JediAmoeba

If they are going shallow, they are looking for places that are warmest. Look for those legs sticking out of the water, places out of the wind, muddy bottoms - places hit with sun, somewhere that may have warmercwater flowing in... I always took a castable thermometer because it's hard to tell what the temps are below the surface. Also, until the water hits 50 it can be a tough bite on the best days. The windows of opportunity seem to be short. I always had luck with slow 1/4 oz spinnerbaits with a willow/colorado combination going slow. Grubs on a jighead or a nedhead work well too for me.

Same.

I suppose - but I see a lot of kayaks and very few are Hobies.

Hobie needs to figure out their price points because that much for a yak is just ridiculous without any of the fishing essentials.

Every spring when the weeds are at their minimum and you can see all the garbage laying around I make sure my kids pay it forward to mother nature. I know there are a lot of good fishermen out there that also pick up refuse when they see it, but I think it is one of the most important lessons we can teach our young future anglers about fishing. Today I took my 3 kids around our local 8 acre lake and collected garbage for 2 hours. My kids patrolled the woods and shore areas while I wore hip waders and checked the edges of the water. I just thought I would share this, to get more people out into nature since it seems out country is on a forced lockdown and we are stuck at home! Overall we collected 4 bags of trash, some metal thingie in the lake and a grill cover.

You can see how beat up it is, has been bent into shape many times but still is going strong. I think they are 7 bucks.

I was always a fan of the Titanium spinnerbait but over time they changed them and they just aren't as good. Last year I bought some booyah and they are great - the one pictured has landed over 75 pickerel and 20 or more bass.

I am seriously failing at not buying tackle.

I really love the Zako but I don't love how easily pickerel rip them to shreds. Paddletails are ok if rigged upside down but I still prefer the beef of the Zako and its lithe tail behind.

I got one off ebay for 10 bucks. Suspending model, made in USA. In the package

I have tried so many times with Keitechs from the 3.3 to the 4.8 and bigger on swimbait heads, underspins and jigheads, in all colors imaginable and every brand imaginable. They are the worst producing bait, BY FAR for me. I catch more on everything else. I creep them, I burn them, I jig them...they just dont do it for me. And they look so good in the water just don't catch fish. They do make great trailers though.

Its going to be tough to fit the bill for the techniques you mentioned but I would look into a 6'6" - 6'10" that's a mh with fast action. It won't be perfect for any of the applications but will be pretty good for all of them.

The reel test guy is a total Shimano fan boy through and through - which is fine BTW. My beef is, he doesn't know how to properly cast a reel and bases all of his decisions entirely on how far a reel can cast by his standards in an open field. Also, he doesnt know how to properly tear down a reel and obviously has no engineering background. Plus, he is very annoying.

I see the biggest problem for small companies is that 100 dollar target. Every company tries to put out a pretty good rod that comes in at that 100 dollar price point. To do that they have very little margin on those. When you start hitting that 200 dollar rang, that's where you see the handmade and smaller companies that have great, if not superior products, compared to the mass produced ones.

I haven't seen anyone mention these. Get yourself some owner twistlock 5/0 hooks and a couple packs of the Rage Tail Shads, or Rage tail toads. It's an often looked over too water bait that is fantastic. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Strike_King_Rage_Tail_Shad_5pk/descpage-SKRS.html

This is different - It's for science!

d**n it. I should delete this page from my browser and forget it ever existed. Lol

Paddletail swimbaits and swimjigs. May as well throw a stick out there and retrieve it.

I would see how it fishes out of the package like I always do then switch hardware. When I get a bait I like to see how it fishes with the original hardware because that is usually a representation of how the company expects it to fish. I also have new digital calipers on the way to give accurate measurements.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/152436119879 Does anyone know if this is the old one? The packaging looks different. I want to get one but am worried I will just buy the new ones...

Ya did good!

Not entirely accurate. The IPT is not calculated the same by all companies. Some manipulate it by overfilling the spool and use the distance of the first crank as their IPT. Some are just ludicrous... Also, the IPT of the first cranks will be less than the last few cranks due to the spooled line adding onto the reel.... I find the best way is to make casts using a weight in a field. Because it is just a weight you are going to get the most optimal cast without and wind resistance from a lure. After the cast measure the amount of line out and add 20-30 yards depending on the spool.

I can't believe they have not found them yet. What a terrible thing to have happen.

If anyone has some vintage Rick Clunn's they want to unload, message me - I would like to try a couple.

A lot of my lures are for novelty. I catch 90% of my fish on 3 lures/techniques. A lot of this is due, in part, to when I started out I only had a few lures and really focused on those few lures and how to properly present them. Once I started buying more lures i didn't necessarily catch more fish...because I would fall back on those few lures I had perfected and had total confidence in... Confidence and cadence are important but you have to put the bait where the fish are holding. I think a lot of people that start out with a lot of lures are at a disadvantage in some ways - they don't learn where the fish are and focus more on why the fish arent hitting each lure. So, bo, I don't think you are at a disadvantage.