fin

I can stop the rain by putting on my rain gear, and I can make the sun come out by leaving my sunglasses at home. All mathematically proven by the same method I use to decide the best color.

I wouldn’t say color is not important, but I would say color is more important to the fisherman than the fish. It’s not easy to see color underwater most of the time, so you can get away with a lot. Lightness or darkness and amount of flash are more important, in my opinion. Really clear water is a different game.

It’s surprising to me that most of your catches were coming from the middle of the water column, but the rest of your results are not surprising to me. I fish from the banks in a reservoir in the south. I don’t agree with your conclusions that it’s directly due to pressure, and I don’t agree that one type of lure (soft vs hard) is always superior for everyone. It’s easy to compile results, but very difficult to draw hard conclusions from those results. Most of my fish are caught on soft baits, but there are certain times during the year when they are useless and I can only catch fish with hard baits. Friends fishing the exact same spot out-fish me with hard baits, and I out-fish them with soft baits. In my opinion, presentation and mastering a particular bait is more important than which bait is used, but certain baits work better certain times of the year. I think rattles are a gimmick that should have been discontinued decades ago. I think they probably spook more fish than they attract, but I couldn’t prove it. Pressure is a different thing altogether. Fish are not as stupid as they seem, but it’s not likely they have learned to avoid baits with rattles unless they have been caught and released. And even then, not likely they made the connection. I think pressure mainly affects when and where they forage, and it has a huge effect on that. It might seem like a fish in a private pond will bite lures that a fish in a pressured pond would not, but I think that is an illusion. They are just not scared.

It helps to see that it’s pretty much the same all over. One thing I’ve been seeing a lot of lately is where people have gone to the store and bought several blister-packaged rod and reels, and they just leave that packaging on the ground right where they fished. I just don’t get that. They come from a different world than me. I’m better off when I overlook what others do. It aggravates me to see, but when I get involved I usually end up getting angrier and make my experience even worse. I can’t change their behavior. It’s a mistake to think you can educate anyone. Some people missed some basic parenting that you just can’t fix, and those people look just like any other.

I’ve always thought they were mesmerized by the bait, but not really hungry, or maybe just chasing it defensively. I’ve seen it a lot, and I agree with WRB that it happens all the time, we just can’t always see it. I was thinking about this when you posted about that guy that won tournaments throwing a Creme worm into brush and then burning it back to the boat if he didn’t get a hit. I don’t disagree with his strategy, but I would slow down or pause that worm at the last minute. I’ve had bass come out of the water right in front of me trying to get my bait as I’m lifting it out of the water, and I’ve even caught a few like that. That’s a rush. It’s a very short fight, but it’s a heck of a rush.

Early success puts a bait in rotation. Consistent success makes a bait a favorite. Memory is a funny thing. When you catch fish on a new bait, it makes a big distorted impression in your memory because it’s such a great feeling to catch a fish on that new lure you just spent your money on. You might remember that you caught more fish, or that you caught fish more often with it than you really did.

If you only have 10 lures, odds are you’ll catch fish on more than 50% of your lures. If you have 1000 lures, odds are you’ll catch fish on less than 5% of your lures. Now that’s a generalization, so it’s obviously not totally true, but the basic point is true. The real trick is figuring out what lures work for you. You buy a lot of lures trying to find that out, and the answer is not the same for everybody.

Oh yeah, I remember seeing that posted here before. How does it swim? You have good luck with it?

Anybody ever seen, or tried, a spinnerbait with clear blades? I did a site search and only found one mention of it by @Munkin back in 2008: Jann’s sells clear polymer willow blades now, but I wonder how they perform. I’ve never seen anybody selling spinnerbaits with clear blades. I’ve gotten into making custom skirts just for amusement, and there’s been some occasions when I’m using earth tone colors I don’t want a lot of flash from blades, I want the skirt to be the visual attraction and the blades to just create vibration. I want it to look more like a crawfish than a shad.

One difference I've noticed about Rat-L-Traps and Cordells is that they sit with the nose up and the tail down. Academy’s lipless and Strike King’s Red Eye sit level. All of them run nose-down when retrieving because the nose acts like a lip, but I don’t understand why Rat-L-Traps and Cordells are balanced like that.

Spinning or baitcaster? Spinning (Legalis) is Torx T-8.

Best shot would probably be eBay, or the market here on BR. I doubt they're being manufactured anywhere, but if they are, it's probably Chinese. It wouldn't surprise me if someone still has some of the originals. There might be somebody out there that bought a bunch and never used them, or a retailer that never sold them. I've still got two of them left that I bought back in the late 70's.

I live right outside the boundary of where moccasins have been found in my state. If you look at the map in that PDF, their range isn't based on North or South. I don't really understand why they do or don't live in certain areas. The only Armadillos I've seen have been dead on the side of the road. I've seen quite a few, but never a live one. They must be pretty elusive. I saw flying squirrels for the first time in my life this year, living in a birdhouse in my own backyard. I saw one poking its head out one time, and I've never seen them since.

That's the Quake 80 you're talking about?

They're real easy to confuse with some water snakes. To tell the difference, you have to get too close. This is a pretty good PDF showing the differences: LINK

Yeah, just because you don’t see them… Copperheads can be almost invisible in the Fall sitting in leaves. I once fished right next to one for several minutes until I just happened to look down and see it sitting inches from my foot. Most snakes will move to avoid humans, but Copperheads will freeze, making it easy to accidentally step on them. I fear them much more than Rattlesnakes. I played with snakes as a kid too, so I don’t have the fear and hatred for snakes that a lot of people do. I recently came upon a Black Racer, which I’ve never seen before, so I got closer to check it out. I was super surprised when it came at me like 90 mph like it was chasing me. It didn’t bite me, but I learned later they have a rep for attacking, even though they are harmless. I had a good laugh afterward, but I learned a little respect.

I've never even seen any of their plastics, but I've had really old plastics that smell strong, and a bag of worms that was left out in the sun for like a week that smelled really strong. I've used both and had really good luck with them, so don't assume your craws are no good. If you try pinching your nose and tasting them, they probably taste no different than any other plastic. The way fish sense odors is more like the way we taste flavors than the way we smell odors. That being said, if you have no confidence in them, then they're no good, so get rid of them.

I probably got it wrong. I looked at them a few weeks ago and I was just going from memory (and I forgot my memory is untrustworthy).

The other difference is they don't move like a jerk bait, they move like a lipless when swimming/jerking. With some brands, they don't sink fast when they hit the water, so if you start to retrieve too soon, they'll just flop sideways. It's just very different from normal lipless, it's more like a shallow jerkbait. I think the Quake 70 is 1/2 and the Quake 80 is 7/8.

It's like they're too hard to find for them to become popular, so I don't think you have to worry about that. I don't think most people would like them, compared to a regular lipless. They take getting used to.

I was going to ask you for a review, but those picture's are worth a thousand words. Have any problems with them swimming right? Do they cast okay? How deep can you get it to go?

I went to 2 different local Academy stores last weekend, hoping to find clearance deals like last year, but I was very disappointed. They both had fishing clearance sections, but very small selections of oddball items and not so great prices. Nothing like last year. So don’t get your hopes up too much if you have an Academy close enough to travel to. You might want to call before making a long trip.

I've had the same problem. One thing that helps is removing the split ring and putting a heavier hook on the front, but you're right, they don't work like you'd expect them to. I've also tried gluing tiny strips of lead on the front bottom, it helps, but still not great. That larger size seems like it would solve the problem, and I'd like to buy one, but I'd prefer you to be the guinea pig ?

You've got to give them a few seconds to right themselves after they hit the water when they land on their side. You can't start retrieving right away. I don't have much patience for that. That Quake 80 is beautiful, and with the larger size/weight, I'd be real surprised if it has that problem. Please let us know how it works out.

I think it’s saying they can tell the difference between those two colors better, not that they can see those two colors better than other colors. To a bass, red may look like black and green may look like white. (I’m making that part up myself just to make a point) The two colors look very different to them. The info in the report is really interesting, but I think it’s hard to take the results and apply them to fishing. How a color appears in certain water and light conditions is just as important as how it appears to the fish in perfect conditions. The report also says bass see white and chartreuse as being basically the same color. I don’t think you’ll find many fishermen that think those two colors are the same.