CDMTJager

Will do. Bait Monkey is fat dumb and happy in my house for sure. No he will NOT retire here, but lets say he will enjoy and extended vacation. But in all fairness to me since making all those purchases have spent literally 100s of hours figuring out what of I bought works best and I am very happy and relieved to report about 80% is working well. Glad I didn't go to crazy on color selection as the fish in the lakes I do 90% of my fishing in have shown a very clear preference for only four colors thus far, but I do not have enough hours worth of data to come to any conclusions. But thus far flukes in white ice/sight fish, watermelon red flake/pearl red flake and ghost shad have caught fish better than all other colors I tried by at least 4:1. Also dipping just the tails or last .5" of my slukes and swim baits in chartreuse dye I feel has definitely increased my numbers of hits. Especially about 90-95% if the soft plastics I bought, 98% of the chatter and willowchatters, and 90% of the hooks I bought for soft plastics work enough well but unfortunately only two will see use as they have that much better of a hookup ratio VS the others. Could just be unique to my situation and I didn't go into using any hooks for rigging soft plastics weedless with any pre existing prejudices or preferences whatsoever, just trying to determine what worked the best all around. For me two types of twist lock soft plastic hooks worked significantly better in every way than all the non twist lock hooks I tried with one just that much better than the other it is all I now use. That being the Owner Twist Lock Light hook. Until last year I hadn't tried a new of different SP worm hook in over 25 years. Always used either a standard OS worm hook or a O'Shaunessy Offset worm hook. Hell till last year never fished any other type of soft plastic save for worms. I guess my massive level of new tackle and lure purchases this year are making up for years of lost opportunities. Chatterbaits and willow chatters combined this year alone have combined accounted for over 100 bass for me including my largest bass fir the year thus far.

Scumfrog is tied as my favorite frog and one of the only two I use now and I use the Scum Frog most often. In two weeks on the lakes I fish most, my luer choices will be for 75-80% of the areas I can fish from shore will be Frogs OCCASIONALLY Poppers Soft plastics rigged weedless. Otherwise 90% of casts with any hard bait will result in bringing in a coffee can sized clump of weeds. It could possibly only me, but trying this smaller Scum Frog literally doubled my hookup rate with frogs. You might consider giving one a try if your aren't already. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Scum_Frog_Trophy_Series_Popper_Frog/descpage-TYP.html

Thank you will order some today as the cabela's and BPS near my home are out of 90% of all popular soft plastic jerkbaits, 100% in best colors (especially my faves) and and 100% out of even Zoom speed worms. I WISH I could use 6 or 8lb test but I'm a shore fisherman and weeds in my lakes since mid April make that impossible. Yes you can use <10lb test, just be prepared to have your heart crushed when a boss hoss is hooked. I mentioned in a different post in just ONE evening, I lost two (for my lakes) much bigger than average bass and one VERY large bass unquestionably would have been my biggest of the year and a potential PB for that lake using T-rigged 5.25" ZSF because they crashed dived into the weeds and my setup didn't have the ability to horse them out of the weeds. I'd LOVE to give finesse fishing a try, even invested $200+ in a finesse specific rod and reel but all of the lakes nearest my home I fish on a daily basis are so full of weeds shore fishing with 6lb test is just begging to get your heart broken. I did stumble onto a great deal on a very stable kayak so I will give that a try. Since that soul crushing night went to a much stouter rod and line.

Thanks for the replies and sharing your colors with me. Please bare in mind I am a shore fisherman and the lakes I fish are all (save for lake michigan) are comparatively small all under 600 acres in size and are on the shallow side none exceeding 30-35 feet in depth and I rarely can cast to water deeper than 15'. So in MY opinion and experience, any bass of 2-3lbs is a quality bass and bass over 3lbs is a good above average bass and bass over 4lbs is a high quality bass. I catch a lot of bass just not alot of bass over 4lbs. Which I am certain is due to my very limited access to structure that holds bass. So for a shore fisherman I feel catching 8-10 bass in under 5 hours is a very good night. Had an interesting experience tonight. Wanted a weightless soft plastic jerkbait that was heavier than a Zoom super fluke I could cast farther without having to add weight as I want my bait to sink as slowly as possible during rests between jerks. So I bought some KVD Caffeine shads in pearl shad among other colors. Was doing very well catching bass on 5.25" Zoom Super fluke in white ice but saw just to much fish activity at the surface chasing minnows near lily pads to not try to cast to it. Unfortunately my Zoom SF didn't have the weight to cast that far, I kept landing a little less than 10 yards short. Fastest solution was replace my ZSF with a KVD/CS so I did. 15 well placed casts later no fish, not even any hits. Put the 5.25" ZSF back on waded out about 15 yards and the top of my 16" boots submerged and my boots filled with water but I could now reach the pads with my casts and proceeded to began catching bass by my 4th cast and caught 5 bass bringing my nights total to nine bass landed and released. In my opinion the KVD/CS and ZSF were nearly identical in color both when jerked darted erratically in all directions, both were nearly the same length, but the KVD/CS sank much more quickly VS the ZSF and did have a different profile but I do not know that matter as much as IMO the faster sink rate likely did. Unfortunately everyone near me is out of 90% of the most popular colors and sizes of flukes including 7" Zoom Magnum flukes so I will have to order some on line as I feel the magnum ZSF's likely will sink at about the same rate as the regular ZSF and be heavy enough to cast the 10 more yards I need. I did switch to a 7'3" MHF spinning rod used 30lb Sufex 8 strand 832 braid a sampo BB swivel and 15lb Yo-Zuri copolymer leader. No more losing (along with my heart) fish in the weeds for me. Total for less than four hours fishing was 13 bass on nine landed and released, had three go airborne and get off, one my leader broke, missed at least 5 possibly 6 fish due to setting the hook to quickly after they hit. Most of the fish I set the hook to quickly on literally turned my fluke inside out pulling my 3/0 Owner screw lock hook completely through the fluke. I was astonished and at a loss to explain as how that could happen but I didn't hook the fish. Interesting educational and productive night. Just kicks butt owning a fishing boat like yours.

I am inclined to agree with both of you.

Just started using flukes and swimbaits rigged weedless as the weeds are already making crankbaits unusable in my most fished lakes essentially impossible and are enjoying amazing success. My only regret is I didn't try flukes and swimbaits years ago. As of now I am limiting my color selection to those colors recommended by YT personalities who's fishing advice in the past has worked very well for me. Colors I am using that are producing bass on a regular basis have been: #1Ghost shad worked best so far of all colors but other three worked almost as well #2Watermelon red flake due to noticing the gills were on their beds spawning #3Pearl flash/sight fish #4Pearl chartreuse tail. Colors #3 and #4 worked equally well Tried a new variation of Watermelon red called watermelon red flake pearl and it also worked well and caught 4 bass in about 90 minuets' but a quite severe thunderstorm rolling in on me caused me to call it quits. Was wondering in lakes like mine where the primary forage fish are gizzard shad, bluntnose minnow, golden shiner and the usual panfish, what colors do you more experienced guys tend to use?

Started using fluorocarbon line for the first time this year. I read after having used it since March, and saw where to my surprise fluorocarbon requires a you use specific types of knots to avoid knot failure. I use the Trilene knot for every non-braided line and the Palomar for braid. I can honestly say I haven't had a Trilene knot fail me with Fluorocarbon line yet and been using braided line for 5-6 years now never had a Palomar knot fail with braid and lord knows I have tried to get it to. I have since started using the double Palomar knot for braid just as added insurance but are wondering if the double Palomar knot and Trilene knot are acceptable to use with fluorocarbon? I would immagine the double pitzen would work with fluorocarbon as well.

Where to begin in last 8 months for myself and my two sons to use Bought six new baitcasting rods (13 blackouts on 50% off) Bought one Daiwa Tatula casting rod Bought 8 new spinning rods three Kast King, Three Daiwa, two Dobyns Bought four Abu Garcia Pro Max4's at 50-55% off Bought two Shimano SLX MGL 70 Bought seven new Kast King Royal Legend Glory spinning reels four 4000's three 3000's Bought 5.25" Zoom Super Flukes in four different colors Bought 4' & 5" Zoom Boot Tailed flukes Bought Cabelas 5.5" Shadee Shads in 3 different colors Bought (on CO) Berkley 5" Power jerk Shads in two colors Bought 5" YUM Houdini shad in three colors Bought 4" and 3" Yum Wooly bugs three different colors Bought Strike King Caffeine shad three different colors BPS 5" go to minnow in 4 colors BPS Hoochie Coochie minnow in 3", 4", 5" Bought 4" Keitech Easy Shiner and Fat Impact swimbaits in three different colors each Bought Wacky worms form Z-man Zoom, BPS, Cabelas three different colors Bought 3.3" and 3.8" cabelas swimbaits in four different colors each Bought Zoom trick and Ultra vibe speed worms two different sizes four different colors each Bought HogFarmer Spunk Shad 3.5 & 5.5" four different colors each Bought Owner Twist Lock hooks #1, 1/0, 2/0, 3/0, 4/0 both unweighted and weighted Bought Gamak Twist lock hooks in 2/0, 3/0 and 4/0 weighted and unweighted Bought multiple different styles of EWG, and Oshanacy from Owner, Gamak and Trokar Bought wacky and DS specific hooks in standard and weedless Bought a BUTT load of Z-Man chatterbaiats and willow chatterbaits in three different colors 1/4oz. and 3/8oz Bought bare 1/4oz and 3/8oz Z-man chatter jig heads Bought 1/4oz and 1/8oz under spins jigs Bought a butt load of assorted jigs form four different manufactures in four different colors in 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2oz Bought multiple 3/8oz spinnerbaits in colorado and Indiana blade Bought 1200yrds of 10lb Yo-Zuri copolymer Bought 1800yrds of 15lb Yo-Zuri Copolymer Bought HI-VIS braided line in 15 and 30lb test from Power Pro and Suffix Bought a 20 assorted plastic tackle organizing boxes form Flambeau, Cabelas and Plano That's about all I feel like typing for now.

If you would please which version as I am finding at least three different SLX MGL models

Had my heart broken not once but three times last night. Gills are on their beds and I was fishing a watermelon red flake 5.5" fluke in my favorite lilly pad patch and lost two big bass and one behemoth. All because I was using spin casting set up so I could toss my fluke the long distances I needed to get to the prime areas I knew likely held bass. All three bass hit very early into my retrieve after a 40 yard plus cast. I set the hook no issues but all three bass immediately went airborne then crashed dived into the weeds and the combination of line stretch of my copolymer line with a 30 yards+ of line out, my medium action rod and 10lb test line I just didn't have the power needed to horse a big bass up and over the weeds. This has already happened two previous time this year fishing swimbaits. I feel none of my current baitcasting rods I own have enough flex in the rod to be able to both cast a 1/4oz to 5/16oz bait far enough to get me to the areas I know hold bass or more accurately bait fish the bass are after. I plan on using a 1/16 or if need be a 1/8oz weighted Owner Twist Lock hook to help solve my casting weight issues. I plan on spooling the reel with 20lb 8 strand braid to aid in casting distance and hopefully cut my way out of weeds if need be. Will use a barrel swivel to go to 10 or 12lb fluorocarbon leader. My budget it $125 Looking for the most sensitive rod I can get at that price that can cast a no heavier than a 3/8oz T-rigged soft plastic.

My pleasure to share my at this point limited experiences of a novice fluke fisherman. My novice advice is if you must go weedless as I must, absolutely do not hesitate to experiment with what weedless hook design will serve you best. As I stated above I ended up trying out four different hooks specifically designed for a weedles application in one outing, found two that didn't perform to an acceptable level and two that did, one clearly out performed all three other hook designs. Then I tried a forth because I couldn't get the one I liked most and it performed as well if not better than my previous favorite. To date I have tried five size 3/0 worm hooks with my flukes and the only two of the five I will actually use are: Gamakatsu Super Line Twist Lock and an Owner Twist Lock Light Hook. Bare in mind there are unquestionably other worm hooks that will work at least as well possibly better, I'm just sharing my limited experience of what worm hooks used with 5"-6" flukes worked for me, but they did work VERY well and if I did my part correctly I enjoyed at least a 75% hook up ration over all. That doesn't mean I landed 75% because I didn't as several managed to get off. Now I did state I failed to hook up with a large number of hits at first, but if I am honest about it 80% at least of my missed hits were me reaction setting the hook to quickly without ever having reeled down to remove all slack. I found if I waited a literal 1001-02-03 count while simultaneously reeling down to remove all slack from the line then use a hard smooth sweeping motion to set the hook I hooked about 7 out of 10 fish. I plan on continuing to try different worm hooks to see if any can work better than what I currently use.

Thank you for your honest and well written insiteful reply. As I have said before I am literally 10 minutes from getting a luer in the water from my home, 5 if I bring a bike with me to minimize my walk. And as I said previously this lake has a very good density of 2lb+ to 3lb bass and I don't know the why of it but I now catch at least 10 bass over 2lbs for every bass I catch under 1lb, I suspect it is because I stopped using night crawlers three years ago and night crawlers under a slip bobber were my bass offering of choice at least 50% of the time. I know of multiple spots where I can always get a bass or three so accurately test out the effectiveness of a new luer especially a new soft plastic is relatively easy task for me. I have yet to try out a drop shot rig or a wacky rig. I have brand new dedicated spincasting setups actually for both sitting in my rod rack in my basement. I have a good varied selection of weights and hooks specifically designed for both as well as a few soft plastics designed for both, I just haven't gotten around to trying either system out. Now that besides top water lures, I am going almost exclusively soft plastics in the lakes I fish due to essentially no other viable option due to weed growth from now till cooler temp come and kill off the weeds I will absolutely try out both the DS and wacky rigs.

Just so happens I have 3/0 skip gap hooks I think a 25 pack of them will have to give them a try. I'll give pack a try and see. I guess maybe not. Can not find them in stock anywhere.

I do not agree (meant) DISagree it looks to be a fantastic performing luer but does it catch at least 4x more bass than a fluke that it costs 5x as much? To me cost takes a back seat to effectiveness. I absolutely will not hesitate to spend 2-3x more money to increase my success by 100%. But this bait costs $1.57c each VS bulk flukes costing .32c each. Again this is in my opinion a matter of cost effectiveness not just cost. Anyone seen this luer on a day to day basis have a consistent catch ratio of at least 3x greater than flukes or paddle tailed swimbaits there by justifying its near 500% higher price tag? Bare in mind this is not a bait that can be reused during 100s of fishing outings it is by its very design entirely disposable and meant to be discarded after a very finite and limited number of uses.

You sir are correct. Not most but all of my best outings of fishing for both numbers and size have come from fishing areas under 300 yards in length often under 200 yards of shore. My outing of three nights ago I caught over ten bass and only cast from three different locations along the same shore line. It was mostly but not all a matter of seeing minnows breaking the surface, bass breaking the surface going after them, casting past and reeling my fluke or swimbait through that area. I missed as many bass as I hooked. Only reason I wish at times to cover more area is the lakes I fish most often have very few distinct topographical features and are mostly comprised of straight featureless shoreline. Yes they have minor and major points and a few inside corners and these all get pounded. The lake closest to my home has huge areas of shoreline inaccessible due to impenetrable weeds that grow 6-8' high but I am now regularly brush busting to access good looking areas but this is not without its own problems as the shore line weed and shrub growth everywhere around this lake is absolutely LOUSY with tics and rarely do I fish this lake and not end up with a tic or three on me. My last three trips I had tics either on my skin or on my clothes or both.

Yep I use paddle trailed swimbaits made by Keitech, Rage and Cabela's/BP swimbaits rigg then same as flukes and they work based on my experience this year almost but not quite as good as flukes. The flukes and swimbaits I use made by Cabela's work as good as anyone else's in my experiences. My favorite fluke is the Cabela's 5" Shadee Shad in Ghost color. I also use flukes made by Z-Man and Yum all with great success. And as is ALWAYS my luck with all hunting and fishing things I LOVE Cabela's has in their INFINITE wisdom chosen to discontinue the production of the Shadee Shad in Ghost color and per the outfitter I spoke with at Cabela's discontinue production of their Shadee Shad Fluke series of SPL's. I believe him becuase there were almost no Cabela's Shadee shad baits left at either my local Cabela's or BP and they are available only in very limited colors at either WS and NOT available in Ghost Shad color. I am now waiting for Bitters to have their 5" fluke in Ghost shad color back in stock to order them in bulk. Plan on ordering bulk from Bitters 5" flukes in Ghost shad Sight Fish Blue gill In my two favorite lakes Ghost Shad outperformed all other colors.

Thank you for the suggestions. I also just started using underspins and other jig heads with blades attached but right now it would be a waist of a cast to use them as they have naked hooks and would come back carrying weeds just like my willowchatters do. Don't misunderstand me some form of a bladed jig like willowchatters and chatterbaits have been absolutely devastatingly effective for me on bass from mid March until 1st +/-10 days of May then because the shore access areas of the lakes by my house are all under 15' in depth they weed up very quickly. One day this spring during last week of April my son and I fishing a local small lake using willowchatters and small bladed 1/4oz chatterbaits landed 47 bass in approximately six hours of fishing after sun rise in an area of shore line less than 800 yards long. Days like that happen only a few times each year for most shore fisherman. No doubt the bass are still there, just the weeds now are so thick and I am shore bound casting anything but a weedless lure is pointless. I do make trips 1.5-3 hours from my home to lakes with good to vary good shore access but weeds aren't a problem as often as I can but most of my fishing and because my sons both work and are in local colleges when we get to fish together its at the local weed choked lakes. Thank you for your reply and advice. My knowledge despite 50+ years of bass fishing is still rather limited and can not hurt to ask those more knowledgeable than myself for a better way if one exists. I honestly would have never thought a 4-5" long soft plastic lure could work this good at catching bass but man I've been just hammering the bass with them and this is from two heavily pressured bass lakes, although admittedly I only fish these lakes monday through thursday and friday mornings only. Friday after 5pm and weekends just to many people.

Again thanks for all the replies. I am in utter amazement how much more I have learned about bass fishing, but much more amazing was just how little I knew and now become more educated about bass fishing in the last 4 years and especially the last two years than the previous 30. I did have a period of about 10 years decades prior to the concept of the internet when I subscribed to the original InFisherman and that magazine did improve my fishing abilities a great deal. But then what happens to all men who love fishing and do fishing trips all over America and to Canada, talking fly in trips, canoe trips etc fishing trips for bass walleye, salmon trout etc, I got married and had kids and took a new job that for many years left me minimal time for family and even less for my two loves of my life prior to fatherhood, hunting and fishing. Now thankfully my off days have increased by a factor of 3x to more off days now than ever while being married and I'm back into fishing and hunting as much as I can. And yes I have found getting better at fishing is like everything else in life it's going to take time and trial and error and time to build knowledge and knowledge becomes confidence. I already am at least 3x more successful of a bass fisherman than I was even two years ago and my versatility in using different lures and presentations has gone up at least 5x greater than it was just five years ago. My ONLY complaint is just how bloody awful expensive fishing lures and terminal gear has become, and being a shore fisherman losing lures and terminal gear is unavoidable. Because the overwhelming majority of the lakes I fish have vegetation beginning in April and by may are mostly taken over by it till deer season takes me from fishing, using soft plastics rigged weedless is my primary fishing method 90% of the time and I am absolutely shocked at the cost of soft plastics now. But these same soft plastics, especially using newer presentations like drop-shot and free-rig, just catch the heck out of the bass so it's just the cost of our hobbie. You ever consider getting rich creating your own?

On that note I will buy quite a few more as the Owner Twist Lock Lite hook as they worked very well for me and my sons will now start fishing flukes and SB's as soon as they can. I just ordered bulk flukes from Bitters to help offset the cost at over 60c each three people all fishing them from the same supply the cost in lost or no longer usable flukes will add up quickly. While on a recent short fishing trip to Ohio (my son wanted to go to Cedar Point AP) after my son and I stumbled onto some quite good very small bass lakes and a marina shore wall of small boulders, after only two days of dawn till dusk fishing the bass tore the paddles off over 20 paddle tailed baits we were using as trailers on our chatterbaits. All were two different styles of 4" Keitech paddle tail baits. Made me wish I had some 3" baits with. Although I had some perfect sized ones with, unfortunately weeds were to thick to add a treble stinger hook, if I could have our bass catch would've more than doubled.

As I have stated in previous posts here I am shore fisherman and I have quite a few IMO good bass lakes under 30 minuets drive from my home. I rarely get skunked and 90%+ of my bass are over 2lbs which I feel is pretty good considering #1 I can only fish from shore #2 these lakes get fished hard especially hard on the weekends (some of these lakes I no longer fish on weekends unless conditions are so good I must fish them) and I always catch a few bass in the 4-5+lb class from all of them every year #3 these are all small lakes <600 acres in size. The bass lakes I fish near my home would be IMO/IME characterized as having better than average numbers of medium sized bass up to 4lbs with a few bass of 5+lb caught by myself and my sons every year but catching more than 2 or 3 bass 6lbs and over by myself are rare undoubtedly due to me being restricted to shore access only. All these lakes the water is more on the clear side than not clear with visibility under extended periods of normal stable weather conditions of at least 2 feet. All would be classified as relatively shallow for shore access with depths reached from by a shore bound angler rarely exceeding 15' and average would be less than 10'. Now for my decades old problem. It is only the third week of May and using any crank bait even ones that dive 1' or less is simply a waist of time as they will snag aquatic vegetation every cast from at least 50% of shore access areas of every lake I fish near my home. By mid June over 70% of the shore access areas of the lakes I fish will become like this. Over the last 20-25 years I have tried every shallow diving hard bait I know of. Other than a spinner bait and now a chatterbait, crank baits similar to a Bagley minus-1 still can not make it more than the first 20% of a retrieve before snagging weeds and becoming useless for catching fish. Tried swapping out the treble's for single hooks but that yielded zero improvement. So I simply switched over to fishing soft plastics rigged weedless and fishing frogs or surface lures weeds permitting. Problem with fishing soft plastics like worms, creature baits etc is you cover area at a snails pace. Now that I have discovered fishing Flukes rigged weedless after four outings I am absolutely amazed at how well they come through even very thick weeds and remain more than weed free enough to catch bass AND you can cover water at least 5x faster fishing a weightless fluke or swim bait rigged weedless VS fishing a weighted weedless rigged soft plastic in a traditional method. I knew about flukes and boot tailed swim baits for several years as I discovered them while watching YT fishing channels in my effort of the last three years to become a better more versatile fisherman as my sons were really bugging me to teach them how to fish lures other than soft plastic worms and frogs and last two years taught them what I know about fishing chatter and spinnerbaits and the few different crank baits I used. It was ONLY two years ago I even started putting trailers on my chatterbaits or spinner baits and saw a significant increase in my catching bass with them again I learned this by watching YT videos. Thanks to information I learned here and by watching many many YT how to fishing videos I have become a much much more successful bass fisherman because I have become a much more versatile bass fisherman. So given my particular set of circumstances if I and my sons wish to cover as much water as possible as fast as possible but do so thoroughly that has a very heavy weed growth is there any other better luer for the job than a soft plastic fluke of swimbait rigged weedless?

Went to my local Cabela's today before I went fishing in hopes their WS was was correct that listed Gamakatsu Superline 3/0 screw lock hooks as in stock. Unfortunately there was only a single 5 pack in stock. Then I recalled a Nathan Quince video I watched last year on rigging and fishing flukes and he recommended a Owner TwistLock light hook and I bought all they had. Used them today with a BP Sassy Shad fluke bait and they worked every bit as good as the Gamakatsu Screw Lock hooks. Tonight was much less productive than last night only four bass. Caught the first bass first cast watched him fallow my fluke and I waited until it passed into an area open all the way to the bottom let the fluke drop, watched him suck it up and I got him. That was about 5:45P the other three bass all were caught after 7pm and before 8pm I could tell bass were herding minnows based on very large numbers of minnows leaping out of the water and seeing bass hitting them on the surface. BIG difference tonight VS last night was tonight there were 17-20mph SSE winds creating A LOT of wave chop and made casting accurately all but impossible.

It need not be explained how important using the correct hook for a given application is of the utmost importance. I just never realized till my last fishing trip this evening how important the same type of hook but of a different manufacturer and design can literally make or break your fishing. In other words not all hooks of a specific type made by different hook manufactures of their unique design will work equally well for THAT specific application. I decided to finally give a soft plastic fluke a try T-rigged weedless due to my chatterbaits, spinnerbaits and willowchatters all getting to much weeds on them. Yes I was catching very good numbers of bass, but every cast I was cleaning weeds off my luers. I looked in my small tackle organizer for hooks and pulled out an Gamakatsu 3/0 superline twist lock hook and rigged up a 4" Bass Pro shad bait and proceeded to absolutely murder the bass. I chose this hook because it had a reputation for holding the the soft plastic very well and it was light enough to have minimal affects on a flukes action and allowed it to sink while gliding. It more than lived up to its reputation. I also didn't hesitate to set the hook I just reeled down and set the hook. Awesome performing hook. Literally caught a bass first cast, then eight more in rapid succession. Then I got lazy and after my 8th or ninthe bass didn't re-rig as is my SOP because I was using only 8lb copolymer and my line broke before the knot when I got my ninth and largest bass for the evening to the shore and was trying to pick it up to release it. At least I kept my Sampo BB swivel. Now I had to re-rig. Unfortunately I couldn't find any more Gamakatsu Superline twist lock hooks in my T-boxes, so I used a 3/0 twist lock hook of a different manufacturer and it was blindingly obvious the design was MUCH different and about 70-80% heavier than that of the Gamakatsu and of a significantly different design over all, but I used it anyway. I then had five instances were bass hit my fluke so hard as to remove all doubt it was a fish biting the luer not contact with a weed, I set the hook and didn't nail the fish. I even tried giving the fish 2-3 seconds after it hit to give it time to get the luer positioned correctly in its mouth before I set the hook but no dice. Then went to a traditional 3/0 offset hook fished it same way, but essentially same results. Then I tried a Gamakatsu Nano Alpha EWG and still missed my first two fish, then it dawned on me again to let the fish have the bait at least 3 seconds before I set the hook (something I didn't have to do with the Gamakatsu screw lock hook) and my hook up percentage went up to over 90%. These bass were all big time ariel acrobats with all of them getting airborne repeatedly before I could land them. So I came away with three lessons about hooks to night #1 not all hooks of a specific type are made to the same design weight and dimensions #2 Some hook designs just work a whole lot better than others as in 10x better #3 If you're rigging up using a hook very specific to a type of bait to be fished a very specific way make absolutely sure you a goodly number of them in your tackle. Like to add a #4 #4 if you're slaying the bass and are using light line especially if using line at or under 10lb test or like me only using 8lb test line good idea to re-tie often.

Tom Mann one of if not THE founding father of soft plastics for bass fish made a quote I read over 35 years ago: "90% of fishing lures catch far more fisherman than fish" or something along those lines. Been fishing steadily for bass, pan fish, walleye, northern pike salmon and trout for over 50 years now. Although admittedly 70% of the time I am chasing bass LM or SM. But only really made an all out effort to be as successful and versatile bass fisherman the last six years as I could mostly because my two sons convinced me they truly wished to become far more successful bass fisherman. From the 1980's till 2018 I fished soft plastics, spinnerbaits and Rapala balsa minnow baits 90-95% of the time. After last six years of trying all kinds of new soft plastic colors beyond my old faithfuls I found myself always going back to a few colors that always worked. Watermelon red flake, Green Pumpkin red or blue flake, Okeechobee craw, BLK/BLU, BLU flek fire tail. Three new soft plastic colors I tried and worked well for me were June Bug, Tilapia, and red bug. Four things I did start trying 5 years ago that improved my fishing tremendously was chatterbaits and soft plastic swim baits both straight tail and boot foot tails and different kinds of soft plastics namely creature/bugs, 8" and 10" worms and bush hog type baits rigged Texas style and now this year will try free rig method. I also must give most of the credit for my improved success from trying new baits and colors to YT fishing channels learned all my new fishing techniques from YT fishing channels. Despite having invested over $250 in a dedicated rod and reel just for jig fishing and another $80 in jigs and jig trailers, I have yet to fish a jig this year as I was catching just to many bass and good quality bass by other means and the time I would have used to learn how to fish jigs I instead spent teaching my boys how to fish soft plastics, flukes, chatter and spinner baits this spring so far. My youngest did catch and release his PB largemouth this year fishing a chatterbait exactly the way I showed him as taught to me by Matt Stefan on his YT channel. Three days ago was in Ohio by Cedar Point AP and was fishing parallel along a rock/boulder shore of a marina in a public park on the shores of lake Erie and watched a very nice largemouth following my 3/8oz chatterbait and when the luer got close to me, I allowed the bait to fall onto a flat rock and I kept twitching over the rocks to give it some life like movement and sure enough the bass sucked it up and I caught and quickly released her. LOTS of great shore access bass fishing in the areas around Cedar Point AP.

All from shore, all in less than 10' of water, all in or around vegetation, rock mix, all on faster moving baits. Tried a MULTITUDE of different colors BLK-BLU-RD/GP/WML/BLK-BLU/B-Gill. All of March and most of April a 3/8oz BLK-BLU sparkle skirt chatterbait with 5" avocado-red sparkle trailer worked absolutely like a bass magnet. Then about last week of April that color went cold and then it went to white/chartreuse with 4" sparkle 1/2 white 1/2 clear shad minnow trailer I dipped the tails in chartreuse and highlighted the bodies with orange have worked amazingly well. I'm well past 100 bass in little over 50 trips.

My sons, myself and my sons friends have done extremely well on white and chartreuse spinnerbaits and chatterbaits so far this year. Talking REALLY well. All white worked OK, WHT/CHART out fished 100% WHT by 5-6/1. My advice is through a bunch of different colors and let the bass tell you what they want, Bass so far by me want little to do with willow leaf blade SPs but are hammering tandem Colorado. I was throwing a 3/8oz WHT/CHART tandem Colorado W/white/chart 3.8" sparkle flake paddle trailer and was doing great, my son was using the same exact spinnerbait but in blk/chart with no trailer and caught nothing. We switched setups and his first cast he caught a 3lb+ LMB. We were using identical baitcasting setups. I was using BP Max Action Speed Shad as a trailer I partially dyed chartreuse. He went on to catch 5 more bass that moring.