WRB-2.0

You are fishing in Florida now, not NY! FLMB are a different bass than northern LMB or smallmouths. You want to use a jitter bug, get a musky size. Instead of a small popper, use a Zara Spook. Senko's are working, keep fishing them and add Fat Ika for a variety. 7 1/2" to 12" plastic worms and brush hogs work good in Florida. Try a lipless crankbait where there is open water, a spinnerbait along weed breaks, lots of good choices to play around with. It's pre spawn where you are, now the time to go fishing whenever you can. Tom PS be aware of the alligators!

Look at the rod for the weight of the crankbait you plan to use; 3/8-1 1/2 oz deep diving crankbaits the 4 power or medium heavy 7' to 7 1/2' cranking rods are what most anglers use. Lew's makes a very good cranking rod for about $120, Powell, Shimano, StCroix about $140 to $170 for examples in your price range.Tom

There isn't a top pro (Elite or FLW) who uses off the self rods or reels. The sponsors give specific rods & reels made to the pro's specs and reels factory tuned or tuned by some of the pros. Rods and reels are essential to the pro's success, the use the top quality products. Out west Dobyn's rods have become popular only recently, Gary hasn't been in the market very long and originally used Lamiglas rod blanks, then went off shore for scrimless rod blanks and Kigan giudes on his top of the line rods. Gary Dobyn's is still tournament fishing and just won the event at Oroville and he is very personable, great angler, stands behind his product. Gary Loomis sold his rod company to Shimano several years ago and the brand lost a lot of anglers as a result. The new GLX and NRX are wonderful rods, but now $450 to $550 and going up, not for your average bass angler. St Croix is available from a wide range of dealers and has a wider range of rods to offer, however I don't believe they offer a scrimless rod blank or state of the art guides and sure that will change. Shimano and Daiwa offer excellent rods, however designed for the average bass angler, both make some great top end state of the art rods, limited production. There are some excellent custom rods that builders use the best blanks, rod seats and guides available and worth looking into. The bottom is customer service, lifetime warranties and free or low cost shipping, that keeps anglers satisfied with rods regionally. Tom

I just want to add a few things about Bill Murphy's book. 1. Bills insights into big bass behavior is second to none in regards to deep structured lakes. Take note of his sketches and the few photos he was willing to share. 2. Bill was totally dedicated to catch giant bass which he called teener's, bass 13 lbs and larger. 3. Anchoring to have a stationary platform to fish from was important to Biil's presentation techniques like fishing live bait and stitching split shot worms. Few if any of today's bass anglers own an anchor or would consider fishing live bait. Bill caught all his own live bait; crawdads, golden shiners, etc. 4. The study of prey the bass targeted was as important to Bill as the bass were. Being a dental technician Bill was very detailed thinker, keen eye for colors, details were important to his presentations. If you talk to Butch Brown, Mike Long and other big bass experts, detail will be on top of their lists of importance, each angler developing their own methods of catching these rare big bass. 5. What Bill didn't put in his book for reasons only he knew could be several volumes. What he did share is special. I can tell you Bill Murphy was the first angler I know that created trout swimbaits. Bill hinted about mid lake big bass sanctuaries and noted he was doing more research in those areas. Murphy caught a 72 lbs 5 bass limit that he didn't share in his book trolling deep swimbaits in San Vincente lake. 3 lure spreader rigs with swimbaits may have been used and I believe Murph didn't want these sanctuary bass over harvested. Alan Cole likes to take credit for trout swimbaits with the AC plug, Murphy was about 10 years ahead of Alan. Read this book and take what works from it for you and apply it to your bass fishing and tip your hat to Murphy, a private and humble man who loved bass fishing. Tom

You are right about it's no longer made, not 2012 model, but 2012 price new on EBay. However it is the same size and weight as the Sol and with ABEC05 bearing, and tuned will cast light weight 1/8 oz lures just as well.The Fuego is a good finesse casting for the budget and will accept most of te upgrades as the Sol for about 1/3 rd the cost. Tom

Daiwa TD Fuego casting reel can be tuned to cast light weight lures, compact light weight good quality reel. TD Fuego is the same size and weight as the TD Sol, $130 new for the 2012 model. Tom

Strike King 1/2 oz Rocket Shad in shad color is an excellent white and hybrid striped bass lure. Tom

You have started 2 post Luke!I have known a lot of bass angler that have fished for years and still looking for their first 6 lber! Tom

Very few reels today are manufactured by the name on the reel. Ardent, Daiwa, Shimano, Okuma are manufactured by those companies for example. Nearly all the other brands and store brands are made by Okuma in S. Korea or a large factory in China including nearly all the Abu-Garcia reels. D house reels like BPS are contracted to 1 or the 2 off shore manufactures. The quality is up to the buyer to determine. The D house stores use the customer to be their quality control, any problems that are related to manufactured components, not user abuse, they usually replace the reel. Tom

Florida strain LMB are very different then northern strain LMB, spots and smallies are the same regardless where they live. FLMB tend to be far more wary and prefer larger more natural looking lure most of the time, unless the prey/baitfish are small. The fact FLMB grow about 1/3rd larger than NLMB tells you they are different bass and have different behavior traits. Water clarity, depth and temperature is a big factor to consider, however lakes that have or had both FLMB and NLMB it is easy to know the difference by how aggressive a NLMB strikes lures vs the FLMB. Tom

Clever design for double frog hooks. It's always amazes me that anglers will complain about a product without first contacting the manufacturer. Lake Fork Tackle would appreciate thre feed back, it is essential to let the mfr know they have a potential problem. Tom

Actually water completely dampens your line vibration, what you feel is the line movement as the jig stops and goes as you drag it actress a rough surface. Try tying the line on the rod tip, drag it across the pavement out of water and the rod will transfer far more feeling down the rods length then it will dragging the same jig under water. The key with both these experiments is the line is tight. If the line has slack and you hit the jig with a hammer, you will feel nothing unless the blow moves the line, no vibrations will transfer through slack line in water or air.Sound waves travel faster and further in water than air, our ears can't hear them very well, but you can feel them underwater and bass lateral line feels them, rambling off topic. Yes we get better feedback with high modulus rods materials, but....nothing can compare with your finger tips detecting line movement. Don't you wonder how anyone could catch bass with jig using 100% fiberglass rods, before graphite rods came on the market! Don't get me wrong, I love the new light weight modern rods, however I still fish them using my finger to feel the line so I will not miss the slightest line movement. Tom

You a few schools of thought; match the hatch, match the hatch and add highlight colors, use high contrasting easy to see color combinations. All work at times and tinkering with color combos is what makes bass fishing fun. I have never seen a wild crawdad in the lakes I fish with some of the jig colors I use successfully. Tom

Boot tail type swim baits with fish head jigs started out in salt water, migrated to fresh water. The drop shot rig with octopus hook was originally a salt water rig. A-rig started out as a water trolling spreader rig. As mentioned spoons, jigs and surface poppers are common salt water lures. Most salt water lures have galvanized steel XX hooks that should be changed for fresh water, if that is where you plan to fish them. Tom

Here is a question for your sensitive feelings"; will a guitar play under water? If water dampens a guitar string from vibrating, what makes anyone believe they can feel a fishing line vibrate underwater! What you feel is line movement, the lure moving not line vibrating. The lure or fish must move or add weight to the line or you will not detect the strike. The rod isn't capable of attenuating or amplify line movement, it can dampen it. The modern rod weighs about 1/2 today than rods a decade ago. The newer rods have better guides with less line drag. FC line isas a lower coeffient of drag going through the rod guides and the water, then mono line. Super braids have a Teflon coating that helps to lower drag. All these low coeffient of drag elements allow us to feel line movement easier and the rod materials do not dampen feed back as much as the older rods did. The lighter weight rod and reel combinations allows the angler to feel line movement better than heavier weight older rods. Feel the line your finger tips and watch the line with your eyes and enjoy fishing with today's lighter weight rods and reels. Tom

Water clarity differs from person to person, no standard in bass fishing circles.So for this discussion lets say clear water you can easily see bottom details at 10', slightly off color at 6' and stained water it's hard to see the bottom at 3' with sunlight overhead. When the water is clear the full color spectrom of soft plastics can work and often do. More natural tones that mimic bait fish or bottom critters are good choices. When the water is slightly off color the color selection is wide, opaque or less translucent in lieu of translucent colors work well. Stained water defuses light quickly so translucent colors tend to fed into the background and more solid high contrast colors work better. Color names are product created; watermelon is green, pumpkin is amber, both natural baitfish and crawdad colors in some waterways. Smoke Is translucent clear soft plastic and a good color choice in clear water. Adding highlights to smoke is usually done with metallic flakes in black, silver, gold, copper, blue, purple, Green etc. smoke with a pearl white belly is a very good color where threadfin shad are baitfish. Adding silver and gold flakes to smoke pearl white works great in clear water. Translucent cinnamon is another good choice in clear and slightly off color water. Adding a neon blood vein in translucent Cinnamon like blue neon or purple neon with red flakes looks a lot like a live night crawler for example and works good in both clear and slightly off color water. Stained water the low light you may need to use solid colors like black with contrasting blood veins in neon blue or dark purple with neon green or blue and dark brown with black or brown with neon orange belly. All these combinations works good in stained water or at night. Tom

OK, small man made reservoir will have a dam, probably earthen with rock reinforcement. The lake bed may have been striped of any standing timber/trees, hopefully they left the stumps, be great if some trees are there. The original creek bed will have some rocky area where the channel bends, inside bends get more current errosion. Every lake starts to age and continues until it's filled with silt, unless the silt is removed naturally or by maintenance. The upper end opposite of the dam is the area that silts in first, so the creek bed is more than likely gone in that area. Near the dam the channel is more prominate and any rocks left over from dam construction get piled up by the dam, when the construction is completed. The dam area is where you should spend most of your time jig fishing. The face of the dam and surrounding area and if possible survey as much of the creek channel as possible and mark on a map every hard spot or rock you find. The spawn, fry and young of the year fish need cover to survive, it's the nursery for the lake and the area the bass will spawn, find that area. Now the water is cold, however as the water warms into the mid 50's the bass will move close to the spawning area and hold where ever there is a depth break of a few feet and stay near any structure element like rocks, tree or stump. We have the dam area, the creek channel, any structure elements to jig fish for a few months, down to a depth of 12 feet or so. A good jig for this type of water is a Charlie Brewer Slider head, 3/8 oz or a simple ball head 1/4 oz, both with 4" single or double tail grubs, no weed guards needed. Colors for murky water should be dark with high contrast. Black jig heads with black/chartreuse and black/ blue neon soft plastics. Line size isn't an issue with dingy water, but is important to be able to cast the jig effectively; I would use 10 to 12 lb mono or FC line on a medium/ heavy worn/ jig rod, 6 1/2' to 7' or similar spinning outfit with 8- 10 lb mono. Position your boat about 30' off shore and make 360 degree fan cast to cover as much water & bottom area as possible, then move about 100' and repeat until you know the bottom area. If possible move up the creek channel until you loose definition. You will catch bass on jigs doing this. Good luck. Tom

Is this a natural lake or man made impoundment? Natural lakes are usually bowl shaped with little structure features, unless the lake is located in the Canadian Shield region or othe areas with mountains. Man made impoundments nearly always have some deep water structure elements away from the shoreline. The bass located near shore are using wood for cover; lay downs, standing trees or stumps and docks in a natural lake. I would look very hard for any hard bottom areas with rocks or some weed cover. Slowing down the jigs fall in shallow water is the key in shallow water with soft mud or muck bottoms. You can do this but controlling the fall with your rod if you are close to the bass, like flipping. If you are casting a jig the only way to slow the fall is using a combination of heavy line, larger trailers and lighter jig weight. There are slow fall zero gravity jigs that also work in shallow water. Tom

Take your time, if you cram too much too soon you will get overloaded with information that may not apply to where you fish and how you want to fish. I didn't see where you are located, if you fish out of a boat or what type of tackle you currently own if any. Be more than happy to get you started after you narrow down the scope of teaching you the basics about seasonal periods. Tom

When bass are feeding heavily on crawdads the inside of the lip area and the crunchers in the back of the mouth tends to get reddened and some anglers call this red lips. Crawdads are also fairly hard and you can feel them inside the basses stomach (lumpy) and sometimes see antenna or claws sticking out of the throat opening. When bass in livewells get stressed they sometimes regurgitate stomach contents. Tom

Check out the thread "how bass bite jigs".Bass normally avoid soft mucky bottom areas unless they have no other choices. The reason is the muck is made up of decayed debris and some soil that depletes dissolved oxygen. The bass tend to stay under green weeds or wood suspend off the bottom where they are more comfortable, when bottoms are muck. A jig is fairly heavy and sinks into the muck and T-rigged worm, unless the weight is pegged to the hook, the worm guides suspended off the muck, giving the bass a better opportunity to engulf into it's mouth without sucking in the muck. If the bass doesn't strike the jig on the fall, the jig hits bottom. You are using lighter weight jigs that falls a little slower, that is good. But you are fishing in a few feet of water, the time is short for the bass to strike. You can use a Brrush Hog for a trailer to slow the fall for example. Take a look at Zero Gravity jigs that fall 1/3 rd the rate of traditional jigs. For colors stay with PBJ jig skirts and soft plastics similar to the worms that work. Tea colored water tends to defuse light and I have found the copper flakes and purple or blue neon highlights work good. If it's overcast black/ chartreuse skirts with black trailers can work at times. Tom

The difference, other than the obvious size, is the rod you need to effectively cast te larger heavier 8"; heavy swimbait rod rated for lures 3 to 5 oz. The 6" can be fished with a med/ hvy swimbait rod; 1 to 3 oz lures. The 68 can be fished slower, like the 8", the standard 6" tends to loose it's slow swim action. If your lake and bass are targeting the larger baitfish, the 8" works good, small baitfish the 6" or 68". If you had to choose 1, the 68 ROF 12 would be a good choice. Tom

I will be the odd man out in this thread because Jig and trailer colors are just as important as soft plastic worms to me. In the spring which I break into 3 seasonal periods; pre spawn, spawn and post spawn for the basses calendar. Crayfish molt (grow new shells) during the "spring" time period. Pre spawn, the transition period between winter and spring, bass are in deeper water and looking for high protein prey like crayfish aka crawdads. The cold water period (winter) crawdads burrow into clay banks and emerge to migrate into shallower or warmer water. During this period the crawdads tend to molt, shed their dark winter shells, the new shells are more transparent and greenish amber color where I fish. These molts are often called soft shell crawdads and bass target them. Jigs that have similar coloration; cinnamon brown/green (spring craw) is a good choice. We don't have black/blue crawdads where I fish, so don't fish them during the day time, good contrast color at night. The other color combo I like is black/ purple/ brown or "anytime-anywhere"! The spring craw I use brown or green trailers (pork rind) and soft plastics with black/red or purple high lights. The anytime-anywhere color I use black, brown and purple (pork rind) and soft plastics black/red or purple high lights. Skirt materials are; deer hair or living rubber or silicone. When there is a shad spawn I add white/green/chartreuse skirts with white trailers. Tom PS; jig weight is 7/16 oz about 90% of the time.

Looking at a few independent reports like tackle T 2011 ICAST report, the Rage gets good reviews. Been on the market for over a year, looks like good md price range work horse rod. Components are mid range, 5 year limited warranty, $150-$170 range depending on rod length and strength. Big O uses them, must be tough rods! Tom

The term swim jig covers any jig that is cast and retrieved within the water column, in lieu fished vertical or on the bottom. Just a few swim jigs; Dart head; used with curl tail worms or grubs. Fish head; used with boot tail swimmers. Bullet head; used with traditional jig trailers Grass head; ". ". ". Chatter jig; used with spinnerbait trailers. Scrounger jig; used with Sluggo or Flukes. Tube jig; used with Gitzit tubes. All can be swam effectively with a wide variety of trailers, typical trailers are listed. Tom