WRB-2.0

You are right. Since my surgery and use the iPad and it's a learning curve for me and need to figure out the keyboard, spell check and grammar corrections that Apple does that I am not familiar with. We started a new thread on T- rigged worm hooks that may be of interest, also with a lot of errors! Tom

The Tokar hook is made by Eagle Claw and they are trying to regain a market position lost to the Japanese hooks that introduced new metals and sharing technology. Tokar has basically tried to offer a hook that incorporates features known to be popular and hope these features appeal to anglers. The shrink sleeve is copied from Roboworm Rebard, the triangular knife edge from Owner and eliminate the needle point that tends to flatten. The cost is higher due to sharpening after heat treatment and plating, which dulls the very tip and sharp edges. Tokar is sharping the hook for you, then packaging it. Tokar is a sharp hook out of the package. How long it stays sharp depends on what the hook point contacts during each cast, no hook is indestructible! The question is; do you want to pay for one hook sharping or learn to sharpen your own hooks? If you don't learn how to keep your hooks extremely sharp, then you either throw dulled hooked away or fish with a dulled hook. Fishing with a dulled hook point leads to missed strikes because the hook didn't stick into mouth tissue and transfer the fishes movement to let you know a strike has occurred. I am a fan of sharpening every hook I fish with and check and resharpen them as needed. The triangular knife edge sharping is standard practice for my marlin hooks because the knife edges cut into the bill and hard mouth. I am not a fan of knife edges for bass hooks and prefer just the tip to be extremely sticky sharp because bass have softer mouth tissue and only the inside ridge of the lips and surface of the crunchers in the roof the basses mouth are tough to penetrate with the tip of the hook and slicing through isn't needed. I also use a fine tool makers file to sharpen hooks. I don't spend a lot of time resharping worm hooks, unless I am running low on them, but I do sharpen jig hooks due to the cost of making up jigs, like hair jigs! In regards to a pro bass angler; who would risk missing a money fish due to a dulled hook, they re tie and replace their hooks constantly, it's a matter getting a check or not...the cost of fishing. Tokars; I tried the free samples, very sharp out of the package and dulls just like any other hook during use. I don't like the knife edges and caution anyone using them to take care the hook edges do not contact your line when storing the hooks on your rods on the deck or in the locker, the sharp edges will cut and nick the line. Tom PS; appoloogize for the long reply, too much time setting around on my backside.

The jargon relates to hill land and high land classification reservoirs, the predominate type of lakes in the heartland of bassdom. These are usually large 20,000+ acre reservoirs created by dams on large rivers. The creeks arms are usually a few miles long, lakes within a lake.nthe flats are the creek valley floor adjacent to the creek, stream or river bed. Tom

I use the hitchhiker spring or Owner CPS spring FTP attached a worm piece for a weed guard on my jigs and use a similar hook/ spring for small swimaits. I will try this out for wor my T-rigged worms. What hook make and model do you recommend? Tom

The topic of hook set often comes up on bass fishing fishing forums, angler having trouble keeping bass hooked when fishing a Texas rigged soft plastic worm. First a Texas rig, for purposes of this discussion has a bullet shape sliding sinker that is free to slide on the line, may or may not have a bead between the hook and weight. The hook is inserted into the nose of the worm a short distance than out the belly and back into the body of the worm...a traditional T- rig. The problem various hook designs try to resolve is the worm sliding down the hook shank and filling the hook gap with the worm body, which in turn prevents the hook point penetrating the basses mouth. The original worm hook was the sprout bend straight shank hook with a few barbs on the hook shank near the hook eye. This was the hook style that I learned to rig and fish with over 50 years ago. The 1st off set I remember was the Eagle Claw #45 and Eagle Claw also came out with the 1st wide gap hooks back in the late 60's , T-rig problems have been around a very long time. The evolution includes bent hook shafts to aid in rotation like True Turn and all kinds of worm head holding devices to help keep the worm from sliding down the hook. Today the most popular selling worm hook are the off sets or J bends in extra wide gap designs; EWG. I have tried most of the different designs and keep going back to the original straight shank designs like; Gamakatsu # 011 for hand poured finesse worms and # 464 or Owner #5100 standard wire round bends. For worms over 10" or night fishing I like the heavy wire hooks like Gamakatsu #484, Owner #5103, because I fish 20 lb line at night and tend to fish heavier cover. To keep the worm head on the hook shaft, I like to use a 1/4" piece of Peg-it inserted through the hook eye, after tying the hook,, The rubber holds the worm head in place . I also skin hook T-rigged worms. Hook sizes vary with worm body diameter, not length. Small finesse worm 1/4" diameter I use #011 size 1/0. Standard worms with 5/16 to 3/8 diameter, 3/0 or 4/0 # 464 and larger over 3/8 go up to 5/0. I know I am in the minority using straight shank worm hooks today, but rarely loose a bass with a T-rigged worm. What is your favorite T-rig worm hook and why do you like it? Tom

The jig I made back in '71 is that jig for me. I can fish it in deep rocky structure for days without snagging in rocks, the only time I break it off is in wood if I don't add a weed guard (see Horizontal jigging). If you consider the number of big bass over 10 lbs that managed to get this jig stuck into their mouths over the past 40 years, allowing me to get a good hook set and catch those bass, I don't believe any other jig comes close to being the perfect jig* for fishing deep rocky structure lakes. The problem is my jig is not available for sale. One reason it has limited application as a casting jig in rocky structure with light cover and very few bass anglers fish a jig the way I do. This simple fact my jig has let me target giant bass that know one else fishes for except live crawdad anglers. Tom *Bo's jig may change that and is available. I will give them a try this pre spawn.

You are talking about pre spawn, late winter warming to early spring when big bass are moving up through the water column in deep structured reservoirs. There isn't a soft plastic trailer made that appeals more to big bass feeding on Crawdads than a pork trailer. Tom PS; read the Horizontal jigging post.

I have a brush jig mold made by Do-It , if interested PM me, I like to sell it. There is a reason for so many jig head types, most are trying in vain to resolve the problem consistantly hook sets. Tom PS; check out the Horizontal jigging thread.

To flip or pitch shallow heavy cover you need the rod/reel/line/lure for that presentation. You are targeting shallow active bass holding tight to cover, the lure is usually a jig or pegged worm that can penetrate the cover, fall down in front of the bass to create a strike. For this type of presentation being close is better than trying to make longer inaccurate cast. If you are working the break line edges with a lure that covers a lot of water like a crankbait or spinnerbait or even working a T or C rigged worm, casting or swimming jig, the boat position should allow you the right casting angles. Beating the bank at a specific distance is rarely a productive technique, unless you have established a proven pattern and catching bass. Shoreline anglers are shore bound and when fishing from a boat you should be fishing all the productive areas in the lake, a lot of those are over your shoulder. Depending on how dense the cover is and how much fishing pressure that cover is subjected to determines if the bass are going to be spooky or not. Lakes with a lot of shoreline activity, the bass can be conditioned to anglers and boats. The bass know you are there if you are 25' of 5', the key is are they active or not. Active feeding bass tend to focus on the prey they are eating, the distance should allow you to present the lure to those bass, without shutting off the bite. Tom

The proof is in the pudding, how well the bass was hooked when you land and remove the hook. Worm usually end up hooking the bass through the upper lip on a good hook set. If the hook is in the corner of the mouth , the bass has turned away or was sideways form the hook set, very low percentage hook set. If the hook is in the throat, you weighted to long to react. Hooked in the roof of the mouth the bass was in the process crunching the worm like a jig, a good set. Today's sharp premium hooks can easily continue to penetrate during the pressure of fighting the bass, if the bass doen't jump and toss the hook before that happens. It is another can of worms to discuss hooks, but ksn't that the object of the discussion, hook set! Let's just limit it to Texas rigged worms, what hook? Tom

Bo, the key is a little slack; if tow vehicle has several feet of chain out and stops before hitting the end of the chain, nothing happens. The angler must control the slack. Braid is like chain, no stretch, both mono and FC line have stretch and take up some of force and the rod takes up more. Several things to factor in, with practice the hook set ratio should improve. Tom

The nothing bit with a jig is very hard to explain, it's always something, sometimes intuition...you just know you have been bit. It takes hundreds of cast with the same weight jig and similar trailer that gives the jig a certain feel and fall rate, plus you need to know the structure depth and whatever cover etc is there. As Bo said, swings are free. I was fishing with a friend along a steep red clay bank and was back seating and he turns and says there sure are a lot of rocks on this bank and I tell him, there isn't any rocks along this bank...you just missed several strikes.. His next cast I watch as he works his jig with the rod, like you would fish a T-rig worm; lower the rod tip,let the jig hit bottom, then lift the rod to move the jig and repeat. As the rod was lowered his line went slack, then straightened out a little and went slack again, I said swing! He cuaght his first big bass. Never could break him using his rod to move his all the time or watch or feel his line carefully. He is a very good plastic worm fisherman, not good with jigs. Tom

Strike detection is the key to catching bass on jigs, the bass must have the jig in it's mouth to set the hook. Sounds like a stupid statement, but every angler who fishes with jigs, miss a high % of strike from big bass and catch a higher % of smaller bass on jigs. There is a reason for this and to understand why simply try bed* fishing with a jig and watch a big bass strike your jig, you rarely feel anything. The smaller bass has a smaller mouth and can't generate enough water volume to vacuume the jig off the bottom and into it's mouth, they must bite the jig with their lips, then make a second effort to get the jig back into the crunchers to kill it. Bed bass have no intent on eating the jig, they want to kill it because a crawdad is a egg eater and a threat to the nest. The female bass over 7 lbs have a big mouth and big gills that can easily vacuume in the jig to the back of it's mouth, crunch it to kill and reject it very fast, no secondary bites. You watch the big bass angle down near the jig, sometimes see a white flash to indicate the strike has occurred and try to set the hook without feeling the line move, you see it, but don't feel it! With practice to adjust your timing and hook setting technique the % of missing goes down, but you still miss a lot of strikes that you see happening. Now try casting over 60 feet away from the boat, you can't see the bass strike and often may not feel a strike. How do you get a hook set if you don't know the big bass has the jig in it's mouth? The bass must want to eat the jig, not just strike and reject it, or the hook must penetrate mouth tissue when the bass strike to kill the jig and the jig gets hung up in the basses big mouth for a moment , then you feel something when the bass either continues eating the jig or trying to reject it by shaking it loose. We catch most big bass when they actually eat the jig and don't reject it. Big bass are wary bass and have life learning experiences to reject anything that doesn't feel or taste right. Jigs have a lead head molded onto a sharp hook and it's doesn't feel right to big bass, so they reject them often. If the hook doesn't snag the upper mouth tissue or the ridge behind their big tough upper lip, the jig gets rejected cleanly, just like the big bed bass does while you are watching the strike happen, except you don't see it happen when casting a distance. This is why the jig design and hook position is critical when casting jigs and retrieving further away from you than a 45 degree angle outward, the horizontal zone. Tom * I rarely intentionally target big bass on beds, not that it isn't fun or challenging, it's both. The lakes I fish are too small for the intense fishing pressure these big rare bass must face each spawning season. I focus on the staging period during pre spawn in deeper water, when the big bas are eating Crawdads, not trying to kill them. The big bass are very healthy and strong during pre spawn. It's a personal choice.

Agree Pual. Here is where actual fishing experience clouds the basses ability of seeing very well deep water for bass. I rarely fish deeper than 40 feet for LMB due to several issues with severe pressure changes have on these fish. With that said, I was fishing with a friend several yers ago during the winter at lake Castaic. I had agreed to teach my jig fishing presentation and my friend wanted to sheer with me his deep water presentation using. Do nothing type custom hand poured soft plastic worm, a 4" straight worm the sme shape on both ends. The worm color he ws catching his bass on was clear with a very faint blue neon blood line. The worm being a hand poured varied a little from worm to worm, some had slightly more blue neon than others. The presentation required 4# Maxima clear mono, 1/4 oz split shot, 3' above the hook, the hook ws a light wire ghost size 4 Phenix, the worm nose hooked. My friend was fishing a long ledge that ran about 1/4 mile off shore in 60 feet of water and dropped off to very deep water over 140'. The bass were holding on of the ledge ner the break line. We started a controlled drift dragging the worms and the line would jut get tight, reel the line to old up th rod nd et th hook. If you used a worm ith darkr blood line, no strikes, the bss only winter the lighter more transparent worms. We Los tried everlasting other darker colors that work well in shallower water, no bites. Thee deep bass stayed on this very specific color for several weeks and would only bite that clear light blue neon 4" do nothing worm, very selective bite. Several experiences fishing night tournaments with slight color changes making a difference; I tend to use dark colors when fishing both worms and jigs at night. Black being the basic color with either blue or red highlights in flakes or blood lines. During a tournament where I was fishing out of my partners boat, I had picked up a bag of black grape with blue neon blood line instead of black with blue neon blood line, same make of 9" worm, and put the bag in my tackle bag with my other night fishing worms. Before dark I rigged up the black with blue neon 9" worm and we fished for hours without much luck, caught a few jig fish. I put on a new worm from the unopened bag, I had given the opened bag to my partner earlier because he was worm fishing more than I was. The worm bite turned on for me, but my partner couldn't get bit. So I gave him a worm out of the new bag and he started to catch bass. The difference, the new bag was the black grape with blue neon blood line, the bass wanted dark purple, not black. I had to look at the worm with flash light to discover why they wanted the worms form the new bag! It's experience like this that really make you wonder about how bass see colors in very low light conditions. Tom

Bo reading your reply made me rethink how I hold the line; over the tip of the index finger and under the tip of the thumb. When I first learn to use a bait casting reel, it didn't have a level wind, so guiding the line became a natural line retrieve for me. It didn't take long to learn that the line movements were the key to knowing what was going on with the lures and could detect strike easily. No rod ever made will be as sensitive s your fingers and thumbs. This is one reason that I have been able to feel strike using yesterday's tackle and caught giant bass back in the 70's. Today's rods are a lot ligther and better balanced made with state of the art materials, but I don't rely on my rod for strike detection. Today most bass anglers use longer rods with longer handle, rods I call trigger sticks because Fenwick was the first rod maker to offer this type of bass rod. When you hold the rod in front of the reel, the long rod handle goes under your forearm and becomes an extension of your arm, giving you a lot of leverage. Tom PS; Bo is your direct contact for Nu jigs.

Years ago I would catch Crawdads from the local lakes and keep them in glass jars filled with water to study the colors. We see an overall color at first glance, however when you look closely the shells are mde up of several colors that bllend onto a basic color. What looks like brown may be a light cinnamon background with dots of red, purple, black, green, blue. The under belly is almost always light tan. Crawdads change color depending on the water chemistry, aquatic vexation and structure background. Back in the late 60's when I fished with live Crawdads, I would add food color to the water tank they were kept in; blue dye had the bigger color change and attracted more strikes. Blue Crawdads more thn likely stood out and were easy prey. Red, yellow and green dyed live Crawdads didn't seem to improve strikes. I used a lot of blue vinyl skirt jigs for awhile and they worked occasionally, blue was a popular soft plastic color in the 70's; blueberry Jelly worms! Today we use blue or blue neon as a high light color. Night crawlers tend to have a blue neon shine; cinnamon with blue neon and oxblood with purple are both good plastic worm colors. Tom .

The lure that I have the most time on the water with is a jig, because it's the 1 lure that always gets fished, night or day, year around. When I started to fish jigs was back in the late 50's, that is over 50 years of jig fishing! The only 2 colors available back then we're black or white buck tail jigs. The trailers were black or white pork rind. The early 60's vinyl jig skirts became available in black, white and yellow, followed a few years later with brown, purple, blue and combinations of those colors. Pedigo pork rind came out with trailers called lizards in 3" and 4" ; L3 and L4, in black, purple, brown, blue and white. We now had a wide variety of jig colors to choose from. Black remained the dominate choice everywhere, except out west where the PVJ (purple vinyl jig) was the go to money jig in deep structured reservoirs. Today black and blue is the dominate color combintion across the country, except out west where purple and brown combination if preferred. The only time I fish a black or black and blue jig is at night. Black works at rare times during the day in clear deep rocky structured reservoirs out west. It worked OK during the years when it was the only color available, I caught bass on both all black and all white jigs back in the 50's and 60's. I changed to purple and browns during the late 60's and started catching more and bigger bass. The color combination green weenie started out west and is the basis for green pumpkin, both good colors out west, but not a popular jig color for LMB, more popular for smallmouth and spotted bass. The bottom line; black with blue and green pumpkin are rarely fished jig colors out west, except in the Delta area. Color preferences are regional. When I was traveling around the country and fishing, I cuaght a lot of bass on brown and purple jigs, the reason may have been very few bass had ever seen the jig color before and sometimes different is better. Tom PS; I haven't ever seen a live crawdad that was black or black and blue, or purple, other than in pictures. Out wet the Crawdads tend to be reddish brown or dark red and brown/green when they molt.

Now all that is needed is to process the colors through the basses eye and interpret through their brain. I have looked at a lot color studies starting back when Loran Hill came out with his Color C Lector. The problem was and still is my experience doesn't support the science using rods and cones to suggest how bass see color in the absence of light or very low light at night. The primary colors: red, yellow and blue make up our unaided eye spectrum. We can't see ultra violet or infra red without the aid of filters. Bass and other fish that live in water have evolved to be able see in the environment they must survive in. 30 feet depth of light is very clear water, good pictures. The black stands out against the light bottom very well. I didn't intend to down ply your post, this should be a good topic, thank you for sharing. Tom

Lot of factors to consider, wind helps to mix the turnover water with needed added DO and rain slows the recovery time due to adding low PH. I usually give it 2 weeks, no reason to try and catch inactive bass that are not interested in eating. Tom

Beyond the style of the fishing shirt you should be concern about the SPF protection rating. I use Sun Days SPF 30 long sleeve fishing shirts, not sure if they make the pro style. Tom

I still have about 100 custom Super Pork trailers and haven't located another source. May need to learn how to make them!

FYI, I did take a few pictures with my iPhone, has some issue with the password I need to correct to send via Emai and will try tomorrow. What is referred to as a buggie whip hook set is more than likely why I call a snap set, the key is having a few inches of slack line, not a few feet! As mentioned earlier it,s about applying force needed to drive in the hook point past the barb. With a lot of line between you and the bass, loose line via a belly due to line drag in the water, wind or distance, the slack needs to be taken up before the hook set or you will not move the hook point. 3 feet of rod tip movement when the line is horizontal = few inches or no line movement between the rod tip and the jig. When the jig is more vertical, the line moves in proportion to the rod tip, less the rod flex, the snap set works good driving the hook home. Keep in mind that I trophy fish and big bass really get exited when I snap set a jig into their mouth and they tend to freight train run into cover or trouble. The reel /rod sweep set is more controlled and the big bass often go along with the pressure for a few seconds before starting to run, giving me time to get the rod fully loaded and in upright position fight the bass. In regards to trailers; the consensus with pork trailers is they work good in cold water, my believe is they work good year around. What is cold water? Where I bass fish the water rarely gets below 50 degrees and I catch the majority of giant* bass when the water is between 55 to 65 eefrees, on pork trailers. My favorite pork supplier is out do business; Super Pork. Uncle Josh is the only supplier today and most of their pork doen't float good or is too stiff, requiring pounding with a meat tenderizing hammer. Why not use soft plastic? I do use soft plastic trailers, but haven't ever caught a giant bass on a jig with a soft plastic trailer! All my giant jig bass were cuaght using a pork trailer. The reason may be the slower more natural life like movement and texture, I don't know for sure. All my pork trailers have a twin straight tails and swim slowly as the jig falls down though the water or moved forward and float upright when the jig is stopped. Soft plastic curl tails moves faster, straight claws move very little. Bait fish move with faster tail action, Crawdads move backwards with tail kicks and crawl forwards. Why bass react to various jig trailers is only speculation; we know bait fish swim in the water column and Crawdads are only found in the water column when escaping and looking for a hiding place. Tom * FLMB over 15 lbs. PS; sent the photos, loop_dad

Having been fortunate to jig fish for giant bass for over 40 years and catching them with this technique, the majority are hooked in the top of the mouth: the rough near the crunchers and the upper lip between the nostril, rarely in the corner of the mouth using a casting jig. The reson may be that my jig fishing is from a boat and retrieving down or side hill most of th time. To hook. Bss in the corner of the mouth, the bass would be turning away from you, not uncommon when fishing from shore. Tom

A little more detail on horizontal jigging. When you cast a jig and it hits the water surface it falls through the water with very little action; the skirt moves but mostly stays close to the jig body and trailer. As the jig falls the trailer swims, depending on it's shape, but makes life like movements without you doing anything. Strike can and do happen during the initial fall, be alert! When the jig hits the bottom, the skirt flares out, the trailer floats upright giving the appearance of.a live crawdad. Any bass withing several feet will hear the jig hit the water and come over to check it out, they see the life like movements and become very interested. The first move the jig makes is forward swimming escape like dart, then another fall and stop repeating the life like movement. Be very alert because any nearby bass is now ready to strike and most strike occur at this time if the jig is in the strike zone. Continuing the retrieve you are now hoping to bring the jig within striking distance of bass holding near the structure as the jig get close. You don't need to over fish a jig, you can jiggle it when stopped sometimes can triggers strikes, big hops rarely work for me, except to trigger strike from smaller bass that I am not interested in when jig fishing. The reason I don't like to work the jig by lifting the rod tip, is missed strike because the rod is out of position to get a good hook set. This is a very different presentation then you usually read about, it works! It can be boring to just sit, point the rod at the jig and turn the reel handle a turn or two, then stop and wait a few seconds to feel the jig make bottom contact and watch the line jump slack, but keep alert the strike is often a tick when you don't expect it, but setting the hook into your PB bass is exciting and makes all worthwhile. Tom