Marty

Yes, both lipped and lipless crankbaits catch fish during warm water periods. Lipless can be very versatile. You can burn them, crawl them, jig them and do other things at various depths. You're limited only by your imagination.

I don't know why inline spinners should be considered beginners' lures, but regardless, they catch fish.

This is an actual product and it has drawn some hilarious, creative, sarcastic and sexist reviews on Amazon. Just Google bic for her.

I don't use a trailer, but always use a trailer hook. I'll fish buzzbaits and other topwaters all day long because I've caught many topwater fish under sunny skies. As to the 1/2 oz. lure: people might want them for longer casting and/or offering a bigger profile to the fish. Would it sink too fast? I never used one that large, but my feeling is that it wouldn't sink too fast because the larger blade would provide more lift which would offset the extra weight.

My theory is that they just don't care anymore. Everyone's cutting costs, probably few notice the errors and even fewer complain about them, so where's there incentive to do it right like they did in the old days? (Just kidding around, I know it should be "their", not "there.")

There are too many words to list. In twelve years of forums I think I've seen it all until something new comes along. This guideline should cover you about 99% of the time. "Affect" is a verb, meaning "to have an impact on." For example, it affected my fishing, it affected our relationship, it affected the game's outcome, etc. Use "effect" for all other purposes, such as his personal effects, the effects of Hurricane Isaac. Using a cold front as an example, the front affected my fishing, but the effect of the front on my fishing was negative. In other words, "effect" is a noun almost all of the time. Hope that's clear.

I use steel leaders at times, sometimes after a biteoff, sometimes preemptively. The bass I've seen don't seem to have much of a problem taking lures attached to a leader. Nobody likes losing lures and, as was mentioned above, I don't like the idea of a pike swimming around with a mouthful of crankbait.

I got around to that article on p. 58 and that was supposed to be humor, written tongue-in-cheek by the same guy who used to write Harry and Charlie. Maybe the Zetas drug cartel is not much of a humor source, but that's how I interpreted the article. You could see the facetiousness in the first few paragraphs. Example: "I assured him I was a highly competent angler with several 3-pounders to my credit."

I use black Jitterbugs and chartreuse buzzbaits and they hit both when it's a sunny afternoon and hit both under lower light too. Bottom line is I have no idea what effect color has.

I suspect you'd have more of a problem with it than the bass. They don't demand a perfect paint job and are more than willing to hit cranks with half the paint scraped off.

I didn't attend Syracuse, but am located an hour or so west of it and since we have no D-1 sports in Rochester, the Orange are our local D-1 school. I've been a fan for 25+ years. I've never liked the ACC, but now SU is going there. We have to adapt, no other choice, but I can't see myself rooting for Duke anytime soon.

I had read the account of the editor's trip but hadn't gotten to the other contradictory part. Where's Raul been? I'd like to get his take on the situation.

Read all you can--books, magazines, Internet articles and message boards. Visit places where other anglers congregate and watch and talk. And just fish those lures based on what you've read and you should be much more proficient even if you can't find a teacher. Good luck.

Good luck, I hope it fizzles out and doesn't damage anything.

I don't know that the same thing has happened in every store. I only visit the fishing department and while it may not be what it was when it opened, it hasn't deteriorated to the extent that your has.

Conventional wisdom has it that wooden crankbaits differ and plastic ones are much more uniform. Are you talking about just wood or plastic as well?

Good luck. I think that sunfish are terrific fighters on a pound-for-pound (ounce-for-ounce?) basis and are loads of fun on a UL with 4# line.

Are you just slipping a piece of tubing through the hook? Assuming you're using hooks with a barb, piercing the tubing (as mentioned above) past the barb will keep the trailer hook from coming off.

I do the same. I've never been able to detect any effect on the action.

Bassmaster mag had an article on small boats some months ago. One of the points they made was a canoe might be better for those who like to bring a lot of stuff and have it spread out in front of you. I'm in the latter category and have a wide, stable canoe. There are some disadvantages (one of them was mentioned above, getting blown around more), but as the saying goes, you have to take the bad with the good.

I use 15# braid and that can get some nice bass through some pretty heavy cover. But I doubt that there's one right answer.

I don't know that I'd use the word "sloppy" to describe all of them. And I'm not sure all of them had to be moved. Of course, I'm just applying my own standards, but there's a lot of overlap and some topics could legitimately belong on more than one sub-forum. I'm sure in some of those cases the noobs weren't sloppy at all, but felt they were posting in the correct forum. The can't be expected to know the nuances of topic-moving here.

Have no idea of what an Edge frog is. But make sure you use a hook with a big enough gap to allow it to go through the plastic and into the fish's jaw. I use 4/0 EWG with Ribbits and my friend uses 5/0 with Horny Toads.

Another vote for crankbaits. My favorite is the Rapala Mini Fat Rap, but I think most appropriately sized cranks can get the job done.

Agree with Sam. For many years the vast majority of my fishing has been from the shore and I've used virtually every type of lure there is. Sure, I'm a little careful with crankbaits if I'm fishing snag-infested water, but basically, if it catches fish from boats it catches fish from shore. Most of my waters are weedy lakes and ponds and mostly I'd fish topwaters, shallow crankbaits and soft plastics. Spinnerbaits ought to be on that list too, but I'm not crazy about fishing with them so I don't use them that often.