Fat-G

Shimano Crucial, Dobyns Savvy. I would definitely get a 7' rod. It will give you more power and leverage to pull them away from heavy cover.

Texas is massive. Call me when you stick a giant.

I see no reason to stop throwing a Horny Toad or Rage Toad and Shad.

That's awesome man, congrats!

Great looking imitations!

Broke. It must have been frayed. I was pitching a jig to a laydown at the small pond and she just hammered it. She was a hoss. Shouldn't you be out there catching pigs?

I back all of my reels. It saves a lot of money.

Totally agree. You can't blame it on the bait. Sometimes zero action whatsoever will produce more fish than say a Rage Craw. That's when I throw a Chigger Craw. It's not the bait's fault, they were biting something. You just weren't fishing what they were biting.

Appreciate that bit of info! I always enjoy reading your posts my friend.

That's because you do! They're awesome rods. Lets get Dobyns first though.

Looks like you were taking a dump. Got out to my pond for an hour today, one on the Spro, bout 3.5, broke a jig fish off that would have been my PB.

Yep, you can even swim a football jig. I've caught most of my fish this spring on the Strike King Denny Brauer jig, and I've been swimming it. Works like a charm.

Yerp, Cumaras are real good rods. Put a spool of 50# braid on it and it's a whole new rod.

I don't have an excessive amount of stuff, probably about thirty bags of Rage Tails, 50+ bags of other stuff. I really cut down alot this winter. I have mostly jigs and plastics. Those are my two favorite and most productive ways to fish. However, for a 17 year old, my rods and reels aren't too shabby.

Well said sir. Plastics and jigs, the hookset, especially with braid. It's just the sound of the braid whipping off the water. Spinnerbaits, the bite. Love when they roll on it.

Definitely gonna give them a try. I like the look of the Pro Series.

I got out two seperate times today with two different buddies. Met hookingem at 7:00 AM to fish until about noon, we did pretty good! Got probably 12-15 all together. Morning started off pretty slow, then when the sun hit the water it was on. Caught them on Mattlures, swim jigs, cranks, maybe a couple other things, I just forget. It was a long day! Biggest was right at 4 on a swim jig. All of the fish we have been recently catching are FAT as can be. They're really not going hungry. I mean just fat, healthy fish. Pretty funny, I sat down to take a quick break and eat a Powerbar, casted my jig out and right as it hit the water it got nailed. I set the hook home and then tried to get my lazy a** off the ground. 4 pounds even on the scale. We took this picture to show you how fat these fish really are. Probably a 2.75 pounder on other bodies of water, but her gut put her at 3.5+. Think she wanted the Mattlures? Later I went out with my buddy Hunter to the same pond for a little afternoon fishing. We really got on some fish. I got 7, all over three pounds, and he got two on a swim jig I set him up with on my Dobyns Champion after he watched me pull 4 chunks out in a row. I said "Here, reel this in and I guarantee you will catch a fish." Second crank, bam. It was hilarious. He also got about a 6 pound channel on a beetle spin and a 5' UL. Pretty humorous fight to watch. Later he snagged some mono that I pulled in the see a 10+ pound channel on the other end. It snapped my line when it saw me. The fish were just hammering the swim jig. Of the ~15 I got today, I'd say 70% were hooked like this. Sorry if my typing isn't on par with what it normally is, I just fished for 8 hours! My hands are sore and bleeding, my feet are killing me, but it was worth it! BTW, I shook a 5+ on the second trip and hookingem and I both missed our fair share of BIG fish this morning.

Any time Matt! It would really be a pleasure to fish with you.

Mattlures with the TKO.

Line color for me boils down to what color would look the coolest on said combo. I really don't think it matters.

I'm catching 4+ pounders on swim jigs right before the spawn. They should start making love in the next couple of days to a week. I really feel for you guys, one of my ponds is post-spawn already!

$100 for a spinning reel, get you a Sahara 2500, save $20, and buy some Rage Tails.

Really good post Eric. You made a great post about the jig with a ton of good info, which is his second link down for people wondering what I'm talking about. Jigs are my favorite. You can swim them, hop them, dead-stick them, crawl them and really any other way you can think of. I recently caught a 4.5 on a topwater jig. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting it.

Right now, probably some Spro frogs, some braid, and some swim jigs. That changes a lot depending on what I'm in need of.

That's awesome! I really enjoyed watching it all five times now. He seems to really know what he is doing with a jig.