Tokyo Tony

The best way to catch them is to throw something with a hook near shallow weeds

Thanks guys Got her in a couple casts. Went back to that pond a couple days later for an hour and a half without so much as a sniff :-/ That's bass fishin'.

Like it's been said, the X-Rap is generally the more erratic bait of the two. However, you can fish an X-Rap as a more finesse-type jerkbait just by using very subtle, spaced-out twitches. I do that often in the early spring on a lake that's too shallow for a Pointer. When the fish aren't aggressive, the Pointer absolutely outfishes the X-Rap. I can't remember too many times in cold water that I had fish follow a Pointer without striking it. However, I can think of many occasions in which this has happened with an X-Rap. I just think it has to do with the very realistic colors of the Pointer combined with a more realistic action. When you're fishing the bait slowly the fish is going to inspect the bait before deciding whether or not to strike. People say that the X-Rap is better for super-aggressive fish, which doesn't really make sense if you think about it. If a fish is super-aggressive, does that mean it'll attack an X-Rap but not a Pointer? I don't think so. The X-Rap may have slightly more attracting power, but if you're using an aggressive retrieve I think the difference is negligible. They're both good jerkbaits, but the edge definitely goes to the Pointer. If it isn't gonna kill you to spend $15 on a lure, it's definitely worth it. It does hurt when you lose them though. I've lost two in the past month, and each bait held a lot of sentimental value for me, not to mention the $.

Jewel Eakin's jig. That's all I use in the thick stuff. You might not like it because the skirt is pretty thin, but pair it up with a Gary Y Flappin' Hawg and there's no need to make the profile bigger

I forgot to add that this fish was caught before the spawn, about 2 to 2.5 months ago And it's in a fast-moving river, but there are a lot of slackwater areas, and this fish was hanging out in one of my favorite eddies (along with several smallmouth, brown and rainbow trout, and rock bass).

I'll never forget the first cast I ever attempted with a baitcaster - I was probably 10ish. I just got back from K-Mart with my dad who was nice enough to buy me a 20 or 30 dollar combo that came pre-rigged with blue mono. I thought the reel looked cool, and I figured out how to free spool it. Seems easy enough right? I tied on a big DOA swimbait and was gonna fish one of Miami's freshwater canals for "trout". First cast I hauled back and let her rip...imagine the biggest birds nest you can imagine and me, having no clue how to untangle it. Needless to say I didn't use that rod for the rest of the day ;D Funny thing is, now I know that there are big peacocks in that area, and if I knew how to fish that bait I could have caught a nice peacock.

x2 - paired with a Pflueger Trion and 5 lb test Power Pro 8-)

Speaking of Carrot/Crucial comparisons, which would you guys say is more sensitive? I recently bought a Carrot jig rod, and while it's really nice and sensitive, it's not quite as sensitive as I imagined it would be. Is the Crucial more sensitive? It may just be that I have to get more used to the Carrot...

Nice job man! It's pretty money that your first fish on fly was a snook too. My first fish on fly was a very small barracuda in the FL Keys.

That doesn't sound right unles you went from 8# mono to 50# braid. Braid should cast better. What # suffix are you using? x2 - you might just be using braid that's a lot heavier than the mono you were using, but KVD will probably help castability a bit. You can spray some on a rag and clean up the guides too. Lastly, in my experience, Power Pro is noticeably softer than Sufix, so it casts a little better.

She was so fat that the stripes on her sides were distorted

100% for me. If you look at the design of a trick stick, it is cigar shaped. The tapered ends make a shimmy kind of wiggle when it is presented vertically (wacky) When wacky'd, BOTH ends wiggle and it has a slow, STEADY vertical fall. IMO, this is the way the bait was designed to be fished, getting the MAX wiggle out of it. Not saying t-rigging doesn't work, sure does, but wacky rigging maximizes the baits potential. That's a good point. You know, I almost never wacky-rig senkos, but it makes sense that the action would be more wiggly when wacky-rigging. I guess I'll break out my wacky hooks and try it out next time. The only thing that worries me is hookup ratio. When t-rigged, I miss maybe one in 10 or 20 bites, and that's probably because it's a dink. I just don't have confidence in those teeny hooks. LBH - would you please pass the confidence?

Matt, it's the 7'3", and I'm a pretty big fan of the rod. Light, sensitive, and sexy :-* neBassin - it took me about a full 5 minutes comparing the Crucial and the Carrot side-by-side in Cabelas before I finally went with the Carrot. I think the two rods (MH fast ~7') are pretty similar. It seemed to me like the Carrot had just a little more backbone, and I wanted the extra 3". However, what really sold me on it was...the color

Bottom view... Have you ever seen a fish so full of eggs? She hit an LC Pointer 65, ghost minnow while I was goin for smallmouth.

First view...

Good-looking schoolie from a spot my boss told me about. I think I missed the major striper run by about two weeks, but there were some little guys still feasting on alewives.

The lure in this pic is a size 1 Blue Fox spinner ;D

It's funny how all it takes is a few fish (or even strikes) to gain a lot of confidence in a new bait. Try just going crazy on the fish after you get a hit. What I mean is setting the hook hard, and furiously pulling the fish to the surface, water skiing it back to the boat. If it doesn't work there's a chance you might look like a fool, but when you get it down it's a lot of fun. And a good cardio workout ;D

I think spinnerbaits around the pads sounds good. An absolutely fail-proof pattern is to throw senkos onto the edges of the pads, pulling them off, and letting them sink to the bottom on a slack line. Focus on points and "coves" within the pad fields, as well as anything else that seems different. If you're not getting the size you want, move into the pad fields and flip a t-rigged plastic w/ a bullet weight into the holes. If they're active (or at least not comatose) you can try a hollow-bodied frog or a toad. Make sure you let us know how you do, and good luck

Here's the pic - this combo is a real treat. Went out with fishizzle on Sunday and caught a bunch of jig fish.

Yeah, it is definitely tough to tell from that picture. If it helps, and if any of you guys are golfers, my hand is a cadet medium I forgot to mention that this was my first fish on my new Revo/Carrot Stix setup. Got to test out the drag too, which I realized was a little too loosely set.

I'll probably post more pictures in the future, but for now, the last pic is a small largemouth with smallie eyes. The only one I've seen with red eyes...

This was my first smallmouth (over 8 ounces) of 2008, caught at my favorite smallie pond in NH. I think this was mid-April. Bone-colored LC Pointer, and I was pretty psyched about this fish

My other dog, Buddy, waiting for me to catch the next fish.

This is one of my dogs, Rigs, who loves diving for rocks. It's the funniest thing - anytime he goes near a river or lake, he dunks his whole head underwater for up to 30 seconds searching for rocks. He then comes to shore, makes a little pile, and goes back out to get more rocks. It's hilarious ;D