River Rat316

I would suggest looking at the Owner weedless wacky hooks, or a good quality circle hook for wacky rigging, with either all you need to do is lift up and start reeling, imho opinion though circles are the way to go for wacky senkos

How is it rigged, line type, and hook type (light wire, or heavy wire) all play into how hard you are going to have to set the hook. But in general if I am t-rigging with a regular wire hook its not much more than a sweepset, t-rigging heavy hook heavy cover, cross there eyes!

its not a purse its a satchel.... Indiana Jones wears one!

I am going to call BS on this one, like already stated alot of the hooking percentage has to do with the fishermans mechanics, and I suppose if the fish had wooden lips that only went straight up and down your statement might be true but in the real world this is not the case. If anything a "bullet" shaped head might be the best shape for hookup percentages, the head itself comes out of the mouth easier, not opening the mouth like a football or arky shaped head. I have an unreal hookup percentage with grass and swim jigs, way higher than anyother style of jig actually. SO while test scenarios are always a good starting place keep in mind that things vary in the real world, if your test was at all accurate no one would ever hook a fish with a single weedguard and regular head.

Illegal in MN.... just like everything else

Yep and that is why every time I have a sale there is fair warning in BIG BOLD letters that the ship times could be 2 to 3 weeks, and this sale is no different from any of the others.

Yeah its true, Vinny whipped up on me, I told him any more and he was swimming to the landing We were discussing the difference in setups, since we were basically fishing the same size jigs, same size trailers, but Vinny was fishing faster than me, I couldn't fish faster and stay on the bottom. The thinner line diameter helped his jig drop faster, drawing better strikes, and that is why you see his ugly mug in the photo's , In retrospect I get pretty hard headed and probably should have put down my flipping stick with 20lb Yozuri, and picked up another lighter rod I use for finesse jigs that has 12lb on it, but I didn't and that was the difference between snapping the pics, and being in the pics

Hey fat chicks need loving to

I would move...lol Chucks are tough sob's you are lucky to drop it in one shot, I had them walk through a 22lr and .223 when I was a kid.

Whats the reason for not liking the rifled? I am looking to upgrade my 1100 to rifled from smooth bore slug

Grimlin PM sent. And as said before I 100% stand behind any product that leaves my shop, the whole reason I started making my own in the first place was I was sick of shoddy workmanship in everything else I could find in the stores! If anyone at anytime has any problems with my product I want and need to hear about it, I want to replace the product and fix any defects or weak spots in the manufacturing process, if its defective product on one of my vendor sides I want to know about that to so I can let them know about the defect or replace them. If we never hear of any defects or design flaws we keep producing the same product over and over, and that isn't going to get us as a company or you as a consumer better product, which is the end goal!!

Check out the Pro Series of Jigs, $2.59 for a hand tied jig, Mustad hook (industry standard) and a rattle included. I don't think there is a jig built in the U.S. that is cheaper with those features. And with the 10% BR discount your price is $2.34 and free shipping for orders over $50.00. You could get 22 hand tied jigs shipped to you for $51 and change. That would cover you for 11 outings if you average 2 an outing!

NorthStar Custom Baits is having a Labor Day sale!! The sale is 15% off our entire store, and also includes FREE SHIPPING for orders over $25. As with all sales shipping times can grow to 2-3 weeks, we do not keep a "stock" we make all orders as they come in so you get NEW items, not stuff that has been sitting in stock for years. Make sure to check out our new line of Flip and Swim jigs also, these have been very productive for me over the last couple months!!

DON"T Sharpen owner cutting points, that was your problem, they are not a regular point, it is a 3 sided cutting point, there is no need to sharpen, they slice instead of penetrate which means it takes way less pressure to stick a fish. And as far as the rust, any hook is going to rust if its left in a tackle box in the rain.

In clear water I would start with a smoke with blue flake, in water with a 2-6' visibility green pumpkins and oranges, and water with less than a 2' visibility I would just throw black and blue, or some variation, or a real dark green pumpkin with blue flake (okeechobee craw is an excellent color for stained water) The reason for the darker colors in dirty water is it creates a larger profile that the fish see more easily. They use their lateral line to find the bait but it also helps if they see the bait, just mho.

Points and any shoreline you can find that has a more gradual slope would be where I would start. Also isolated rock piles, they are tough to find without side imaging but if you can find rock piles on the 2 structures I named they will be absolute money!

#1: Swim jig... No big surprise, using either a rage, spaz or paca chunk, hollow belly's have been real good to me lately also #2 4" Fighting Craw, this bait has surpised me, rigging it on a light keel weighted hook has picked up alot of fish for me this season. #3 Jig, with either a rage, spaz or paca chunk. Color dependent on water conditions. 3/8 or 1/2 oz is my bread and butter around deep weedlines. Finally tried out the Alimony color jig last Friday and picked up 5 chunks that would have pushed 20lbs tournament bag out of a 300 acre lake

Now that is cool, didn't realize you had Elk in Oklahoma

Just thought I would share My fishing opportunities have been sorely limited this year, I get out maybe once every 2 weeks for an hour here or a couple hours max, I have only fished once longer than 2 hours and while it was a good day it wasn't nothing special. So while my wife is up north with her family and the kids, and my store is shut down. I am taking a little time to get out. I hit the lake about 5 tonight at my first spot I pulled 4or 5 dink largies and 3 pike, I moved around the point and started fishing a small bay that is rimmed with pads, about 2/3 of the way around the bay I noticed about a 100 yard section of pads that are clean in front, no duck weed or curly leaf clogging them up. Out side of these pads it is sporadic weed growth on a 7' flat and the fish were roaming the flat and just inside the pads, I pulled around 60 from that one area in about 2.5 hrs, none of them were pigs but there was a couple solid 4's and a handful of 3's mixed in, the rest were on the smaller side. The really fun part was that every fish came on a swim jig tonight, and they were absolutely crushing it, no ***** footing around just all out hammering that jig. For a trailer I started with a 4" berkley hollow belly, ran through 2 packs of those in a hurry, and then remembered that I had some other swim bait type trailers that I make in my bag and went through those 2 packs also. I then moved outside of the bay and continued down the shoreline, The lone dock on this side of the lake drew my attention because the area was covered in duckweed that was dying off but the dock owner had cleared it out and there was nice green coontail growing in its spot, first cast by the dock and the jig barely hit the water and a solid 4 just whacked it, the next 10 casts resulted in fish that were a bit smaller than the first but not by much, then the owner of the dock came out of the house and I thought she was gonna start yelling at me, but she had her video camera in her hand and said she taped the last 5 fish from her house to prove to her husband there was fish in their lake! I was laughing so hard I almost fell out of the boat. we chatted for a bit and I moved on, by this time its getting dark and I was thinking of leaving but a section of pads a ways down the shoreline peaked my interest, they looked clean and just like the first section I pulled all the fish from earlier, my first cast resulted in a fish pushing 5, the only problem was it destroyed my last trailer, so I took another trailer I already discarded and rigged it upside down and coaxed another couple decent fish out of it. This was by far my best fishing trip for the green fish in a couple years, I think I have caught more by numbers in past trips from last year but I absolutely love throwing swim jigs, and to have them hammer a swim jig like that all night long is just something that I dream about on those cold winter nights!

To get the jig to drop vertical you have to hand feed line out to it, the same with ledges, depending on how picky the fish are you might need to hand feed line out on ledges also.

Paca craws, rage craws, my spaz chunks, are all good options in warm water, otherwise check out my line of chunks for colder water, they are really effective trailers

I got one for a steal this winter and spent most of the spring and early summer redoing the interior to my liking, I can say for a small boat I haven't found one better. I fish mainly lakes under 1000 acres and it performs wonderfully for my style of fishing. Like said before check over the hull and transom just like any other boat and if it is solid take one of them, you won't be disappointed!

Yes in the warmer water I use a small action trailer like My 2.5" spaz trailer, and in the cold months I use the chunck trailers that are on my website!

Hey all, Just wanted to give you a heads up that the store is closed until Aug 10th, I am going on vacation the first week in August and need the extra time to make sure existing orders get out the door! We will be reopening with a Beat the Heat SALE that will start on the 12th of August, I haven't nailed down details on the sale yet, it will be more than likely a store wide percentage sale because I have no extra stock right now. Also Tackle Warehouse should be adding to there stock of NorthStar Custom Baits early this week! The have added : *Premier Jigs *Hippy Jigs *Compact series Spinnerbaits (they are sweet) *Wacky Jigs So if you "need" anything before I get back and have the sale they will be able to take care of you!!

Agree with Hooligan, we are not arguing over brass tacks here, there is a massive difference between the top of the line hooks in Owner and Gammie, and eagle claw, the top 2 are carbon steel that is tempered, have stronger points, and resist bending and tweaking. Eagle Claws are surgical steel wire that is soft and bends easily, the points are thick and not near as sharp and roll easily due to the softer steel, I may be wrong on this because I am going from jig hook experience but most of there hooks are not tempered either which makes them even softer yet. The hook is one of the most important parts of the rig, the only thing that is even close is line, but without a good strong, sharp hook your landing percentage goes way down. I know you said you never miss a fish but the one time you do its not going to be a small one.