Jrob78

I do subscribe to the bright colors in dirty water theory and I agree that something they can see more easily, or at all, can expand the strike zone and give them a few extra ticks to bite it. I generally tend to follow traditional thinking as far as color, natural in clear water and bright or dark in dirty water and dark at night, much for the reasons you described. I also don't fish much clear water though.

Shad don't change to chartreuse but bluegill and sunfish definitely have chartreuse and bright orangey coloring. I try not to go too overboard with hardbait color patterns, notice I said try lol. I like to have a shad pattern, a bluegill pattern and then something bright for stained water. What @Cbump said is true though, bass are able to find food in stained water and the prey doesn't automatically change to a bright color.

Once I knew they were oos I was expecting to wait a month or more so I was happy they came fairly quickly. They never sent me a tracking number or anything, I just happened to check

JLS won't but Digitaka got some in recently and did. I was kind of surprised about it too. They are a few dollars more than JLS but still cheaper than buying them here. They had a nice selection too Edit...They don't even have Evergreen listed as a brand they carry anymore so maybe they got in trouble for it. They had a full run of Evergreen baits last week

Post a picture

These are big, heavy hunks of plastic. A Fat Ika and 5” Senko for comparison. The big hook slot runs on both sides of the bait. These will cast a mile and they look awesome. I have high hopes for this bait. My only concern is durability, like all Yamamoto baits. I can’t wait to try them out.

Yeah for $8 or $9 each they were hard to pass up. I only bought enough of the Yamas to get free shipping but they kept adding free bags so I ended up getting more than I intended. I’ve been wanting a Bantam for awhile to compare to my Daiwas and they finally got some 8:1’s in stock so I jumped on it.

Pretty anxious to try out the Yamatanukis and Sleeper Craws. I had to buy the Bantam to get free shipping on the JH’s ??‍♂️

Yeah it doesn't matter how awesome and well built a reel is, if you don't like it and it doesn't fit your hand well there's no reason to try to force it. Sell it and get something you like better.

Looks like my order is being delivered tomorrow, hopefully everyone else's orders will come soon too.

Yes they do. I've bass fished Texoma twice and Stripers with a guide a few times. When we bass fished we were in kayaks both times and launched at Eisenhower State Park on the Texas side to primarily fish for smallmouth. There was a lot of deep and clear water and docks over deep water and rocky shorelines. We caught a bunch of smallies in the 1lb-2lb range fishing those areas with small poppers, shaky heads, small swimbaits on jigheads, underspins and squarebills.

I bought a couple when TW closed them out. Still one of my all time favorite reels. I should update mine with a new dragstar and handle and get it back in the starting line up.

I was thinking dang, I didn't know they made Pointers that big

You might find that you are totally comfortable throwing all that stuff on one rod. I generally prefer a med powered glass rod for squarebills and those smaller, lightweight mid diving cranks and it's way underpowered for spinnerbaits and chatterbaits. I have glass and mod fast graphite rods that I use for spinnerbaits and chatterbaits and they work well for oversized square bills, deeper diving larger crankbaits and things like heavier lipless cranks but I wouldn't use them for regular sized squarebills. Like I said though, everyone has their own preferences and what works for me doesn't necessarily work for other people. If I were you I would buy a rod for the spinnerbaits and bladed jigs and just see how it does with other baits.

I have graphite cranking rods that are good for both but the rods that are powerful enough for bladed jigs and spinnerbaits are generally too much for how I like a rod to fish shallow and lighter crankbaits. I use glass for squarebills and small crankbaits but it's a lot different than the glass rod I use for bladed jigs. If you mostly fish larger crankbaits and deeper diving crankbaits then it will be much more doable. We all have preferences for power and action with different techniques but for me, these techniques require at least 2 different rods. Your mileage may vary though.

I haven't even put a reel on the new one yet

Yeah I never would have ordered direct if I knew they weren't actually in stock, free baits or not. Pretty aggravating. Plenty of places did have them last friday. The Hook Up still has a few colors left, including baby bass

Lol, yep. I have a handful of JH's and a 22 Bantam on the way ?‍♂️ I've been needing to try one of Shimano's newer offerings

Check Digitaka

Normally 14-17 lb fluorocarbon for jigs. I don't like braid for any bottom contact applications. I only use braid for jigs if pitching into heavy cover, which I don't normally do with jigs.

I got mine today too. The claws are interesting, I haven't heard anyone mention the way they open up either. The body is also very hollow and could easily be filled with scent. These are a little smaller than I expected but they do look good. I agree that they won't be very weedless around wood.

I would run out of line and maybe hooks and weights after a few years but besides those things I could probably go the rest of my life. I would run out of certain things but I would have plenty of other things to take their place.

Yeah they showed up in the cart for me too. It was actually kind of confusing, I was just trying to get free shipping and I would add a bag and my total wouldn't change but I couldn't find anything about it on the website. The screen shot I posted was from the confirmation email but I haven't gotten a shipping notification yet. I am excited to try these out too. I've had really good luck with Fat IKA's and some of the other bulky, backslide type baits.

I ordered 10 and got 3 free when they were released on Friday.

Beat me to it lol I wish they would crank the volume up, I'm watching live but can't hear anything