fin

I would warn you to watch out for chemical reaction, but if you haven't seen any after 2 seasons, I guess you're okay. I bought some tiny rubberbands for an experiment with toads. Those two plastics didn't play well together. Those rubberbands were made for hair care, not sure exactly what they do with them, but they were like 1/2" long.

Found these on ebay. Homemade copies maybe? That looks like an underspin jighead. Weird. I'm not seeing what the benefit of a shorter wire would be, other than hookup rate. It would be easy enough to shorten the wire on any spinnerbait.

I don’t think I’ve ever owned any Ray-Bans, but it’s one of the original brands (1937) and there’s a reason they have survived all these years. I don’t think you can go wrong with them unless you’re looking for a status symbol. Ray-Bans used to be a big status symbol, but there are other brands that are ‘way cooler’ now. I’ve used aviators for fishing for years. I used to wear wraparounds, but they have several downsides like fogging, poor fit, they (sometimes dangerously) block vision, and they are more bulky when folded. The main argument you will see for wraparounds is they cut out light coming in from the sides, which is true, but that ignores the power of the brain to ignore and block out that light. If you are used to wraparounds, then obviously switching to anything else is going to draw your attention to all that you can see that you could not see before. It doesn’t take long for your brain to cancel it out, unless your brain doesn’t want to cancel it out because of beliefs/opinions. If you have your mind made up, it can be difficult to change. I always wear a hat when fishing, if I didn't, I might have a different opinion about wraparounds, I dunno. I always bought dark/gray glass, but recently tried some brown glass and after getting over the initial change, I’m sold. I’ve been able to see fish and structure that I couldn’t quite see before. I keep some dark glasses for driving, but most of the time I don’t bother to change after I’ve been fishing. The one downside to the brown glass is the reflections/glare show up as blue, which can take a little getting used to. I would suggest buying some cheap glasses in the style you’re interested in to try out before you make a major purchase.

I lost my t-rig in 15 minutes too. I lost it in riprap though, so I can't really blame the rig. It didn't stand up and wiggle as good as the shroom head jig, but it looked pretty good. I bent the EWG to make it even shorter and wider. I can see why fish would be attracted to it, it looks like an easy snack. A bream about 2" long attacked it when I let it sit near the bank for a second. I'm not sure it would be my bait of choice in flooding conditions / muddy / murky water.

They had very few options at my local Academy. I wasn't happy with the design of the bait holder either, or the heavy wire. I won't be buying again. Fishing is tough where I fish about 80% of the year, so I use a lot of small baits. Sometimes larger than average triggers bites too. lol. I usually avoid hot trends until they're no longer hot, but this appealed to the way I already fish. If I used ball head jigs, that would be so close to fishing with grubs that I wouldn't expect much better results than that, plus, I assume you would lose baits since there is no holder.

I'm not giving up. I'm going to try a t-rig with a 1/0 VMC EWG with a 1/16oz pegged Water Gremlin low profile slip-sinker next. VMC has the tiniest 1/0 for some reason. Still not as short as the jigheads I bought, but close enough I hope it will still have some wiggle. I'm not sure what I hooked into. Maybe metal. I tried working it loose for 5 minutes or so. I think those NedlockZ are heavy wire, they wouldn't bend before my 10# popped, and I was snagged only a few feet away.

So I broke down and bought a bag of finesse TRDs and a package of NedlockZ in the 1/15oz #2 hook (only size available in that weight). Only took me 15 minutes to lose it to a snag ?

I use 1/16 oz most of the time already, so yeah, no problem there. What is considered a small hook in a ned rig? It's all LMB here, no SM.

I've been real tempted to try ned rigs. I fish very similar methods, but not with the ned rig materials. I use small plastics with very little weight. The main thing that has kept me from trying the ned is the exposed hook. Both of these videos talk about catching 50+ fish off a single TRD. It's hard for me to believe when fishing an exposed hook on the bottom. Maybe the lake I fish just has a lot more wood and rocks. I also understand a lot of the hits come from the fall, and they never hit the bottom. I don't think that would be the case in my heavily fished lake.

From what I've seen at the lake I fish, 99% of people with boats still only fish the banks. A boat's just going to put you on the other side.

That'll work. Those Eagle Claw EWG have served me well, I've been through a ton of them. They do what I need them to do. I'm not going to pay more for something I can't see. I've tried quite a few brands and I've never noticed any major difference that's worth paying for. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

I've been thinking about switching over to straight shank, but I've been paying about 25 cents each for Eagle Claw EWG, and the hooks mentioned so far in this thread are like 80 cents to a dollar each. I go through a lot of hooks, and yes, I'm cheap. There's also a lot more choice available in EWG at my local stores. The Eagle Claw straight shanks at walmart are bronze, I'm not using that. I like that simple style of the Owner 5103. Anyone know of a cheaper option?

When you're scared to throw your jerk bait or crank bait because you're afraid you're going to get hung up. There are no conditions where I would not consider a spinnerbait, but the color and type of spinnerbait will depend on the conditions.

The description is wrong. It does have the Air Rotor, but it does not have the Air Bail. You can clearly see in the picture on BPS and on the Daiwa site. I've never owned a Daiwa. I've tried Shimano and Pflueger, and now I want my next spinner to be a Daiwa to see how they compare. I came close to buying the RG-AB when Overton's had that 40% off sale, now they're all gone. Maybe replaced by a newer model?

I couldn't see any line in the picture, so I assumed it was a bad knot. I guess it was incorrect drag setting or worn line. Whatever it was, I'm sure that fish feels a lot better now.

That's probably the first fish ever that was happy to be caught. Looks like a bad knot? I hooked the line on a rod and reel a few days ago. I've caught them before, so I know what it feels like. Unfortunately the fisherman that lost this rod didn't tie a decent knot when they spooled the line, because I could feel it easily come loose after I had already reeled in about 50 yards of their line.

Not polarized. If there were such a thing as polarized contact lenses, they'd be tough to put in, because polarization requires a specific angle of rotation.

Who are they trying to kid with those tiny little ventilation holes? How could that possibly make any difference? My $2 polarized aviator foster grant sunglasses from walmart never fog up unless I'm wearing a dust mask or something like that. You probably need to get away from the wrap-around style and go to a wire frame.

Easy to say, harder to do. Sometimes it's easier to just go ahead and spend the $5 to prove it to yourself it's not the solution. I've been catching a lot less fish this year than last year this time. I'm fishing the same place the same ways and also trying new things. The water has been a little slower to warm up this year compared to last and is probably a major factor, but it's hard to know what's really going on down there. Sometimes you just have to wait for it to get better. In the mean time, you can try new things, or you can stick with something you know works for you. It's hard to know which is the right way to go sometimes.

"JJ's Magic Fish Attractor" has a pretty good reputation. I don't have a lot of faith in scents, but some people swear by them, and I know some things, like clorox, will actually repel fish, so it can't hurt anything but your wallet to give it a try. Have you seen anyone else catching fish where you are fishing?

I was lucky enough to come into a bunch of free spinnerbaits a long time ago, some real nice ones, I don't know what they were. I add my own skirts. There were some that had matte black wire, like gun blued. Lost those a long time ago. I really liked that black wire, never see that for sale.

I experimented with glow-in-the-dark stuff a while, fishing right before daybreak, and I eventually came to the opinion that it scares fish. Maybe it works in some areas where there are edible bio-fluorescing food sources, but I gave up on it.

I still manage to lose them. I lost a nice one a couple days ago. You can wrap them around wood, lodge them in rip-rap, and I even lost one a while back just letting it fall to the bottom, it stuck like glue. It hurts to lose them because it's so surprising. Totally worth it though.

I never would have guessed. I wish I had the charging cable, I'd love to see what it would do.

On a lake like that you could probably catch fish on a bare chrome hook. I'm not jealous though ? I'd like to fish a lake like that just to see what they won't bite.