Bluebasser86

Mine survive the extreme heat in my kayak box, in the heat but not direct sunlight. I don't know if they'd make it if they were left in a car for repeatedly though.

The popper is a Bill Lews SpitFire, not sure on the walking bait.

I like them, but they do come in very limited color selection, they're difficult to tie/seperate, and fussy with what kind of weather you can take them out in. The best day I've ever had in the kayak was mostly thanks to a living rubber/silicone skirted jig though.

This rapidly has turned into a big whizzing match when it was supposed to be opinions, and we're not going to do that. LOCKDOWN!!

I have had serious issues with hooking frog fish this year. I suspect it's largely the size of the fish I've had biting, but I know I've had a couple bigger ones that I didn't connect with also. My productive baits that usually have high, hookup ratios are just not doing it lately.

Good story telling and unfortunate that you lost those good ones. A good fishing buddy of mine was there fishing and didn't fair so well. He also only managed 3 fish but had about 55" and ended up around 110th place and then had to drive back 15 hours without getting to fish a second day.

Doing a little prefishing for the upcoming state lake roadrunner tournament in a couple weeks this past weekend. This one is one of my least favorite tournaments of the year because all the state lakes close to me are ungood to put it nicely. I went to the "best", one that is about a hour from my house. This lake use to be really good, but it took a pretty hard nosedive several years ago and it just hasn't ever recovered all the way. I think the fact that it really sits out by itself and gets a lot of bank fishing pressure (meat eaters), the big fish got removed and the numbers haven't rebounded. Last year, it took just over 90" to win the roadrunner, so I was looking for potential to get to that. It was actually better than I'd expected, ending up around 86" and missed a couple solid bites. I thought I had a real good kicker, but I always forget this lake has drum in it, unlike most state lakes. This one had a big sunfish in her throat. A drum can't eat it much further than that. Sunday I took the boys out in the boat for a little bit. A buddy from work has been asking me to bring him some fish and I've been noticing 2 things when I go out to the lake by the house lately; there's a lot of big bluegills on beds, there's a lot of catfish cruising around a couple different docks. They hammered on the bluegills while I let a piece of cutbait sit out in a couple different spots, and each one of them got to wrestle in a healthy channel cat. I ended up with almost a full gallon bag of fillets for him and his family to enjoy.

I fish from mostly a kayak and I carry a different rod for each bait if I expect both to be a potential player. I can pretty comfortably carry 12 rods in my kayak before I'm out of rod tubes though.

The obvious solution here. https://www.ebay.com/itm/294473685183?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1p8OKyfAqSJ-AvIMxkDSmZg1&norover=1&mkrid=711-173151-913341-5&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=294473685183&targetid=2451667593817&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1017588&poi=&campaignid=23874132874&mkgroupid=198266511482&rlsatarget=aud-1412318123216:pla-2451667593817&abcId=9408285&merchantid=138373420&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23874132874&gbraid=0AAAAAD_QDh8b4gabKIUsh4Ez2p38TMCux&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2_TQBhCnARIsAF3-XhyJfvNik27Q5JH6wGZSzfMQaPh6P97MLpF5LuPHo0teKvW8gR9ZYRIaAuLjEALw_wcB

I do have some pretty colorful baits.

Flouro sinks and is more dense than mono, so you get more direct connection to bottom contact baits because there's no belly in the line. There's less stretch on the hookset, which helps, especially at distance. It has better abrasion resistance than mono for fishing in and around cover where I'm typically fishing bottom contact baits. The density transmits bites better than mono as well. The downsides are that it's not as forgiving as mono. If you get a kink in flouro, it's going to break there next time you put pressure on it. Flouro doesn't return to it's original state when stretched like mono does. If you tie a knot that is less than perfect with flouro, it's probably going to fail. The pros outweigh the cons for me though. As for the braid on topwater, that's unfortunate that it doesn't work for you because it's so much better than fishing mono. Mr. Livesay is one of the best topwater fishermen out there and runs straight braid on his walking baits also, maybe following his instruction might help solve your issue.

I fish straight braid almost exclusively with all my treble hooked topwaters and find this to be a huge false narrative. Unless you're doing long pauses, which I don't know anyone that does with a walking bait since they're typically for covering water, it's a non-issue. Hooksets are much more solid on long cast (just reel into them and lean into the weight), and there's no additional knots with a braid to leader knot. Back on topic, I grew up fishing mono for everything, and the difference between a good flourocarbon to mono for slack line presentations is huge. Flouro has it's issues, but the upsides far outweigh the down IMO.

It isn't a fun bait to fish a lot of the time, but it's very effective and when they're eating it, it's going to outfish everything else by a wide margin.

Big fan of the Diamond Shad. They were cheap and very effective baits. The diamond pattern reflected light in all directions and it really seemed to attract the fish.