schplurg

Sometimes you take whatever victory home with you that you can.

This was only a $4 BPS jerkbait (and I was 5 miles from Bass Pro), but I was not about to lose it on a day when I was catching nothing. I was soaking an anchovy looking for stripers on the San Joaquin River in Feb '19 when I thought I'd throw a jerkbait with my other rod. Snagged it right away. The "bait rescue" begins at about 1:20 if you wanna skip my blabbering. Sometimes you take any victory you can!

Thinking is a lost art.

Still reading these. A lot of good info. It surprised me that they would put money in my PayPal account so I could make the purchase. I think that's a newer tactic. I called my sister when this all started because this smelled like a rip-off to me, and she said she reviewed a phone case for a seller once and it was the same process. The emails always started with "Hey Mate!" then would continue in very broken and poorly translated sentences. I want to say here that the company PLUSINNO (they spell it all caps) is not the one who bribed me to change my review, though I believe they were about to do so. I just didn't reply to their query on why I lowered my review. The company that did bribe me was TopSport. They all sell the same stuff and who knows maybe they're all under one parent company, but wanted to clarify that. The rod stand Plusinno sent me was quite good and I use it. By the way, I used to develop iPhone games and it's the same thing as far as reviews go, you can buy them, although I think Apple does a better job sorting them out. Apple is hardcore. Edit to add: (why can't I bold anything suddenly?) Speaking of iPhone games, I have been playing around with designing a bass fishing sim. This would be based on real bass behavior as much as possible, and I was thinking about starting a thread about it here. Right now I have a large pond with a bass that can travel around. It seeks locations depending on time of day for now, very basic, but I'm working on water temp, depth, length of day, and other stuff. Hunger, fear, energy, aggressiveness... What I'm trying to do is make a bass that will live a life cycle as a real bass would, getting bigger, smarter maybe, and then building a fishing sim around that. No BS in-app purchases - I'm too old-school for that. Anyways I thought maybe I could get insights from the experts here and maybe it would be a fun thing to do. I may start a thread. I don't know that many people here would want to play it, but I'd make it easy even for non-gamers (easy to play, not easy to catch!). And I have written a best selling iPhone game so I'm no slouch. I'm not even looking to get rich (uh, it's a fishing game). Oh and the fish at this point will attack and bite a bait I made but it's pretty basic so far. Nothing even close to playable. We'll see.

That's cool I'll have to check that out. I leave a lot of Amazon reviews on my own, but I only did 4 for these companies. It didn't take long for them to show their true nature. I also went back last week and lowered my review for one I had previously rated at 5 stars. Got an email from them too. This thing fell apart on me on 2nd use. First use was no problem, hence the good initial score. It makes me wonder about all the other reviewers who continue to do this. Some of this stuff is okay in quality and free stuff is probably hard for a lot of people to walk away from. I see people fawning over the same item that I thought sucked and fell apart on me. They're obviously lying. One reason I fish is because the older I get the more tired of people I get. Oh I still love meeting people...I guess what I mean is a person can be cool, but people suck

I am here to give people a first-hand account of how the fake reviews work and how prevalent they are on Amazon. This is maybe more for new anglers, as experienced anglers either don't shop at Amazon, or they know what they want when they do. If you are going to Amazon looking for great deals and you're not a very experienced angler, this is for you. If you go to Amazon and see brands like PLUSINNO, or SOUGILYANG, or SuperFunFishingForYou, and you wonder if their gear is any good, this is for you. But even more reputable sellers pull these same shenanigans. My Experience I was contacted by an Amazon seller through my tiny Youtube channel. I'm nobody. They asked if I wanted to try some free fishing gear in exchange for reviews. I said sure, but I will be honest in my reviews. They asked me to provide a lot of photos (this is key in spotting these fake reviews). I received a rod stand that hold 6 rods and sits on the floor. It was pretty nice and I gave it a good review. It deserved it. By the way, they PayPal you the money up front, then you make the purchase, that way you actually paid for the product and are able to review it. Then they sent another product, and then another company contacted me as well. Wow, I'm important! Finally, I received what I considered a less than perfect product and I gave my honest review. Still 4 stars, but that wan't good enough for the seller! A few days later I get an email asking why I gave a "bad" review and can they do anything to make me change it. "We have a nice fly rod for you to try next" they said. This is the long story short version. I told them to bug off. They aren't the manufacturer so there's nothing they can do to fix it anyways. I've been trying to complain to Amazon ever since but they make it very difficult for some reason. Amazon is currently in litigation due to all of the fake reviews. It is a huge problem for them so they should be eager to learn about this. How To Spot And Avoid The Fakes The companies want a whole bunch of reviews as soon as they release a new product. They expect to get say 50 5-star reviews by recruiting people like me. And they want us to provide photos in our reviews. This is key. If you see a $15 product and reviewers have bothered to post half a dozen photos and videos of the product, there is a good chance that those reviews are fake. Who the heck is going to post 6 photos of a fishing hook, or a roll of fishing line? Compensated reviewers, that's who. And they did not ask me to say "This product was provided free in exchange for a review". You see that sometimes on Amazon, but it is absolutely not required. To avoid these fakes, try sorting the reviews by "Most Recent" rather than "Most Popular" or whatever it is. Chances are good that most of the paid reviews are the earliest ones, but not always! If a product needs a boost they will ask for reviews for existing or older products as well, but not much. It's mainly the earliest reviews that are fake. So, reviews with a lot of photos, or people who use the company name a lot in the review (like an ad would do), are most likely fake. Especially if you see a lot of them, and all 5 stars. "PLUSINNO continues to make great products! Thank you, PLUSINNO, for bla bla de bla bla..." Ya right. If a reviewer seems overly excited about a fishing pole stand, or a reel stringer, or a mismatched box of terminal tackle, it's probably BS. Read the 3 star reviews for the real story. It May Go Deeper Than Just Amazon Recently I did a web search for "telescopic fishing pole". I found dozens of websites with "fishy" sounding names. I can't think of any but stuff that seemed translated from Korean or Chinese, like "BestFishReviews.com", or "BigGoodFunFish.com". Where are all the real fishing sites? So I start reading these and they are ALL touting the same cheap garbage that the fake reviews are trying to sell. Really? The best collapsible fishing pole is made by PLUSINNO and Soungyilang(sp?) on every single review site? No way. And all of these sites read like translated Chinese (though they are getting better). It's like a big conspiracy from the reviews to the review sites. They must buy up a bunch of URLs and SEO they heck out of them so they show up in a Google search. What a scam. They sell crap and they own the review sites too LOL. So you can't trust these so-called review sites either. They are disguised as fishing sites but they have no info other than these reviews. And one site said they base their Top Ten off of Amazon reviews! Great, the fake reviews! I hope this helps some people. It really makes me mad that people do this - the companies as well as the dishonest reviewers - so I wanted to share my story. I never left a phony review, in fact that's why I'm probably blacklisted now "No more free fish big fun times for you!"

I bought a telescopic fishing rod because I absolutely need one! What if I'm driving in heavy traffic and see a body of water that looks interesting? What if I'm hiking and happen upon a nice stream full of fish? What if I buy a motorcycle and need to fish? "What if?" asked the Baitmonkey. What if? Well anyways I've never come across any of these scenarios...YET! But surely I will! So I bought a cheap, but supposedly good, BPS collapsible rod. It was only $20. My friend has had one for many years and it's fine. The rod hasn't arrived yet, but I bought a Pfleuger Trion 30 to put on it. $40. I would have got something cheaper but this is lighter weight than the others I saw, and it's a darn fine reel so I can use it on any rod really. Now I probably need some kind of case to protect the rod! Then I'm ready for on-call truck fishing! Except now I need a special tackle box just for the truck, and some baits and terminal tackle, and probably some........(baitmonkey smiles and walks away)

I caught the PB in my current avatar on a Super Fluke. My second biggest on a $2 Walmart crank 3 weeks later. Caught em both from the same spot on shore about 4 months after I started serious bass fishing last year. They're only 5 pounders but there isn't anything much bigger around here. I only had one rod at the time too, so I hadn't spent much. I'm upgrading my rods and reels as I go but I don't spend a lot on baits. Yet. And my most expensive reels are Presidents, so I'm still cheap. I'm starting to put together my own jigs too. Last summer was all about crank baits. This year I'm going to try jigs and jerks more. Saving money so I can get a boat!!!!

Well the lure I would hate to lose the most is one I made myself. It doesn't have very good action, it's a popper that's too heavy - oops! But I'd rather any other bait than this little guy. I've only tried it once, it cost practically nothing to make, but it's the most valuable to me My homemade crank bait spins like a top as you reel it in (totally worthless), but I'd hate to lose that one too. I buy cheap stuff.

My one and only homemade crankbait spirals while you reel it in! It's not supposed to though

All I have are maybes Maybe when the water is full most of the structure and cover is near shore. Docks, tree limbs, and a lot of vegetation. When the water goes down there's virtually no cover near shore. What cover is available is less and spread out, maybe smaller too. Less vegetation. And if the water doesn't recede this much every year the fish might not initially know where to go. The water drainage may screw up the whole eco system and short circuit the fishies little brains. Or maybe they don't actually scatter at all, I wouldn't know My local lake is low and it seems like the fish would all hang out near the dam where it's deeper. But I don't know. That lake sucks even when conditions are prefect so I haven't braved the elements this winter to find out. ------- Does anyone else have a problem with this forum where you're typing a post and your cursor keys suddenly stop working in the editing window? It only happens here. Weird. Whoops now they work again!

The fish sees a huge monster walking towards it that is going to eat him. My guess.

One of my local lakes has a lot less structure as the water goes down, so I assume that the fish are scattering in order to find the bits of structure that are there, mainly boulders. And maybe if they don't find it they hang out a little deeper instead. I'm a rookie so just my observations/guess.

I think I replied already, but after watching a bunch of my fishing videos I realize that one reason I don't listen to music is that I talk too much, at least while recording And I'm usually alone. I don't listen to music much at all, and never while fishing. But I could see myself listening to something if I really got restless or bored, though maybe not music, and I'd use ear buds. I almost always am irritated by other people's music so I don't force mine on anyone.

The guy says twice that he does not want marital advice and that's virtually all he gets because he "asked for it". Oh well outrage and virtue signaling is all the rage these days. Gift card. Have a friend buy it. PayPal.

If you're stuck on the water with limited supplies tricks like these are good to know.

Lost most: crank baits fished from shore. Caught most with: crank baits fished from shore. Lost 2 identical ones in one day. Bought a few replacements and lost one of those the next day too. That's why I buy a lot of my cranks at Walmart for $2.

Used a white Super Fluke T-rigged with a maybe 1/4 bullet weight unpegged, fished maybe a few feet deep. 5 1/4 lb Other one slightly lighter was a crank bait, I forget the color. Think it was shad, but I catch them with all colors at this spot.

I think dumming up, or altering something significantly in the hopes of attracting more people often makes things worse in the end. The stuff that is made for the masses is typically garbage, whether it's music, TV, movies or sports. And as for attracting more people, I don't see that really benefiting me as an angler. Too few people and lakes will close I suppose, but too many people is worse. Just my personal view on it.

I must disagree. If Personal Best means biggest bass then the obvious definition for Personal Worst would be smallest bass. More importantly, I've been wondering the past few days why the word "personal" got thrown in with "best" in the first place. Why not just "best"? Edit to add: And ya foul hooks don't count! :-D I love the photos!

That's casting, hooking, landing and releasing a fish almost once per minute. You did this for 6 hours? I'd be in traction after that!

Screw that, I see these people every day. Having the pond and an entire day to myself - that is rare! However, I doubt I'll fish today haha. I forgot about it until now. It isn't too late, maybe I'll go just to say I did. <looks outside>...nah.

I switched to left handed (holding and casting) for most fishing due to tendinitis. Casting lefty with a spinner is a little funky for some reason, but a baitcaster feels natural either way. Actually I've never cast right handed with a BC that I can remember.

Licking line? Heck, I floss with it as I tie! Kill two birds...

Last I checked Pfluegers website still have Lady Presidents on clearance for $30. They are old models I think. I have two and they're great especially for my budget. I got mine for $21 though Couldn't pass it up and the pink doesn't bother me, it just catches fish.