papajoe222

Hoping the bite holds up for you.

I like the blade on a WarEagle. I just wish the lower arm was longer. Black/gold blade and chartruse and white are the only colors for me.

I have two combos for throwing Spooks. One is spooled with 12lb. Big Game for targeting fairly open water. The other has 40lb. Suffix braid with a 14lb. leader for targeting submergent weeds or around wood and brush.

Last year.........Punch Rig This year.........Rocket Shad PBS...................Zara Spook & Arkie Jig/PacaCraw.

Welcome to BR Sorry I can't help you with locations to try, but I can offer a little help in your quest. There are many different forums here and one is Southeast Bass fishing in the Fishing Locations tab and another is Fishing Reports. Both may be helpful to you starting out here. You may even consider posting your question in the first one. You may get more views/answers there.

I can honestly say that I've never had a treble hook bend out while fighting a fish. I keep my drag set looser than many, but still, with 10lb. test line the only way that has happened to me is when I got snagged and it was intentional on my part. I have seen it happen with anglers using braid. I have no Idea what they hooked, but it musta been a .............

Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Indiana and Mississippi (I had to look up the spelling on that one).

Likely it was a Roadrunner, a small horsehead jig with an underspin blade.

Hate: Spinning Gear. Don't get me wrong, I use it and it serves its intended purpose, but I much rather use a baitcaster. Love: Carolina Rig. Don't use it much in the shallower, natural lakes close to home, but put me on a lake with some deeper structure and it's the best search technique I've found. Something Not Many Anglers Use: Short, pistol grip rods. I love mine for working Spooks. I recently added a 5'6" StCroix to my collection.

Yea, unlike bluegill, they don't nip at your spinnerbait skirt, they hammer the whole thing and then you have to deal with reeling them in, laughing because the bait is almost as big as they are, unhooking and recasting only to have another smack it. What a waste of two casts.

line visibility isn't a concern for faster moving baits, IMO. For that reason, I'd go with braid and select the weight by the size/diameter of the hooks on the rig you'll be throwing. 40lb. would be a good starting point as you'll be dealing with exposed hooks.

Please don't disarm the automatic feature. With stability issues, you are as likely to hit your head and fall overboard as you are to just fall overboard. I know, it happened to me a few years ago. I didn't hit my head in the boat, but on the boulder the TM hit that caused my quick exit. Needless to say, I was disoriented and by the time I came to my senses, it may have been to late. You can still manually inflate the vest with the auto feature intact. My first inflatable did the same as yours, so I don't leave mine in the boat at the end of the day. STAY SAFE!

Where I start depends on water clarity. Clear=small, stained=bigger. That's just a starting point, though. If the panfish are machinegunning the smaller bait, I'll upsize to something with a little less action.

I use them on everything from ball head jigs to soft plastic swim baits. I even added multiple small ones on a lipless to make it appear like a small ball of baitfish. I get mine from a craft store, they carry different sizes.

Don't forget a lipless crank. You can fish one anywhere in the water column, I normally will start shallow and work my way deeper. It's actually on par with a spinnerbait when used to locate fish and you can bomb cast it in clear water, which is also in your favor.

If you struggle with your trolling motor in a 10mph wind, I hate to say this, but you need a stronger TM. My Tracker came with a 12V 42lb. thrust TM that didn't last one season before I switched it out for a 24V with almost 30lb. more thrust. The following spring, I had no problems with the strong, gusty winds that previously drove me crazy.

Most of the natural lakes around here have weeds that can grow as deep as 18ft. or so. If I fish the outside weedline, I'll be fishing somewhere between 15ft-20ft. When I'm structure fishing, I'll rarely go deeper than 25ft. even though the water may be 50ft. deep.

Memorable day for sure. The memories of those days will get you through next winter. Had one today myself. Went fishless for two hours, then tied into my first 6lb. LM in almost two years. My last was from the same lake....Hog Lake. Appropriately named. Ended up with seven for the day. I took some selfies with her and I'll attempt to post one tomorrow. I'm too friggin' tired to do anything that requires more than the use of five brain cells now.

I don't prefer them even though I have more than a few packages. I don't care for the stick worms as they have no salt and I normally fish those weightless. For any type of weighted presentation, especially a Ned rig, I like the fact that they are pretty bouyant. I've tried the craws and they are okay if you're not looking for a lot of action. I purchased them because of the low price and my experience with the original Creme worm.

The most obvious reason is the difference in the hook's gap. Bigger hook gap is better for beefier plastics, but that can be offset on a round bend in the way you thread your plastic on the hook. Weed guards can be bent down, or thinned out. I'm with Tom on this. Round bend

I gotta laugh when I see you younguns posting this stuff. You all are just in the early phases of getting old. You have no idea of what you're in for.

I like a chunk until well past post spawn, call it early summer. That's when I'll start stroking a jig and an action trailer slows the fall rate. Most of the cover on the lakes I fish is some form of vegetation, so I'll go to a beaver style trailer then for pitching, but if there's wood, a RageTail Craw can't be beat.

The secret to T-rigging a flipping, or straight shank hook is to insert the hook point into the nose of the bait on an angle rather than straight into the bait. Prior to rigging place the hook with the shank straight down the center of the bait and the eye at the top. Now, without moving the eye, bring the hook point down to the top of the bait (where you'll be inserting it into the bait to rig it weedless. Now look at the angle of the hook shank. That's the angle you want to insert the hook point. Hope that helps.

Shore fishing is a different ball games. Trailers all go in one bag (a dozen or so) and jigs go in a 3600. two colors int three weights. the unused trailers go back in their original bags if not used.

I stumbled upon Kalin's, I can't remember where, and have been impressed with them. Plenty of salt and they still hold up extremely well. Another very soft one is Sheel's house brand. They're my go to when I know I'm probably going to be loosing tubes to snags. Sadly, they dropped the 3.75 from their line-up, but I have four packages, so I'm good for most of the season.