Ogandrews

I’ve owned 6 tranx and 3 Lexas and in my opinion the tranx is far away the better reel. Smoother, better casting distance, lasts longer, much more compact, amazing torque for its size. The tranx 300 almost feels like a bass reel in your hand but has the gears of a real musky reel. With them costing pretty much the same I would go with a tranx 300hg any day of the week. If you want some more info go look at some real musky stuff like muskiefirst and you’ll get the same answer.

Ended up buying a lexa 400hd at the beginning of the year to throw some musky blades on and after using it for not even 4 months the thing is already noticeably loud and Geary feeling. My 3 year old tranx 500 feels way newer than it, this has been the case with every lexa I’ve owned. Idk if I keep getting duds but that’s the last time I’ll ever spend my money on anything besides a tranx for big gear.

I’ll give a couple good options besides the swing impact fat keitech easy shiner- awesome subtle bait that outfishes the swing impact for me in cold water river2sea d Walker- awesome on a swim jig true bass swimbaits- hardest kicking and rocking swimbait I have ever seen after fishing 20-30 kinds, this is a hollow body so different than a swing impact Megabass mag draft- great bigger swimbait for the money regular keitech swing impact- great on a dropshot or on a very light jighead. theres more I use but these are the main ones.

I throw finesse jigs, as well as stroking heavier tubes, on a loomis imx pro 892c jwr which is a 7’5” medium extra fast. 30lbs powerpro maxcuatro to a 8-12lbs mono or floro leader. I like a longer rod for fishing jigs, especially with light line I feel like I get a much better hook set and can keep pressure better.

On my way to my favorite north woods Minnesota lake I stopped and a mom and pop bait shop that I like to look at what they have. I noticed that in reel case they have 2 brand new curado 300 E’s, one with a power handle on it as well as some brand new older model chronarchs. The 300’s are $200, I’ve got a handful of tranx but a lot of musky guys I know always tell me about how amazing of reels the old curado 300e’s were. Anyone here have experience with these reels? Really tempted to grab one on my way up this next weekend.

3/8 dirty jigs swim jig perch color shakey head With a fat baby finesse worm Bullywa2 frog Kvd 1.5 perch 2.5” power tube

3.3 keitech in silver flash minnow on a jig head. Will catch bass walleye sauger trout perch crappie pike musky bowfin drum ect as well as any small to midsize saltwater fish. Good way to catch anything to use as cutbait for cats for a better meal too.

If money wasn’t a consideration I’d be dropshotting on either a 7’ medium st croix legend xtreme new model or a loomis conquest 7’6” medium. I generally like a longer rod, so an 892 nrx would be a great option as well

Baby rage craw on a small swing head crawled along rocks is an incredible way to put northern smallies in the boat

Last time I went shore fishing I did the infamous and impressive “try to bomb a cast super far, hit a limb of the tree right behind me with the bait, and proceed to get a backlash so bad I needed to cut all the line off and respool”. My fishing buddy was really jealous

Stroking a small tube on a heavier head. Works especially well for smallmouth. Even when your not stroking it I feel like most people overlook 2.5-2.75” tubes, such killer baits.

I threw squarebills and lipless on my jerkbait rod for a long time and had a good hookup to land ratio. I would waaaay rather throw cranks on a jerkbait rod than jerks on a dedicated crank rod. You can’t get the right action on a jerkbait if your using a super soft rod, especially if your fishing it on straight floro.

I use 80lbs powerpro maxcuatro to a 20-40lbs leader, either big game mono or sun line fc100 floro. Don’t use normal floro for a leader for big baits your just asking for break offs, fc100 is stretchy like mono so it works amazingly well. For stuff under 3oz you should be fine with 65lbs braid but 80 gives you better insurance if you get a backlash that nothing is going to snap. Powerpro maxcuatro is the best casting braid I’ve ever used, 80lbs is smaller diameter than most other brands 65lbs. Also been trying the Diawa j x8 grand on one of my musky rods, smoothest braid I’ve ever used. It is much thicker than maxcuatro but casts and handles very well also, so much better than powerpro Superslick. Once you get to that 65-80 range stay away from regular powerpro, it gets very wiry at the higher strengths.

In a river situation like that, especially if it’s smallmouth your after, I’d be more likely to pick up a Texas rig or another weedless lure than I would a jig. I’m not sure what it is about jigs but I always do better with a non skirted option in smaller rivers with good current than I do a traditional jig.

If you want to do it right than get some knipex 8” compounding bolt cutters, I can cut through a 8/0 mustad musky treble which would be like a 5x or 6x strong bass hook easily with one hand. Their not cheap, the company crescent makes compounding wire cutters that look super similar that are only $9 and will still cut a musky hook with one hand, just not as easily. You can find either at Home Depot or menards or Amazon. For barbs just get a good set of well made long nose pliers, I never go fishing without them I hate unhooking treble without them.

The biggest 4 crappie, including a 15”er, came on a whopper plopper 90 fished like a devil horse, pull pause. If you can cast them the smallest sized floating rapala makes a micro wake bait if you keep your rod up and reel slow.

Yea I remember you now, pepin has already been putting out some great pike and smallmouth for my lately, should only get better in the next month or two. Been also doing well for smallmouth and eyes on wing dams on the river around wabasha, catching both in the same areas on smaller swimbaits and cranks.

Don’t know what his thought process was buying it but he likes it so I can’t knock him too much.

Just saw this, I fish pool 4 mostly but have some experience around there as well, shoot me a PM

Lake pepin has been treating me pretty well lately, haven’t had a day under 10 fish the last 4 times out. Had to take my boat into the shop to get the impeller replaced so we fished off of my buddy’s mid 80’s fish and ski, I have never appreciated my basic deep V tiller so much. Today I had around 20 smallmouth and like, most smallies were in the 2-3.5 range and all the pike were 25-30. Almost all the fish were caught burning a lipless over sparse weeds and around the giant sand points on the Minnesota side. Most effective baits were the SK red eye shad 2tap and cotton cordell spot, gold and sexy Shad, also got a couple on a white thunder cricket. Water temps were 73-75 in most spots, 71 at some of the creek mouths. The pike bite should really start picking up in the next month or so, as well as some more shallow water eyes. idk why I didn’t take many pictures today, this was one of the bigger smallmouth but had a couple pike bigger than these in the boat.

I guess I sort of emphasized the wrong point. I was more so wondering how bass end up in schools if similar average size, or the biggest males and females often pair up together, if they have no ability to gauge size. I know they don’t reason and think about things, but I wonder if there is some sort of intuition they have to stay with similar sized fish.

I throw almost all of my drop shots on an imx pro 892c, amazing rod for the technique especially when I’m rigging the bait weedlessly

One thing I didn’t say in my previous post was that a dropshot does not have to be a finesse thing. All a dropshot is is a hook suspended above a weight, that could be a #2 light wire hook on 6lbs test with a little 3” worm and an 1/8th oz weight, or it could be a 5/0 super line flipping hook with 65lbs braid, 1.5 oz weight and a big worm used as a punch rig. Majority of my dropshotting is done on a baitcaster with a 3/8 or 1/2 weight, medium wire hook and a mid sized worm fished around grass. You can use straight tails, curly tails, creature baits, swimbaits, flukes, whatever you want.

I started thinking about this after catching a bass the same size as my s waver 200 today. I feel like as fisherman we always give the fish more credit for their intelligence than they actually have. So often I will see a fish hit a lure the same size as them, almost as they think anything will fit in their mouth. But on the other hand you have fish that will school with others the same size as them, same thing when makes and females get on beds. I know the general belief is that you will get a better average size with larger lures, but if the fish had no idea how big they were than the size of fish shouldn’t change with lure size (yes I know you catch big ones on smaller baits I’m just making an example). I see this all the time when I’m musky/pike fishing, will have small ones try to eat baits over half their size when there’s no chance they could get it in their mouth. What do you guys think?

Drop shots are effective I don’t think that really needs explaining. Also the only thing I tie on on a dropshot is the hook, just like any other rig. I use clip on weights, sometimes I’ll do an overhand knot or two after I clip it to keep it on better but your still only tying one palmar