fin

I think this may be a key to my problem. I try new things when they aren't biting. When they are biting, I want to catch as many as I can. I do experiment sometimes when they're biting, but probably not as much as I should.

Good to know. A lot of times I rip it and then let it slowly sink, because it looks really good falling. The next time I try it, I'll stick with a steady retrieve and see what happens.

I haven't seen that in the stores, and I don't even see it on their website. Must be brand new. Two treble hooks on a frog is just asking for trouble. I reckon it would catch a fish, but you could probably call it Lt. Dan after the first hit.

It says it works with braid to mono. It looks like maybe it's a hot-melt glue. The joint looks too big to go through guides smoothly, so it wouldn't be any good for a leader. At first I thought maybe it would be good for someone who is disabled, or someone who has severe arthritis or something, but after looking at it, it's way too complicated for that. You even have to wipe the line with alcohol before using it. I can't imagine who could have a use for this thing.

This is a big one for me. I've pretty much given up on them, but will still throw one every blue moon. I've got several of the H2O Academy multi-jointed hard body swimbaits. They look great in the water, but I'm pretty sure I've never caught a fish on them and I've thrown them in the middle of schools of bass in a feeding frenzy more than once. It's not a real complicated bait to work, I mean there aren't a lot of options or different techniques to try.

Okay, so zero is not the time limit. That's kind of what the subject is about - whether you spend too much time trying something. I keep fishing records, and over the years patterns become clear, as you mention. Certain things work better at certain times of the year, and in certain spots on the lake/river/whatever. Sometimes I fish what has worked historically, but I find it kind of boring. Trying something different is a big part of fishing to me.

So you never try anything new?

Never? So, do you have a time limit or what?

During the dead of winter one year, when nobody was catching anything, I saw a guy catch a decent size bass on a beetle spin - the standard beetle spin, black with a yellow stripe. Up to that point I always considered beetle spins more of a crappie bait, so I never used them fishing for bass. Well, after seeing that guy catch a nice bass, I decided I’d give it a try. It seemed like a cheap lure, but I got hooked on buying a bunch of different types of jigs and grubs and spent the rest of that season trying to catch something with a beetle spin. I still try every now and then, and I may have caught one or two, but the results were not worth the effort. I’ve caught lots more using spinnerbait and I really don’t understand why that is.

It looks great in the water and you love it, but the fish don’t. You can’t catch a fish with it, or maybe you caught one the first time you used it and never since. But you keep on throwing it. Or maybe it cost so much you’re determined to catch a fish on it. Or maybe it’s what your buddy catches all his fish with, and you fish at the same place, but you never catch a fish with it. You’ve got other lures you know you can catch a fish with, but you keep throwing this one. What is it?

They ought to update their website if they're going to change the way they do it. https://www.seaguar.com/applications/faqs.html

No deer hunting friends, but I do have some pesky squirrels in the backyard.

I've never used any of the old spinnerbaits that used hair. I've sometimes wondered if there might be some benefits over silicone. It's definitely something different that the fish aren't seeing. I wouldn't know where to get hair or how to tie it on though.

That’s my point. If you can’t catch em with a $2 popper, spending money on more expensive tools might not be the best solution. It’s a good lure, but it’s expensive as far as topwater lures go. For the price, you could get 2 different lures. If you’ve got plenty of money, then heck yeah, get one! More toys = more fun.

That’s a good one. Here’s another - “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

They range in cost from $12 to $20-something? There are a lot of less expensive options. In fact, I think it's safe to say there are more cheaper options than there are expensive options. Not everybody has the option to just throw that kind of money at every new lure that comes out.

I found one hanging in a tree. Otherwise I probably never would have bought one. I've got just about every other kind of topwater, and I gotta say, it is unique. I haven't used it enough yet to say whether it's worth the money, but it looks really good in the water.

I fished for about 3 hours this morning, throwing chatterbaits, a lipless crank, and a trick worm. Not a bite. Just as I was leaving, I saw a guy catch a 3 pounder on topwater. It looked like he was using a Pop-R but didn’t know how to make it “pop”, he was just casting and retrieving with it. Sometimes the people who don’t know what they’re doing have more luck. Water was about 50º and muddy, 3 feet deep. I haven’t thrown any topwater in a couple/few months. I will be throwing some tomorrow.

If the ball floated, so that the bait was balanced and would suspend, they might have something. But a spinnerbait is esentially a weedless blade. Take away the blade and you've basically got a jig. Add a ball and you've got something to spook the fish. A friend bought one, he wasn't too happy. He said he was expecting it to "do something". Yo-zuri makes some beautiful stuff, I don't understand why they are pushing this product so much instead of some of their other stuff. The product description says, "3 years of testing and development". I guess they're trying to recoup some of that expense.

What is that in the middle? It looks like a textured skirt. There's an orange skirt to its right, green skirt to the left, purple skirt diagonally below it to left.

Gotcha. I haven't seen a half-dollar or silver dollar in thirty years or so. I imagine most kids have never seen one.

You lost me. Here's a chart:

To me, that sounds like a slipped knot, not a break. A break is short, like a 1/8" curl. A slip is longer. I used to use fluoro for leaders. I went through two rolls of line (that's a lot of leaders) without a problem and then on the third roll I started having problems with knots breaking and slipping. It was all the same brand and type of line. I ended up switching to mono, and that solved 90% of my problems. I suspect that third roll of fluoro was defective or damaged by heat, but I don't know. I still occasionally have bad knots though, and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. It seems to me I'm doing it the same every time, but I must be doing something different. It's a mystery to me. My best advice is to test your knot really good before using it, and don't cut the tag too close, just in case.

A Bait-Walker would be better for dragging.

You can use a Scotch Brite pad, but you have to be careful. Scotch Brite comes in different levels of abrasiveness, like sandpaper. They are color coded. If you use one that is too abrasive, or if you rub too hard, you might remove the shiny off the lure. When metal rusts, that means it lost its protective coating (chrome, galvanizing, etc.). You can't really stop it from rusting again without putting another coating on it. Your rust is probably coming from the hooks or split rings, not the bait hardware.