JHoss

These look awesome. Nice work. This triggered my ADHD and now I want to try another hobby. Mind sharing the name or a link?

I use a uni-to-uni. I tie 100s a year without issue. Plus this was breaking well above the leader knot, so not a knot strength issue. All good. Just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same line. A buddy reccomended I Q-Tip test the reel since I'd only checked rod eyes. It was all good too. I stripped the Almight off the two rods that had it and respooled with 832 last night. I could definitely feel a difference in the Almight as it got deeper into the spool. The stuff at the end was much stiffer and felt coated- almost like someone had waxed the line. Whereas, the stuff deep in the spool looked and felt like new. I'm wondering if there's some sort of coating on the braid or fibers within the braid that causes it to go bad sooner than other braids. Either way, my confidence is shot in the stuff and I won't be going back anytime soon.

Both good suggestions. I don't have a go-to confidence big worm so figured I'd try to find one that has the finish I like fresh out of the package without any work. Sounds like I ought to give the power worms a shot with everyone recommending.

Looking for some help here. Anyone know of a brand that makes a matte curly tail worm in the 10"+ range? Specifically looking for black, but wouldn't mind having others.

That is the only thing I didn't check. I will take a look tonight. The combo is only 2 or 3 months old and has barely been used, so I doubt that's it. Do you mean seasons as in winter, spring, summer since Almight didn't hit the market until Spring of last year? Even so, my spool is much fresher and less used than yours.

Curious to see if anyone else has had any issues with Almight randomly breaking. On one of the episodes of BTL last week, Matt Pangrac mentioned how he'd noticed that Almight gets sort of "brittle" with age and that he was having to respool often or, at least, cut off a good bit of line every time he fished. Well, yesterday that same bug bit me. I'm fishing the 11lb pink almight to a 10lb Invisix leader on a 7' ML Daiwa Airdx. I put the line on fresh 2 months ago, have taken less than 100 casts with it (jighead minnows), it's been on my boat maybe 8 times (half of those never left the rod locker), and stored in my garage the rest of the time. I was fishing a neko and had caught 1 8" bass before I got 3 random breakoffs on the stuff. First one was maybe 5 casts after the little bass. My line felt funny coming through the guides, but I checked for wraps or issues multiple times. I'm reeling in the bare neko and the line snaps above the leader. Figured maybe I'd missed a tip wrap or something. I cut off an extra 10 feet and retie. I caught another fish or two and went to set the hook on one and *poof* the braid snaps again midway between the leader and rod tip. I cut off another 10' and retie. Catch a fish or two and it happens again. I switched a reel with 15lb Revolve and 10lb Invisx to that rod and fished the rest of the day without issue. I, also, checked the guides with a Q Tip and all was good. I've only got Almight on two reels, but they'll both be respooled before I fish them again.

I had a KastKing scale from Amazon that worked fine. Upgraded to a $50 Rapala scale and that worked fine. Now I have one of the fancy Bubba Scales and it works fine.

I just throw em away. I've rusted too many hooks on $10 baits by leaving the plastic on in an effort to save $1.

I saw it on IG yesterday and was intrigued. Seems like it will have a different action compared to most dice baits with silicon skirting for appendages. Might not last as long but should work good.

This makes sense. Especially if you have a nice shade line in the summer. I can think of one spot I'll have to try it. Steep channel swing bank on a river with a field behind it. When the wind blows the right way, all the bugs and stuff from that field wind up in the water of that channel swing and the fish stack up.

Sounds like the pond is severely stunted and bass can't grow past 14". Sometimes in those situations, you'll find one or two big bass that lucked into growing to a size where they could cannibalize the smaller bass. That would be the 4.5 lber they shocked up. If it were me and I wanted to catch bigger fish, I'd fish somewhere else.

I fish a lot of local tournaments on 1000-2000 acre lakes and I don't expect any extra courtesy from other boaters because I'm in a tournament. If I'm choosing a lake to fish for fun I will absolutely avoid a lake with a tournament on it if I can. If I accidentally end up on a lake with a local tournament going on, I'll usually give tournament boats extra space. Only exception is when I'm already being extra courteous and a tournament boat encroaches on me because they feel entitled due to being in a tournament. You do that to me and I'm throwing the biggest, heaviest bait I own on 65 lb braid across your bow until you get the message. I think a pro level event is different. Personally, I would choose to avoid fishing a lake with a pro level tournament going on out of courtesy/respect. I may ride around and watch, but I wouldn't even bring a rod. A lot of those guys are fishing for a living and I'd rather not interfere with that.

Almost exactly 5" senko sized. I'd guess that's the bait they originally made it for.

They don't get used often, but they're always in my T Rig box. Really helps 'weightless' T-Rigged senkos come through grass without getting hung up or torn up.

I was referring to these: https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Gambler_Hollow_Points_5pk/descpage-GHP.html

I've heard elite level scopers talk about fish running from FFS pings in California and coming towards FFS pings in Texas. Seems like it just depends on the individual fishery. I'd think clear water and more pressure would be associated with a negative reaction. I think that's all about fishing pressure. A lot fewer guys on the water in the winter means a lot fewer baits in fish's faces. We used to say A Rigs only worked in cold water- we know now that's absolutely not true.

I use CMap and Navionics and have noticed that some lakes are better on one than the other. We have a popular 3 lake-chain (1000ish acre lakes) and one is best on Navionics, one is best on CMap, and the third has half covered by each platform (the other half of the lake is blank depending which app). Omnia uses Navionics and CMap Social for their charts. Aside from not being able to manipulate shading, they're no different than using them on their respective platforms?

Well, y'all convinced me to pick up a couple. 15 lb braid to 10 lb fluoro on a ML spinning rod sound about right?

Wonder if a Hollow Point would do what you need?

X2 on the Elaztech stuff melting. Can't say I've had an issue with traditional plastics.

@Lottabass may be the Bryson DeChambeau of bass fishing.

I find myself in the same trap often. Wondering if the next bait might catch em a little better or trigger bigger fish. More often than not, I waste valuable time in that bite window and regret it. I find I do the same thing with spots and patterns. I'll find a good one, but instead of running it til it dries up, I'll check to see if something else is working. Prime example; I was fishing a tournament last weekend. I had 4 good fish on a frog in the first 30 minutes of the tournament. All on main lake stuff I could've replicated all over the lake. Instead of running that pattern until it died, I convinced myself I had to check in a creek nearby to make sure they weren't doing the same thing in there. They weren't and I burnt up most of my time with cloud cover ruling it out. Wound up going the rest of the derby without a bite. Had I committed to what I found for another hour, I'm sure I would've caught a 5th fish and been in the money.

Yes, pretty sure this forum was actually created by the Bait Monkey himself.

This is when I'd rather have a spook. I can cast it further than a popper and when they're boiling like that, they seem to eat anything. I've heard a lot of great fisherman talk about fishing poppers in those small holes and pockets. Seems like it'd be a pain to keep the hooks out of the grass/pads when bringing your bait back in, no? That's my other big knock on poppers over other topwaters- they're so much harder to cast. It takes a lot longer to get the accuracy dialed in throwing a light bait and I tend to miss some spots I would've hit with a 5/8 ounce frog. So in your experience, some days it's just what they want and there's no rhyme or reason to it? Usually, if I've tried a buzz, spook, plopper, and frog to no avail, I'm abandoning topwater. I think my biggest issue is slowing down enough to make them effective. I struggle to pause a spook or jerkbait for more than 3 seconds. I see videos of guys pausing poppers for 20 seconds and it blows my mind. This is true. 75 and 90 is about all I throw. That makes sense, but for whatever reason, we don't get a real strong shad spawn on most of our lakes. But it makes sense it would be effective in a situation like schooling bait. I've definitely found the plopper to crush it in one lake/river and be a dud in the lake/river 2 miles away. Tannic stained water and cypress... they usually get angry at a plopper. Reading all these responses, I'm not surprised to see people are pretty split on poppers. Seems like you either love them or don't use them much. I can see how they'd be like a lot of baits where some days they just work better than everything else and you don't know why. I may add a MB Popmax or two, but reckon I'll keep the popper inventory pretty low in the topwater box. I can see myself resorting to it when all else fails and the conditions line up for it now that I've caught a few fish on them. But more likely, they'll get used if the popping frog is drawing short strikes and the cover lets me get away with trebles. Thanks for all the input and responses, y'all.

I think that's where I'll get eventually. I've only been bassin for 5 or 6 years, so I'm in that phase where I'm replacing my entry level gear with nicer stuff. Of the 20-25 combos I consistently use, 25% are going to be used until the day I (or they) die, 50% is decent stuff I'll keep but eventually probably relegate to backup, and 25% I want to replace yesterday. I listed a bunch of rods a couple years back, but was only being offered $10-20. At that price, they made more sense to keep as backups or to strip down for parts.