Mbirdsley

I havnt build a lighter cranking rod yet. I’ve built 1 Bushido graphite deep cranking rod and 1 deep cranking rod from rod geeks on fiberglass blank. I either company I would recommend. when I do build a replacement for my Okuma EVX that I use for 4–10 ft ill be using one of the 2 above mention blanks. I believe either blank from either company can be purchased for around $50-$60 for that application.

In all honestly if all I had were a chrome/silver crank, a black crank, and a dark green/green pumpkin crank. I’d be good to go and wouldn’t need anything else. however, I’m addicted to buying cranks and like having them.

What the means is you have to find the warmer water in the system. That’s where the bass will be. It maybe be 34 degrees on top but, 10 feet down in the hole or in the river channel it could be 39 degrees. Find the warmest surface temp you can find and start fishing.

3x strong hooks are for trolling for king salmon, lake trout and steel head. They come standard on our Lake Michigan equipment. A 30-40 lbs king will not straighten them out generally trolling at 2.5-3.0 mph . You don’t need those for bass

I like my SLX’s I’ve got a regular and a 150 dc. They have done everything I’ve asked of them. Only thing I don’t like is the plastic worm gear which, comes on all the slx models. However, the worm gear only real purpose is just to move the pawl back and forth so it’s not really load bearing. I need a middle geared bait caster for swim jigs and swim baits. I’ve got 2 tatula’s and I’m kicking around getting a shimano curado to check out. I’d like to personally compare the curado vs slx vs tatula.

I’m not afraid to power fish a tube on 1/4 oz to 1/2 oz t-rig. Works well in bigger rivers with current. I’ll catch large mouth and small mouth this way on the titabawassee and Saginaw rivers.

War eagles are my personal gold standard for spinner baits. As far as quality and price point you’re not going to find a better spinner bait. They also make a ton of different colors in every imaginable style. im going down the rabbit hole soon of building my own so that may change. I’ve made my own chatter baits and have caught a lot of fish on my own but, jack hammers are the gold standard of the chatter bait world. You make a good point on the patent. Once that comes off you may see the chatter bait getting refined even further by different mfgers and the gold standard may change. The chatter bait is the gold standard because, no one can challenge it at the moment.

There is a thread called “ latest custom build thread”. I have photos of both rods there. The spinning rods done. I’m just finishing up the crank rod tonight. I had to fix some air bubbles. Should be done by tommrow. Than I will show completed pictures of the glass cranking rod I’ve only been out fishing once so far. I did use the spinning rod. It has a soft tip but, a lot of back bone. It’s very light. I like the extra 3 inch length. It worked really good on jerk baits. It’s going to make a jerk bait, popper, spook, shad rap, and what ever moving bait rod. I also plan on throwing like OG 4 and 5’s on it. Basically, any small crank what I’m not sure about is the wacky rig and tubes. Maybe with it being a MH it will be ok.

Great and this is my go to for affixing weed guards and 3d eyes. Not so good for clear coat though

Bandit, bomber, Norman, and strike king are all affordable cranks that produce fish. I would swap the hooks out to what ever premium hooks. strike king, smithwick, and rapala make affordable jerk baits. Same deal though swap out the hooks.

I’ve seen that in the extended forcast. Supposed to be warm but, very windy this week. Looks like next Tuesday will be good to go and that’s my normal day off. 15 mph max wind is about what I can comfortably fish in my sea nymph. Next question is do I try crystal or go to duck or another shallow lake.

Thanks for the responses. I just ordered the dots should be here Tuesday. Now I just need the wind to cooperate and lay down a bit.

Who makes the the little strips that are attached to jerk baits that adjust the sink rate or that helps a jerk bait suspend. I’ve tried looking but, I’m either not using the correct name or the correct key words when searching.

Went to sportsman warehouse in traverse city and picked up some spring lures. Spro RKcrawler 55 phantom green. I have one of these in the same color in a size 50. The size 50 only go to 8 foot max and it’s been a good medium diving lure. Hopefully the success translate to the 55 missle baby d bomb in ballistic cruiser, rage ned bugs in morning dawn and blue craw. Strike king 1/8 oz tube jig heads, Mustad ultra point 2/0 and 3/0 with soft plastic hooks. Hopefully these will work well with t-rigged tubes, and a smaller adjust a bubble bobber

Some stuff I’ve been working on. 1/4 and 3/8 oz arkies and poison tails. I’m going back to rubber collars. I tried the whole hand tied thing last year and didn’t really care for it. I use good rubber collars and have never had one rot out.

I could literally probably fish the entire year with out buying anything else. Only issue maybe certain specialty things. But, I’d just have to find another way to do it. I just wouldn’t be as versatile but, I could do it. I have enough stuff.

Here’s my update. Everything is wrapped. Turned out pretty good I’m happy with it. Surprised to how light it is for being a big fiberglass rod. I’ll probably put color preserver on tonight still. the epoxy on the threads next Sunday. Hopefully be ready to fish next week.

Only other thing I would add is maybe a chatter bait. this time of year especially up north I am interested in finding the warmest water I can. Generally speaking that’s where the fish are at. At least the ones that want to eat.

Lurenet order arrived while I was fishing. Sonar minnows in ayu and natural shad . Spine craws in arsonist red and green pumkin blue flake. Norma’s deep little N chillie bowl and spring craw and a Norman DD in chillie bowl

12 lbs suffix advanced flouro for general cranking 2-12 ft. On my deep cranking rod I’m running 15 lbs Berkley 100% flouro just because, cabelas has great price on the 400 yard spool and my round reel abu pro rocket takes a lot of line to spool up. I will occasionally throw square bills on my spinner/chatter bait rod which, is spoiled with 10 lbs big game mono

Maybe if I put that little chuck into the bearing in the wood. Bottom the butt on the chuck, l clamp it on the butt just enough just to hold it. Use a dowel or mandrel the size of your rod. epoxy the 2 pieces together. I also had to make a tape arbor for the butt cap as it was .650 my blank OD was .629 at the butt section. I didn’t want to put a whole in the butt. I think shaping grips in the drill press is the best way. In this instance I wish I could chuck the rod just to fix that one part. I don’t know about turning the rod that fast. That could get exciting really quick. Eventually, I’ll probably build a rod lathe of some type.

I turned the grips on my drill press with the exception of the butt knob . It’s just I had no way of sanding the butt knob into the rear grip. It’s fine just a glue seam is little uneven on either side. The rear grip measures right around .750 all the way down. the butt of of the blank is .620 i tried to get the OD of the rear grip to the exact shape on the butt knob which is the same color. Hard to do each separate piece when the EVa was a little out of round to begins with. if I chucked them into some sort of lathe I could have sanded them together while glued to the rod.

Trying to work on cold water finnesse stuff more. I bought some sonar minnows. I bought a mold to cast smaller jig sizes with bigger hooks. 2.8-3.3 paddle tail swim baits. I’ve had success with the bigger 3.8-6 inch paddle tails. Another thing that I can use the above mold to make jig heads. I’ve bought about a dozen spro float N flys to try also

I have the handle assembly epoxied to the blank. In the future, I see that I can buy a cheap chuck to put into a hand held drill. I’d like to shape up the section where the butt meats the handle. It looks decent and is what it is as I don’t have a way to turn it while, it’s glued to the rod

I don’t know about unusual material but, he explained the whole red thing pretty well. What I got out of the the talk is The red cranks are 40-50 degree thing and after that put them away. That you don’t need a whole tackle box of red. than always if the main plan fails have a back up to the back up plan. I liked the spine craw vs chunk talk. When to use what types as a trailer. The spine crawl a more streamlined craw with a tite flapping action while,chunk has flappy arms. That type of stuff isn’t just related to just those 2 soft plastics. I started catching fish with Norman cranks last summer. They are affordable with decent paint jobs. They work. I change out hooks though. Depending on April up here the most of the bigger lakes won’t be 50 untill the end of the month. The bigger lakes havnt even hit 40 yet. Supposed to be warm this next week. Im hoping some of the smaller lakes will be in the low 40’s