Big Hands

The Kage rods have Alconite guides, and the Tatulas have Fazlite guides.

I think it has been interesting to see that most of us have a nemesis in the bait world that for whatever reason, and try as we might, it just hasn't happened for us yet. And then we see that others regard that same bait as their go-to confidence bait. One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

Since you have a kiddie pool to experiment in, I would suggest using different size weights and notice how differently the bait acts with different size weights. It's something I hadn't thought much about until I saw a swimming pool demo on YT. Octopus, mosquito, and dropshot specific designs all work well for smallish baits. You might be able to use more conventional designs for bigger baits. I would also suggest wacky rigging baits for dropshot fishing. I prefer it for the areas I fish, but YMMV. I prefer wide gap finesse type hooks for wacky rig baits, but there are many other designs used with excellent results. Circle hooks are more for natural bait fishing where a fish is going to hold onto the bait for an extended time and try to swallow it after you give them time to do so. The bent inward tip is great for holding onto fish once they are hooked, but no so great at getting the point into them initially. The O'Shaughnessy hook has a similar shape to dropshot type hooks, but are usually a much thicker gauge wire which makes it more difficult to penetrate when when fishing with finesse gear (light line and medium or medium light rods). The most effective dropshot hookset is not winding down and crossing their eyes like you might with some other techniques. Wind down and then into the weight of the fish, which took some getting used to for me, but it does yield a higher hookup ratio for me. If you're fishing a 6" worm dropshot style, I would probably texas rig it with either a Rebarb or Cover Shot hook (or similar light wire hook), or fish it wacky style with a wide gap finesse hook. That said, feel free to experiment to see what the fish in your area respond best to.

I have been fishing a Daiwa Kage (KAG731MHFB (All Around) MHF 7'3" 1/4 to 1 oz lure size) for the past few months. It is 7'3", but the butt section is slightly on the long side, so it may fish a bit shorter. The blank is matte finish, and guides wrapped black, so aesthetics are 'all business' and will look good with any reel. I'm very pleased with it so far and feel it's a great rod for under $200. You will only find them at small chains or local tackle shops because Daiwa won't allow them to be sold online.

A friend and I did a couple of side by side taste tests many years (decades) ago. Our conclusion (along with others present) was that the smaller channel cats were the tastiest, followed by the panfish (bluegill/crappie), then rainbow trout, and bass placed last. I honestly can't remember the last time I kept a freshwater fish other than trout to eat.

Maybe, but in my personal experience, not always. There was a worm I was fishing and absolutely killing with. I went through as many of four bags of ten in a day by myself. That worm was made by a very popular manufacturer that is still very highly regarded nationwide. They were made just down the street from where I worked, and they would sell them to me directly. One day I discovered that they had discontinued the color, and I inquired about that, telling them that this was hands down the best worm/color I had ever encountered and had fished it on several local lakes. The response was, "well, it doesn't sell that well so we're not making it anymore." I tried them in several other colors that were nowhere near as effective. Shortly thereafter, they quit making that style of worm altogether. My take is that you can tell it to them, but you can't understand it for them. I'm guessing they felt the same way about me. Side Note: One of the things I really liked about that worm was that there was something about their plastic, that I could see teeth marks in a worn that had been bit and could more or less gauge the fish size by how wide apart the marks in the plastic were, especially in the flat paddle style tail, but also on the body of the worm.

Nice 'lunkah'! ====================== I had a Lake Fork PIG take a swipe at a buzz bait right as I was going to lift it out of the water. Maybe the biggest mouth I've ever seen on a bass. I audibly gasped and reflexively yanked hard enough that the bait shot over the rail and embedded the hook in the side of a partner's shoe. We were fishing with 20 lb mono and drags locked down hard because of the timber we were fishing (picture dragging buzzbaits through two to four pockets over floating timber on each cast) I can't imagine the battle that would have ensued with that fish on the end of such of a short leash, but it would have been fun to find out.

Almost never a vertical presentation for me. I fish a canyon highland type reservoir that has almost no flats at fishable depths (so I'm almost always fishing a steepish bank, usually parallel to the bank at a somewhat consistent depth, say 15'to 25' deep), and I am always casting my dropshot rigs to target areas away from the boat that are 30' to 75' from the boat. Sometimes I will be casting up near or onto the shore and dragging it into the water.

They don't currently have that reel in stock in any gear ratio. $199 is the standard price for the latest version of that reel and it's hard to find it for less at this time. I have the previous Tatula SV TW offering in the XS gear ratio and love it. The biggest difference between the newest version and the one before it it that the mewer model has the zero-adjust spool tension feature for better or worse. I have a Tatula 100 with the zero-adjust and the Tatula SV TW without it. Doesn't bother me to have one or the other as they are both excellent, but YMMV.

Just a guess, but I imagine the OP solved his dilemma at some in the 12 years since he last posted. I've been caught out similarly when someone has raised an old post and didn't see the dates until after I had responded.

Sounds like it addresses the context perfectly. ?

Nope, no fish kill here. Pretty sure that I see the problem every morning when I look into the mirror. Ouch, no kidding? I caught my PB of 12 lbs 13 oz. on a Poes cedar plug, in December no less, on a model 400 IIRC. Very unusual circumstances TBH though. Massive bass rolling/boiling all around us. Never seen anything like it before, or since. Lucky for you, they are not nearly as popular as they once were.

Have you tried those monster worms at night? That's my favorite time to throw them. I have a separate bag just for plastic night fishing baits, and I usually don't fish those baits in the daytime. LOL, ouch.

That's probably the most common version of what I call the 'purchasing triangle'. Another version would be: Good, cheap, durable

LOL, this is meant to be more like a virtual confessional. No judgment. Another one I would not have guessed. I would think monster 10" and 12" texas rigged worms would be killer in your neck of the woods.

That would not have been a bait I guessed to be your nemesis, but bass fishing can be a cruel mistress.

I do.

Well, it does ignore the "try as I might" portion of the question. Surely there is something, or maybe not ?

I use my 1/4" chisel tip on a 40w soldering iron at times too. I think the tips that would be most effective are also probably the most delicate.

I think I saw that you had mentioned that somewhere in another thread, and that is partly why I started this thread. Well, that and to confess that I had never caught a fish on a Senko, and RW even made a post about how if you just can't seem to catch a bass, to get a Senko in #194 (I have the #297 which is as close to that as you can get IMHO) and fish it as he prescribes. And I haven't caught a lot on buzzbaits, but on one particular trip to TX they were on the money.

I think we all have bags and bags of those, but is there any particular one surprises you the most, given how much others seem to love them?

I would imagine many of us have a bait or three that we just have not have ANY luck at all with that is probab;ly a bait that most others have had VERY good luck with. So here goes. . . . Try as I might, never have I ever caught a bass on a Senko . Feels good to get that off my chest, LOL. Your turn.

I first fished a 2.8" Keitech E-Z Shiner on a dropshot rig at the end of the summer when I stopped getting bit on the Jackall flick shake. Then the dropshot bite slowed way down, so I started Carolina rigging the E-Z Shiner and eventually moved up size to the Swing Impact in 3", 3.5" and 4" and have been doing well on them for the past month and a half. I like the Keitech Swing Impact because it doesn't take much to get the tail action going and although I am fishing slowly (usually 3 to 5 minutes per cast), I do have to pop the weight off of the weeds several times per cast, and this is often when I am getting bit. I think I have settled on the 3.5" and 4" Swing Impact in Electric Shad as my current favorite and use either a #1 or #1/0 Cover Shot hook. They are fairly reasonably priced too IMHO, but YUM stuff is is generally cheaper. I find the colors of the Keitech baits more inviting than the YUM baits I have seen locally, but for that reason I have not tried them. So, I'm not saying YUM isn't good, just that the Keitech baits have been good to me. My favorite part about this setup is that many have moved on to jigging smaller fish up out of 50' to 60' of water, and I am still catching in 18' to 25' of water including this 22" fish last month on the 4" model.

This has been the lion's share of the plastic repairing I have been doing recently, and I will be slicing them going forward.