If this run's a foul of site rules, please let me know.  I am not affiliated with this company at all and purchased all products mentioned herein.  That little disclaimer out of the way, I wanted to share a little niche manufacturer that has made my summer a lot  more fun.  

 

If you dislike finesse fishing, you can probably stop reading now.  However, if you like ultra light - Medium light finesse fishing for bass, trout and panfish, you'll love this stuff.  

 

Moondog Bait co is a small online lure manufacturer in the Ohio/Indiana area somewhere.  They specialize in soft plastics and lures for panfish, but there are a lot of styles that carry over well to finesse bass fishing

 

What initially drew me Moondog were their soft plastics.  As soon as I saw their finesse leech, I knew I had to try it on a drop shot.  I picked up two packs one in toxic pumpkin and one in motor oil.  They arrived and the first time I used them I was hooked.  

 

After that, the Bait Monkey took hold.  I really wanted to see if all of it was as good as the leeches and it was.  To go with the soft plastics, they have a large selection of skirted micro ball head, micro swim jigs, micro bladed jigs and even micro umbrella rigs.  Jig heads are available in 1/16th and 1/8th oz weights with a lot of great skirt options.  

 

Besides the drop shot, these baits work very well for a micro version of most bass fishing presentations.  You'll probably want to pickup some of the #8 EWG hooks that they sell unless you have small EWG's already.  In my experience, the #10s are too small and sometimes you will want a #6 or #4 as well.  

 

For Drop shotting, I used a small octopus hook nose hooked for the short stuff and an Owner Covershot #2 for weedless rigging of the longer baits.  the 1/32nd blade bait is tough to cast and keep down in the water column, but the 1/8th blade bait is IMHO way better than the Mini Max or Baby Jack.

 

My favorite soft plastic styles are the leech, lil lizard, Mini gill, Pond Parasite, Finesse Worm, Ultra Finesse worm, and the various paddle tails.  The larger Shad Stingers make good trailers as do the split top minnows.  The micro A-rigs are a lot of fun to pull through a school of crappie. 

 

I had high hopes for the Shad Reapers as a tad pole analog, but they didn't work out that well.   Not a lot of movement compared to the other baits.  The other bait that under preformed for me were the dragon flies.  I haven't gotten a strike on them yet.  I included photos of what was in my pocket box today, but if you want a closer look at something else, let me know.   *The underspin heads are not moondog bait co.  

 

https://moondogbaitco.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Great BFS baits - especially that bladed jig!

Thanks for sharing. I had not heard of them. I like the looks of that dragon fly.

Yea but that snap.. I just can’t 

2 hours ago, F14A-B said:

Yea but that snap.. I just can’t 

I love snaps.  I'll tie direct when needed, but I'm throwing  moving baits at dinks from shore.  It's cold and I can change baits without taking my gloves off.  If you have any snaps, you'd like to part with, send them my way.  

3 hours ago, MontanaBasser said:

I love snaps.  I'll tie direct when needed, but I'm throwing  moving baits at dinks from shore.  It's cold and I can change baits without taking my gloves off.  If you have any snaps, you'd like to part with, send them my way.  

Yep. Nothing wrong with snaps. Or rather I don't understand the aversion to them. There's been tons of videos done that show snaps don't alter bait movement (for most lures) if that's the worry.

 

A great number of Japanese hard baits have no split ring because everyone uses snaps there. On everything. Soft baits included.

 

I use a TINY snap with a 40lb strength and it doesn't impede anything I do...even finesse stuff.

 

 

4 hours ago, RRocket said:

Yep. Nothing wrong with snaps. Or rather I don't understand the aversion to them. There's been tons of videos done that show snaps don't alter bait movement (for most lures) if that's the worry.

 

A great number of Japanese hard baits have no split ring because everyone uses snaps there. On everything. Soft baits included.

 

I use a TINY snap with a 40lb strength and it doesn't impede anything I do...even finesse stuff.

 

 

It’s beautiful. What snap is that?

16 hours ago, Husker_07 said:

It’s beautiful. What snap is that?

Ryugi R Snap. Size 0, 41lbs.