WRB-2.0

Baking soda mixed in warm water, let soak over night, rinse in warm water and you should have clean lures without any additional cleaning.

Take a look at the high end swimbaits, look real, swim like a live fish and they catch a lot of big bass. Merry Chrismas. Tom

Only 70 years young. Tom

You shouldn't have any problems casting Warts.Tom

Got back in my boat after more than a year recovering from spinal reconstruction surgery and looking forward to the 2014 season.. Tom

David Fritts model Lew's crankbait rods are light weight and easy to cast for hours, important when cranking. Eglass/composite will improve your hook set ratio to bass in the boat and at the end of the it's bass in the boat that count. DF70MC is $110, not expensive! Tomc

Check #23, a short list!Merry Christmas Tommy, you crusty old Cajun and hope you are heathly enough to kick some bass in 2014, good luck and Happy New Years! Tom

Can't set your goals too high or you will underachieve. Tom

Look up Pre Fishing in this sites definitions or online. What the OP posted was pre fishing, not Preparing to go fishing. Tom

I rarely fish a jig with a traditional weed guard or anyone's jig other than my own design 7/16 oz with 5/0 Gamakatsu # 5/0 forged light wire hook. The reason is the deep structured lakes with rocky structure and sparse wood or weed cover requires this type of jig to get strikes. The average size of the jig fish I catch in the lakes where I fish are big. I also use pork rind trailers in black, purple, barn red and brown with bucktail hair colored a combination of those colors. The Nu-Tech football jig and Wadda jig are my choices for heavy cover. Tom

Good looking heavy cover jig at a reasonable price. Heavy, starting at 3/4 oz, 1 oz and 1 1/4 oz, what you need for cover. Thank you for info.Tom

Sometimes a faster moving crankbait that runs through the baitfish or bass will get strikes, IF any bass are interested. A jerk bait, both hard and soft at the right depth works. Spoons and underspins or tail spins can work. Most often a 1/8 oz dart head jig and worm works good. I haven't yet been able to turn on inactive suspended bass with the A-rig, if the bass are active and suspended, the A-rig is good.. Tom

I reread the two articles in this thread and will agree to disagree.Tiger bass are extremely aggressive northern strain bass breed. Gorilla bass are F1 hybrid between agressive tiger bass and aggressive pure Florids bass, according to the information posted. As I stated before CA has hundreds of lakes where pure strain Florida bass were stocked into lakes with pure strain of northern bass = F1. The fact pure FLMB are difficult to catch is true, but some of the more agressive can be caught on jigs, big worms and swimbaits. Take a look at Butch Browns vedio's, all pure FLMB or natural F1's. Have a Merry Christmas and go catch some big tiger or gorilla bass, we could use more aggressive bass in our lakes. Tom

Your Cardiff 300 A series reel is a functional swimbait reel for LMB. I suggest buying a Second one, send both to Reel-Ex who specializes in Shimano reels and have them tuned. Also take a look at G. Loomis heavy swimbait rods, your money is better spent on a good rod that will cast the 5 to 8 oz swimmers with ease. This will give you 2 outfits for swimbaits. Tom

Good acting maybe they can go for academy awards. Tom

Some lakes the bass have a preference for specific colors. Example the original ghost minnow Pointer put Lucky Craft in the US market. At the time Lucky Craft didn't offer deep divers, so ghost minnow custom painted deep divers like Norman DD 14 and 22's became hot items because they worked in ghost minnow color. Custom painted lures today run about $5 per inch. Tom PS, Tackle Warehouse at one time was a big brick and motor retailer called Delta Bait and Tackle and they' specialized in custom lures.

50 or 65 lb braid with drag set at 4 lbs.Tom

You solve the gut hooking issue by using Owner 5114 circle hook. You do 90% of your fishing with soft plastics, bottom bumping, so focus on improving that outfit. Tom

Being old enough to remember when bait casting reels didn't have free spools, knuckle busters, the handles needed to be vertical to allow the spool to spin freely. Your wrist functions better right handed during the casting motion and keeping the handles upright. The old knuckle buster reels have small handles giving you very little leverage to winch in fish, you still used the rod to fight fish. The original spinning reels were made in France and only available left handed, you cast with the right hand operated the reel handle with the left. The reason at that time was better balance for right handed or the dominate population. Tom

Not all reels are designed to properly handle braid due it's small diameter, high strength, abrasion and bait caster level wind. The suggestion to set your drag to the equal diameter mono line is good advice. Your rod question is also rated to mono line strength, not braid. Most general use bass rods are medium heavy or 3 to 4 power. The power rating MH and 3-4 pounds of lifting power means higher loads can damage the rod, again set your drag no higher than the power rating: 3 to 4 pounds of drag with a MH rod using braid, heavy or power rating 5-6 = 5 to 6 pounds of drag. You can pull off about 50 to 60 yards of spooled braid, tape over the remaining line with Teflon plumbers tape(1 to 2 wraps), then wind the line back onto the reel using a wet cloth to add tension. When you cast the spooled line remains tight under the tape, less line to dig down into or backlash. Tom

What you are saying is the first linked Strike King article posted eariler "The birth of super bass" is wrong. Tiger bass are the most aggressive northern strain bass they raised. Gorilla bass are FLMB-northern LMB F1.No debate that the Tiger Bass is a Trademark of the hatuary you mentioned. Certainly not going to get into a contest over F1 FLMB-NLMB integrates as I have caught thousands F1's over the past 35 years to have first experience of both aggressive F1' s and less aggressive F1's. When Tiger bass gets into wild environments it will spawn with other LMB and average out the gene pool. Lakes with both pure NLMB and FLMB spawn every year producing F1's and out of several million fry some are naturally aggressive, most of these don't live too long, some do. As the years pass the gene pool becomes integrated, no pure strains, the aggressive get caught, the more wary survive. Tom

Pre fishing to me means getting ready for a $$ tournament and I do not believe in donating any $$ to other tournament anglers. Pre fishing is all about winning a tournament, so everything must be in top condition, batteries checked, engine oil, spark plugs, electronics, trolling motor cables, every reel with new line, every hook sharpened. All my stuff organized so I know where it is when it's needed. Extra clothing, rain gear, hats, sun screen, drinking water, snacks, cell phone charged, every item on my check list. Pre fishing isn't fun fishing and I don't want any distractions and avoid ramp chatter. I rarely tournament fish anymore because it can be stressful, rather fun fish. Tom

If you flip with braid, take a look at Dee Thomas guides for flipping. Tom PS, TT review 3/20/2013

Owner #5304, not a proprietary hook. Agree Siebert makes a high quality jig.Tom

F1's are integrates of pure Florida largemouth bass and pure Northern strain largemouth bass, common naturally in SoCal lakes for about 35 years now and the majority of the bass in our lakes today, including my avatar 19.3 lb mount. The referenced article states that a Tiger bass is a aggressive NLMB and not FLMB-NLMB, they are called gorilla bass in the article, not Tiger bass. Amazing that someone discovers a bass that is common and well known, then relabels the fish with a new catchy name like gorilla bass. Pure Florida LMB are catchable and no less aggressive than F1, they take more skill and finesse to catch on lures and for that reason anglers have a misconception about FLMB and F1's in general. Tom