10,000 lakes Bassin

Ive been using Megastrike original attractant for the past couple years but ive never used any of the other scents. I’m curious if any Megastrike fans here use crawfish scent for jigs or craw plastics?

You’ll be perfectly fine with anything up to 3/4oz on that rod.

I agree that the rigged version is better for purely open water fishing but if @Jaybert wants to fish them on an Underspin I’d definitely go with the freestyle. Also it’s half the price per bait if he’s concerned about cost.

For a baitfish profile paddletails are hard to beat. From 3” to 6” are a key part of my fishing and I’m going to experiment with baits up to 8” this year. Don’t limit yourself with rigging options either. There are about a million ways to rig them and almost all can be a money depending on the conditions.

The magdraft and the swammer have a very different swim. The swammer has a very wide swinging tail motion and a lot of body roll. It has so much roll that I’m not a big fan of it on a 30 degree jighead ( I think it looks much better on a belly weighted swimbait hook/flashy swimmer or even a 90 degree ballhead jig). The magdraft has a strong tail kick, but its swim is more of a tight vibration and it stays more upright. Another thing to keep in mind is the amount of plastic. Even though the 5.5 mega swammer is only a 1/2 inch shorter than the 6” magdraft, it’s probably half as much plastic overall. I guess that’s the long way to say that I think you should try them both because they serve a different purpose in my opinion.

All are snow was gone before yesterday. I’m talking about what we’ve got in the last 24 hours. Up to about 2 feet now.

What have you all got for snow? Here it’s about 16” of soaking wet snow so far and it’s still coming down.

Nothings open up here except for rivers and vernal ponds. We could get almost 2 feet of snow according to the forecast from today until Saturday, and it doesn't look amazing after that. I’m hoping to get in the water before may 1st at this point.

I think I’m the northernmost guy here. It’s going to be probably 3 more weeks before stuff starts to really open up around here.

Am I correct in guessing that its role is somewhere between a underspin and a blade bait?

I just looked at the extended forecast for the metro area and I wonder if you guys will have open water before April 1st on smaller lakes. I’m sure I will be at least two weeks behind that up here.

Man, I’m jealous of the forecast in the metro area. almost 20 degrees warmer than up here some days. Hows the ice on the small ponds and river fed lakes looking?

It’s gotta be shallow cranks for me. The lakes I fish get so choked out with grass that a bladed jig is so much less of a headache.

Are they for sale? PM me if so.

Make sure the tackle boxes you go with are high quality and waterproof. I always found myself and my gear pretty wet after a day in the kayak.

I'm on the fence about buying a rod from JDM Tackle Heaven. Including shipping it would be a little over $170, so I can expect to pay 15% of that, so about $25 in import duties? Any other info about how the tariff processed would be appreciated.

I might have one myself by the time the ice is out for either of us . It looks like they are $150 on JDM Tackle Heaven so I'll probably buy them from there. I'm not sure about tariffs though.

Anyone have a chance to fish these much yet, especially in the bigger sizes? They look pretty similar to the Sakamata shad which are hard to get a hold of so I'm thinking they could be a good substitute for the 7" size.

Have you ever pushed out of the recommended range for a 702X? I'm thinking of baits like the s-waver 200 at 3.5oz or other glides in that weight range, of course I'd be lob casting anything that heavy. Sounds like its pretty powerful from your description so it might be good to stick with 3X trebles and power fish in as much as possible? Thanks

Since I don't know what time of year it is, i'll have to say a 1/2oz arky jig with a beaver trailer.

Thanks everyone. I’ll go with Tatsu for my normal stuff but I might try a small spool of gold label for big baits just to see how I like it.

Kinda what I was thinking. I hear guys say that shock absorption is a reason to go with leader specific stuff but I think that gets mitigated over a longer leader, and I never have my drag fully locked down with a leader.

I use braid to leader on most of my rigs and also like long leaders. On casting gear I use around 15ft for my leader lengths. I have been using straight up Sunline fc sniper for my leaders, with 20lb(0.37mm) for jigs/big baits, and 16lb(0.33mm) for general purpose stuff in the 3/8oz-3/4oz range. This was working well until last year when I started casting off baits and breaking on hook sets like never before. I did some research online and it looks like I'm not the only one having issues with fc sniper. I thought I'd move to a Seaguar product for 2026 to avoid these problems. Well, I thought I'd try Tatsu for leaders in 20lb and 15lb, until I looked at gold label leader material. The thing that's really appealing about it is that 15lb is only 0.285mm, comparable to most 12lb lines, and 20lb is the size of most 15lb. I could use my normal lb test and have it be way thinner, or I could use my normal mm diameter and have it be significantly stronger. But, the price per yard is over two times as much and you can't buy in a bulk spool for a lower cost. I tear through leader material like crazy by using long leaders, changing them often, and spending lots of time on the water. Curious to hear some insight on what you guys run for leaders and if you think its worth paying over double the cost of a premium line to get the advantages of a line designed to be a leader.

These definitely have my attention. Where’s the best place to order major craft rods?

Try first by using some thiner braid and some thicker mono fluoro. I like to wrap the braid tightly around my pinky finger and keep lots of tension on it. Ive started to wrap the braid mainline around one of the cleats on the boat so I can keep even more tension on it. Like @Don Preller mentioned, you have to give a bit of slack so the each wrap can form nice, but then pull hard again so the braid bites in. Make sure that the braid is biting into the mono good. That’s why thinner braid is easier to start out with. Look up salt strong FG knot, that’s the video that I learned from. After a while you’ll start to see what the wraps are supposed to look like.