Heartland

Fast and Extra Fast actions are better for setting stout single hooks in general. The rod stops bending sooner and reaches the power portion of the blank faster. Some of the benefits of faster action rods are that they tend to be better at transmitting vibration, aid in setting single hooks at a good distance and make it easier to move fish away from cover. Moderate and Moderate Fast rods have typically been used in crankbait fishing where small wire trebble hooks are easily torn out of a fishes mouth, their parabolic action helps prevent this. Everyone in fishing has an opinion on this, and now you know mine.

Rod Mfg's have complicated a rod's power, action and tip unnecessarily by using their own terms to describe their blanks. There is no true standard, but many agree on the terms power and action.

It's exactly the same, only different. Seriously though there are a thousand and one videos on everything a guy could possibly ever want to know about a WP. All I can tell you is that they catch fish, the sound they produce and their action is not like any of the baits you mentioned. Spend the 10 bucks and join the party. YOLO

Gen 2 Revo Premier 6.4:1, Falcon Cara Jason Christie Frog Rod. 50lb Sunline FX2 braid.

Top water - Show blows shorty, Stutter step, Whopper Plopper Ned Rig Elastec Plastics Drop shot hooks with swivels built in Tatsu, Sunline Defier Armillo, Gliss, Keitech plastic baits, Reins plastic baits. Just a few things that are new or have been improved upon.

I love watching it when I remember, I don't use the TV that much.

Start with a good base coat, I have started to use Rust-Oleum 2X flat white or flat black for a base coat. Bonds to plastic, covers fantastic, and I have had no problem at all laying acrylics on top of it. Much quicker and a lot less trouble in my opinion. Find something you can practice on, work on air pressure and paint thickness and the correlation between the two to dial in a nice even flow of paint. Do some research online and mix your own reducer and cleaner, it will save you lots of money and it works just as well as far as I can tell. A lot of people practice shooting paint on mirrors, if you can get a good coverage on a mirror without it running or spattering then you are dialed in good. Dry between every coat with a hair dryer, as a rule of thumb, sometimes you may want the blending effect that shooting wet can provide. Take your time, never be in a hurry, and remember if you don't like it, just wash it off, a little water and rubbing with a paper towel will take you right back to your base coat, use alcohol for anything that is being stubborn. Watch the videos on line, they will help you more than you can imagine. Good Facebook group to join is, "Brotherhood of Custom Crankbait Painters" they display their works of art and tell you step by step what colors and how they achieved the results. /Soapbox

Been some conversation recently about equipment and materials needed to start airbrushing crank baits or other hard baits. I would like to see the work of others on this site. Painted hard baits, jigs, spinner baits ..... These are a couple that I have done over the Holiday break, I ordered a few KO blanks and have been working on those and took a break to paint these while I had everything out. I chose these patterns as the result of another thread. Far from perfect but certainly usable. I used Bomber Fat Free Shad and a DD22 that were in bad shape to create these. I love the sound of the plastic and rattles in the older FFS baits. Anyway my versions of LC Copper Perch and Bull Brim.

Here is how I figure out how much mono backing to use for a predetermined amount of main line. Spool Capacity = 145 yards of 10lb mono @ .014 145 X .014 = 2.03 Main Line = 75 yards of braid @ .011 dia 75 X .011 = .825 ----------------------- Subtract = 1.205 Divide result by dia. of mono backing 1.205 / .012 = 100.41 Backing Line = 8lb mono @ .012 dia Using this example you would use 100.41 yards of the 8lb mono and then 75 yards of braid to fill the spool (aprox.) I have done it this way for years and it will get you very close, but you still need a line counter.

Not too hard of a color to paint, or at least get very close to. I have done a few, and they seem to work well, last one I done was a DD22.

40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby does not apply to airbrush and compressor. Look at the fine print on their website. In my experience most acrylic paints will work fine if you take the time to thin them properly. For crankbaits, colors that are often used are, whites- pearl and opaque. Black, orange yellow, light and dark green, blues. Watch a few online videos of how to paint crankbaits, you will get more information there in a few hours than you will know what to do with. There was a post about this same subject just a day or two ago, might try a search.

Torque is over-rated for frog fishing, as mentioned many times, you move a fish with your rod not the reel. As far as IPT goes, you only need something fast enough to manage the slack line produced from working the frog.

1. adding additional split rings and/or larger hooks. 2. Jerking gives the bait an erratic action, try both. 3. I reel the bait down. I want it in the strike zone. 4. I prefer a slight nose down attitude. Water temp is a large factor as to whether a jerkbait suspends properly, they have a range of temps where they will work well, but often need slight adjustments to get them to perform as you want.

For myself I would say that it is not as important to know the exact IPT, just that if I have two reels, one a 25 IPT and one a 30 IPT, I will always know that if all things are equal the 30 will always be the faster reel. You can not assume that using gear ratio.

Opaque white and black for most standard base coats. Pearl white for a secondary coat when you want bright colors to pop. Some popular colors are com art opaque red oxide and opague aureolian yellow wicked colors wicked silver, detail moss green, opaque white, sepia, createx pearl lime. These colors are just some staples, there are many others. Purchase or learn to make your own cleaning solution and paint reducer you will need a lot of both. Here is a tip that you can use to get started on the cheap, Hobby Lobby sells a ton of acrylic hobby paints, ceramcoat is good one, it comes in every color imaginable. It is very thick, but when reduced properly sprays and covers very well and will set you back about a 1.50 a bottle compared to 5-8 for some of the major name brands. Good easy epoxy to get started is devcon, get the stuff that takes longer to cure. Blow dryer to set colors after spraying, paper towels, cheap brushes to use and throw away when you use your epoxy. Lots and lots of options, this is what I used to get going and never had a problem. Stencils, masks, 3M painters tape a handful of alligator clips, helping hands the list is ever expanding.

Gonna be a whole lot of hard water south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Dental picks work well used through the center hole.

Nice Fish, I would wage a guess between 4 - 5 lbs, probably on the heavier side.

Just a thought that I had, might be something to consider or perhaps you already have. Loomis and St. Croix rods, load very differently in similar powers and actions. Each has their own merits.

I disagree with this statement. The two elements that have the largest impact on crankbait diving depth with all other things being equal, are line diameter and casting distance. Here is a link to a really good article. https://www.bassmaster.com/tips/guide-precision-cranking

cool

I use it mine all the time, I use the ES610MLXF I find it to be one of the better St. Croix spinning rods, I also own the same rod in the LTB.

My personal opinion for what it is worth. I own and fish NRX's and Elites. The Elites strike me as the better value, while the NRX impresses me slight more with its ability to transmit vibration.

What line did you use for backing, or if known what is its dia. I will show you the easy math with an explanation if you can share this. Just to end what should have been very simple.

Interesting, not what I would have pictured in my head.