River Rat316

18'8" is going to be lighter, get better mileage, both in towing and on the water. If you fish huge lakes I would say 20' or bigger but if you dont 18' would be ideal.... unless your boat is a rolling bass pro shops

Watermelon gold flake, hands down for me

Apply head cement, wrap the shank of the hook, or collar of the jig with a good layer of thread, this helps hold the hair in. You also need to wrap as tight as you can without breaking the thread, which if you are using Kevlar is pretty dang tight

Livingrubber.com has it

I tie these jigs here and they are deadly on Smallies, nothing really new about them but I am new sponsor.... does that count? ;D http://www.northstarbaits.com/hairjigs.html And now if you enter in br10 in the coupon code I give 10% off for Bass Resource members

I actually landed mine, but I was wading the river, I was mid river and landed a sow of a smallie, I really wanted a correct measurement bad but was a long ways from shore and didn't really have anything to measure her with, so standing in water over my waste I tried to get a halfway decent measurement against my rod, I marked the blank with my pliers (another bad idea the rod ended up snapping at that mark awhile afterward) The measurement I came up with is 2.5" longer than my PB and a good 1" longer than any credible fish out of this body of water that I have ever heard of. I still have a hard time believing the measurement. The kicker is when I got back to the truck I was pulling stuff out of my wading vest and I had a soft tape measure in there, I could have at least gotten a better idea with that. I still don't say it was my pb though cause I am not sure.

Man I am jealous, if I was to organize my stuff outside today it would have frozen stiff, actually pretty nice day here it was 25

Dark Colored jig with some contrast Black blue or Black red, even just straight black. Large trailer and loud rattles. Second choice would be a Spinnerbait with a single colorado worked slow, Third would be (may not be right but I have confidence in them) Is a all white spinner bait with a white blade burned aorund cover looking for a reaction strike, my largest 2 bass have come doing this in cold water.

As said before match the rod to what you are throwing, up here in MN spinning gear seems to be the preference for most rec fisherpeople. I see lots of people throwing jigs with spinning gear. A good MH to H spinning rod with a fast tip should handle just about any bass jig. I regularily throw smaller finesse jigs with a 7'm with a fast tip and never have a problem with hookups.

Agreed on the addictive part, in the end if your sole purpose is to save $$ don't do it. But if you want custom colors, fall rates and the like then go for it, its also a great way to "waste" time when you are not on the lake

You can buy uv worm dip. Alot of ice fishing jigs are now coming out uv coated, and imho it makes a difference in dirty or stained water or if you are fishing deep. But thats all for crappie. I have some uv over coat that I am going to try on some of my bass jigs this year to see if it adds anything. On the science front alot of what they think comes from disection of the eye itself, I am no scientist but it goes along the lines of tearing apart something to figure out how it works. In the end though it is still and educated guess and scientists like to talk in absolutes, when really they are just theorizing on something.

Agreed on that, the hook is not that great. they were originally designed to be a walleye bait though I believe, at least thats what there main use is up here, and eyes fight like a drowned rag.

Huh? Two very different heads, LOL I mean, its not even close. : Not the jig I was talking about, the post above mine talked about the whopper baits nuckleball, its a knock off of the fintech jig

The Owner mosquito hooks in 1/0 for a 5" stick bait are tough to beat. Tried there weedless wacky and liked those 2 but they get tore up pretty quick, and the rivers I usually fish a wacky rig on are not that weedy so it seemed like a waste (they did little to nothing to fend off the occasional branch or whatever) :'(

That head has been around for a long time, its the finteck knuckleball. Its to bad to see someone ripping off souch an original design

I ove hair jigs, especially in cold water, they are my go to in water below 55 degrees.!

SmallMouth: Memorial day weekend (first day of season for us here in MN) 5.1lbs in about 1' of water on a current seam, caught on the longest river in North America. Hand Poured stickbait in salt and pepper. 6'6" m spinning gear with 6lb mono. There was a few tense moments during the fight, since she immediatley bolted for the strong current in the middle of the channel, which happened to be where my boat was positioned. I had the 109lb thrust tm on high trying to hold off the rocks and trying to keep this crazy fish out of the tm. LM was in November. white 1/2oz hidden weight sb with a white blade water temp was 42 degrees but we were on a warming trend sunny day. Burning the spinnerbait I caught a ton of fish that day doing that and she was the last one of the day 5.9lbs 21" The lake was ice covered 4 days later. I also caught a 5.6lber this year about 2 days before ice up on the same bait, same lake, same technique.

I like the bigger square a's in firetiger, the one with stripes not dots.

It was originally called hot perch, it is a perch imitating color, with all the colors being flourescent.

When you are burning a spinnerbait try killing it in the middle of the retrieve, thats where I get alot of my strikes, as already stated I only go to a trailer when I am fishing dirty water or need the profile. My #1 Spinnerbait is a pure white with white blades (blade is downsized a bit to get some speed out of it) I would say about %90 of the time I am throwing this combo in anything from 3/8oz up up to 1oz

My MattLures ultimate blue gill has had many runins with toothies from large pike to muskie never any damage that pros soft bait glue couldn't fix!!

That is a do-it poison tail jig, could be from alot of different smaller manufactorers

I don't trim mine, never. Take a jig with a full weedguard and one with out, hold it around the head, hinda like when a fish strikes it and its mouth covers the whole jig, now try to pull the jig out of your hand and tell me which one is easier to get to the hook. The one without it trimmed is, the longer strands are more flexible and you can get more of a mechanical advantage because they bend easier the longer they are. About the only thing I ever do to the weedguard is make sure it lines up with the hook good so it can do its job properly. The only fish you are going to have a problem hooking with full weedguards are dinks, and I don't like catching them anyway ;D

I completely disagree with the notion that you will hookup with less fish with a circle, I use them all the time for wacky rigging and as soon as you get used to not setting the hook with them your hookup percentage will go way up. I started using them for my son cause he had a tuff time detecting bites and was deep hooking fish (so was I occasionally) and his hookups went way up so I switched and once you get used to it, its way better. No more deephooking aggressive fish they are all hooked in the corner of the mouth.

Finesse/Spider/Eakins Style. It thins out the skirt, adds a different action to the skirt. I tend to use them alot when the water is warmer, but they also work well in cold water. When the water is warm I use a swimmin chunk style trailer and slowly swim them along the bottom. When the water is cold I use a tiny chunk or tiny craw style trailer. These little jigs will surpise you they catch big fish!