve got some from SK. For some reason I never thought of taking the plastic off the hook to skirt/in skirt it. I’ve been cutting and retying. My naturally blonde wife rubs off on me sometimes

Pretty sure glass will give you a higher pitch rattle, compared to plastic with rattles of the same material

Interested in this “quick change” skirt, how’s that work? I punch from the bank often, so I prefer throwing a T rig over a jig. The option to throw a skirt on fast would be awesome

I think the most important thing to finding fish with a paddle tail is varying your retrieve speed and depth. I’ve had tons of success crawling and bouncing them along the bottom, and yet I’ve caught just as many keeping it in the middle of the water column with a faster retrieve. Twitching it, killing it and letting it fall, or randomly speeding it up for a second have produced some violent strikes. You gotta remember, bait fish rarely just swim in a straight, steady line.

I’m a big fan of the Spro Little Johns. It has a tungsten ball in it that makes a really nice dull knock sound.

Instead of trying to cram a bunch of packages in my bag, I use 2 3600 boxes, and empty out my soft plastics into them, using dividers to separate as needed. Occasionally I’ll have to mix a couple different colors or sizes together, but overall it’s pretty organized. Plus it’s easy to keep inventory.

Take the entire spook out from the sideplate and use scissors, not a knife/razor.

I use VMC crankbait snaps for treble hook baits. I love em. They’ll occasionally hinder the action of certain baits, but I find that problem being few and far between But I tie everything else. ESPECIALLY frogs. I’ve seen guys snap 40lb braid on a hookset frog fishing. That’s just too much force for any sort of snap.

Probably, doesn't sound easy though. I bet an email to the manufacturer will get you some replacements, they know 90% of us make internet posts like this one. They know that if the last post is "They stood behind their product and replaced em", they'll keep customers

The Eco Pro swimbait was the first I had ever tried, and I bought them because they were way cheaper than Keitech. After a while I stopped seeing em locally, so I switched to Keitech, but I’ll gladly wait for an order of the EP’s now. I swear they’re identical baits, but the EP’s have caught me way more fish