WRB-2.0

The term "jig & pig" was coined by Outdoor Life magazine editor Bob Lincoln back in the early 50's, and made popular by B.A.S.S. Basmaster magazine in the 70's and early 80's the era when the jig & pig and Teaxs rigged plastic worms dominated tournaments. The traditional jig & pig was a combination Arkie style jig with vinyl skirts or deer hair and frog style pork rind trailer; Uncle Josh #11 black or brown being the most popular. Colorful silicone skirts and soft plastic chunks, followed by creatures became popular in the 90's and hijacked the term pig & jig, no longer a pork trailer, the jig could have soft plastic or pork trailers. Pork rind trailers still work very well, but they are old school, ugly looking and messy to fish with compared to the life like looking colorful soft pastic trailers. Weekend bass anglers tend to use what the pros use on TV and a tournament pro is fishing for 15 lb 5 bass limits and hopes to catch a kicker 6 lb bass to up the weight and win the tournament. Soft plastic perform well for the tournament pro. The old style "pig & jig" pork rind trailer still catches big bass for those who still use it. Tom PS; take a look at Horizontal Jigging thread, ideal for fall to pre spawn jig presentation when bass are on the move.

20 years ago I drive 200 miles for a day trip, today 100 is max. I have about 6 good bass lakes within the 100 range, 4 of those within 60 miles; Casitas, Castaic, Piru and Pyramid. All these lakes small under 2500 acres. The larger lakes are in northern CA and the Colardo river lakes are 400 to 600 miles, long trips that must be planned. As far as time, it takes at least 30 minutes to get the boat ready and hooked up and another 30 minutes to dry off and put away at the end of day = 1'hour + driving time amd driving time is dependent on traffic where I live. Tom

I store my extra soft plastics is the original bags and keep what I plan to fish with in Plano boxes. With that said I have over a dozen larger size Plano 3700 boxes filled with soft plastics! If I buy the soft plastics in smaller qty 10 each size bage, I roll them and put those in the Plano boxes. Larger qty bags I take out about 10 or so and put those in sand which size zip bags and put those in the Plano boxes. The larger qyt bags get stored in a soft storage tackle bag. The reason I do this is to organize my soft plastics, it 's a lot easier to take out a flat box and know what you have, instead of trying to sort through a tackle bag full of smaller bags. I have opened and unopened soft plastics in Plano compartments that are several years old in perfect condition. I like to keep the original bags so I know the make and color numbers. If I have used a zip bag, I know there should be a larger bag somewhere. Tom

Big bass will eat smaller bass, a lot of times school bass will try to take the lure away from a hooked bass, this happens more with smallmouth. California and other states it's illegal to use a bass as bait, or any other game fish or parts of game fish. I have watched giant bass follow up another big bass I was fighting amd thought the other big bass was curious about the behavior of the hooked bass because the free swimming bass always stayed a few fet away from the hooked bass. There iss a lot we don't know about bass,; why releasing a bass during a hot bit can shut it off almost immediately at times and have no affect at other times. If this was caused by releasing a chemical, it should be consistantl, not random. Tom PS; 10 lb mono has a lot drag in the water, the hook may be small to us, it's added weight to the bass swimming with it.

I agree, the lure definitely isn't a Megabass, I have some of these and the detail is missing, plus the cheap hooks. I realize the hooks could be changes, can't change the design details. Tom

Black bass; LMB, SM, Spotted Bass, are not native species west of the Rocky mountains. The Columbia river boarders Oregon and Washington, what is the Oregon deprtment of fish and game doing; are they in agreement with Washingtons policies? It seems the 2 states should be co-managing the fishery. Tom

The packaging usually doesn't indicate if the soft plastic is a floater, it may say it sinks. Most high production injection molded soft plastic have neutral flotation, meaning they suspend in the water. There are a few super floaters that are made with foam or air filled soft plastic, the problem is they tend to be less flexible then other soft plastics. Several good hand poured worms are available that combine both soft flexible soft plastic and they float very well. Roboworms are an automated hand poured worm that combine high floatation with soft flexible designs. Unfortunately you must buy a package and test the worm by putting it in water, push the worm under water, it should rise to the surface on it's own within a few seconds. Trial and error! Tom

The first suare bill deep diving lures were the original Bomber, looks like a bomb with square metal bill. Bandit came out with a flat side square bill and that lure started the "square bill" popularity. No treble hook lure with a diving bill can be effectively fished in heavy weed cover. You can work a lipless crankbait or square bill crankbait though the edges of weeds or sparse weeds by ripping the weeds off the lure, but when you run into a clump of weeds you must pull in the clump wraped lure and remove the weeds. The definition of an inactive bass is a bass that is not interested in chasing down a fast moving lure. If you work any lure slow and close enough to a inactive bass it may strike it. An active bass feeding in the weed cover is what you should be targeting. Tom

Northern largemouth have less body mass than Florida strain LMB, that is a factor if the lake has both strains. Large male bass have thinner body mass than females, another factor to consider. Injured bass that are not feeding successfully will lose body mass, they are starving. This can be a result of bass being caught out of water deeper than 40 feet and released, fizzed or not. The most common reason for the big bass to have over size heads and skinny bodies is old age or prey base can't support the number of predators feeding on it. This happens for several reasons: over population of predators verses prey, predator fish that are faster and bigger than LMB depleting the baitfish population; lakes with stripe bass populations and LMB populations competing for the same pelagic baitfish like shad or smelt. The summer period is when LMB put on most weight, there is more prey available. The statements that LMB fatten up during the fall period is misleading, they continue to feed, but as the water cools bass metabolism starts to slow down and this continues as the water gets colder, the bass still eat, they burn fewer calories to maintain body mass. Tom

The culttvia doesnt have a scale pattern, thinner through the back 1/3rd, pointed nose and Owner black nickel hooks. If you are looking a lure to replace the one in question, the Rip N Minnow is a far superior lure. Tom

Close, more than likely a D house knock off in baby bass colo (BPS?) , the hooks don't match and the nose is slightly different. Tom

Your observation has little to do with the topic. In nature only the strong or wary servive. Predators live among prey all the time and become active predators hunting prey for short periods of time. The prey that servive being hunted are the first to recognize the cha predators change in activity. Pride of lions are a good comparison, laying around sleeping and relaxing while herds of prey animals graze nearby. A few of the grazing animals are keeping an eye on the lions, look outs warn the herd. If one of the lions notices a volnurable prey nearby, the lions are quick to change their activity level and start to hunt the weak. When you hook a live bait, the hook injures the bait fish, your line creates a trendous amount of drag for the fish to pull through the water, predator bass recognize the struggle to swim as a weakness. Tom

Get into the habit of taking off your soft plastics and cutting off your hooks before putting the rods in storage at the end of the day. Your knots (FC or mono) weaken a great deal (about 25%) when tied longer than 24 hours. You should be retrying every few hours. The moisture may be from a combination of humidity and temperature change reaching the dew point or if you are using an attractant the attractant may be reverting into a liquid. The rust is caused by galvanic corrosion; salt and whatever the liquid may be in contact with metal and staying wet for a prolonged time period, without air circulation. Tom

You are confused ; a shaky head jig is intended to be used without a skirt, the worm is attached by screwing the nose end onto the spring keeper. The shaky head may or may not be a stand up design, most are round heads, some have a flat spot. The stand up jig head does have a skirt collar cylinder that extends off the jig he'd to accommodate a skirt. The shaky head is designed to be used with a soft high floatation plastic worm, however you can attach whatever soft plastic creature you desire. Tom

Most bass attractantt scent are fish oil base with added flavors like crawdad, shad and garlic. The gel types use petroleum jelly like vsolkne to carry the scents. Berkley took a scientific approach and determined what elements like amino acids that bass and other fish like trout reacted positive to. So we have home made concoctions verses science; Berkley is the winner when it comes to fish attractants, science wins this round. If your soft plastic has a built in proven attrantabt scent, no reason to add more. If the soft plastic doesn't have any scent added, then consider adding some, especially if it adds confidence. Tom

Agree! Berkley raised the bar with their Power Biats and Power Worms. Tom

I have been studing bass behavior sense a child watching them along the shoreline in the lake where I spent my early childhood. The water was clear and easy to watch bass, being curious and interested in catching bass you can learn a lot. Reading books and reports on bass behavior sometimes conflicted with my experiences and at times supported what I had observe or experienced. Scientific studies are subject to change, what we have personally observed tends to remain unchanged. Nothing will change the physical biology of a bass, however we are learning about how bass see color spectrums in very low light and how they react to orders that stimulate activity or alarms the bass and stops feeding activity. The bottom line is how we utilize the information to improve our ability to catch bass consistantly. The tet with scent; would you stop fishing if you didn't have an attractant to put on your lure? Tom

Has Dr, Jones ever spent time on the water catching adult size bass? I put more validity into catching bass verses studies under the controlled conditions of bass in captivity. Most scientific studies are not done in the wild, those that are hold a higher level of credibility to me. If the nightcrawler scent is 100% effective as an attractant, why use anything other than a live nightcrawler or attractant made from night crawlers? I have never witnessed a bass eat a dead nightcrawler! Tom

Tournament bass anglers are targeting active bass, unless they sight fishing and looking for bed fish. Your best tool for searching for bass is your sonar unit and your eyes, most weekend anglers do not use their sonar effectively and don't look for bass or bass activity. With your sonar you can eliminate a lot of areas that doesn't have any metered bait or larger fish, this tells you where the bass are not located as well as where they are located. You can see bass in the water or water movement, birds, baitfish that indicate bass are in the area. Ounce you have located areas where bass are located, then you need to determine patterns of the active bass. Try different lures and presentations until you determine what the bass will react to. Then you can decide if it is more productive to run and gun a milk run hitting high % spots or slow down and saturate areas with populations of bass. Sitting on an area hoping the bass will turn on is different then sitting on a area or spot knowing the bass will turn on. Beating the bank and hoping to run across active bass or sitting on spot hoping the bass will bite becuase you caught them the last trip are the techniques the averge bass angler uses, both are fishing blind. Use you sonar and use your eyes and look for bass and bass activity, then fish the area with lures that resemble the prey in the areas you are fishing. Tom

I wash my hands with soap and water after hooking up the gas line and priming the line, before starting fishing. I wash my hands after putting on sunscreens and any slippery fish attractants. My concern is more about loosing my grip on the my rod or reel handles. I do use a gel type attractant on soft plastics and keep my pork trailers in heavy salt water within a few drops of anise oil and garlic. I do this because I believe it may make a difference from time to time, but not to mask my own scent. I haven't red anywhere that human skin oils are repulsive order to bass and haven't experienced bass not striking because a lure was handle with clean hands. It!s hard to imagine that gasoline would not be a negative odor. I handle my lures a lot cleaning off weeds, checking the line nd knot, etc between casts and don't worry about my skin contacting the lure. Tom

I fish with hand poured or automated hand pour worms and rarely use injection molded , high production worms. Roboworms are my favorite small worms; 4" to 7" worms and Iovino worms depending on color choices. Big worms or giant worms my favorite is Upton's Customs. The reason is high floatation and soft life like movement and color choice. Tom

I use Pacassio stand down jig heads for a shaky head. Today I would give Northstar a try because they have goods quality like Pacasio and use a premium Hook. Tom

Travelers find of the Largemouth Bass stamp is priceless and should be sent to every legislator in the state of Washington. I have some experience with how anglers in the state of Washington feel about LMB; lived there in back in 1970. The vast majority of anglers back then told me they considered LMB trash fish that should thrown on the bank when caught. From what Glenn posted, nothing has changed except they added smallmouth and walleye to the list of trash fish.Alaska is the only state that doesn't have a LMB population, too cold. B.A.S.S. held several bass open tournaments on the Columbia river, and should be up in arms about this issue. Tom

River2Sea S-Waver isn't a jerk bait, it's a glide bait but should meet your need . The S-Waver is retrieved like a slow motion Jett, you give it a rod sweep and let it domit's owm thing until it stops, get it pause and repeat, deadly on big bass. This lure floats at rear, but does go under water with the right rod sweeping motion about 1 to 2 feet. Tom PS; you can modify a Rogue by drilling a 3/32D hole in the center of the belly under the rattle chamber. Squirt a drop of super gel glue in the chamber, shake the bb's to coat them, tape over the hole and hold the lure in the vice softly so it is upright and slightly nose down, let dry. This is trail and error and you may need to add suspend dots to balance the Rogue to have the action you want.

My routine is the same when I luanch my boat, unless I know where the bass are located at the time I start fishing. The first things I do are; look at the water to check it's clarity and if I can see any bass or baitfish by the dock next to the luanch ramp. Next I check the surface water temp, start up the OB and let it idle, put the trolling down, turn on the sonar and do a quick check around the marina area to determine how deep the bass or bait is or if there is a thermocline. Then I get a few rods ready; usually a jig rod, a worm rod and a swimbait rod. Depending on what seasonal period it is I may get out a top water, crankbait or spoon rod. If I have a favorite lure it is a jig, followed by a swimbait and it depends on the time day or night it is which lure I feel best about casting first. Tom