Gangley

I find it much easier to side cast with a bait caster. I tend to either shoot the lure straight into the water or get a backlash when trying to cast overhand with a baitcaster. The most overhand I will go is at about a 45 degree angle to the horizontal plane.

It depends on what I am fishing. For a swim jig or chatter bait, i will spear/nose hook a fluke, Live Magic Shad, or worm so that it has more of a "swimming" action. For slower jigging presentations where I am not trying to imitate a bait fish, I will push the trailer up and over the retainer barb because I am generally not looking for an incredible amount of swimming action. When I am looking for an a lot of action and displacement from the trailer of a slower jig presentation, I throw on a Rage Tail product.

Football Head Jig here we come!

As of this morning, it's on it's way to Arkansas. I apologize for sending it so late, I have been working away from the office and thats where have been keeping the lure box. Anyways, it is leaving Conroe, Texas and is on its way to "chipmunk84" in Arkansas. When it arrives, please list your "takes" and "puts", along with a description of how you fish your "puts" so that other members will know how you have had your greatest success with them.

Rapala DTFAT01 and DTFAT03 Bomber Model B

Tilly Hat

Senko

Box Recieved Takes: 1) Bomber Model 6A in the color Rootbeer Float(I Think) 2) Riverside soft plastic frogs Puts: 1) Rapala DTFAT01 with Sure Set Hooks - White with Blue Back. Fantastic crankbait for the top of the water column. I enjoy using them around thinly dispersed lillypads and shallow laydowns. 2) ZOOM Swimming Flukes (Paddle Tail) in Smokin Shad. These are great weightless or with an EWG weighted hook. I put a Gamakatsu 5/0 EWG 1/8th oz. hook in the package with them. Thats the setup I seem to have the most luck with. 3) Kalins 5" Lunker Grub in Electric Blue. Its a wierd color but they work. Somebody should give them a try, you won't be disapointed. 4) Northstar Custom Baits Hair Jig - Watermelon Red Flash. I've had so much fun with these jigs, they are fantastic. I am very partial to them so whoever takes it out of the box better use it well, haha. I will be out of the office tomorrow so the box most likely wont be sent out until Monday. Thanks again Fishn Hard!

I'll take a pic of it when it arrives and one when it leaves. I will also make a list of the "puts" and "takes".

Thats great information, and I've done that in the past, but I get tired of re-tying. During the fall, I will go through numerous bags of these a day, and I don't like re-tying if I don't need too. When it's a slow bite day, that is definitely the way to go because the swimming fluke will start to tear from the casting alone after I've had to slide the hook through it. Another little trick that I have learned, is to keep the tag end of the knot a little longer than usual (maybe 1-2mm), and once I have slid the head of the swimming fluke over the knot and tag end, the tag end acts like a little barb and will keep the head of the lure from sliding down the hook as much.

They work very well as swimbaits. Also give them a try as chatterbait and swim jig trailers.

what I mainly use in in no specific order: ZOOM Berkley RAGE Lake Fork Tackle Kalins V&M

Yeah right, everytime I check back on his site I wind up buying something. I must admit that I have a small addiction to the hair jigs and hippy jigs :-X

Thanks. Another package of jigs arrived yesterday from Northstar Custom so my jig selection has just increased nicely thanks to them. What I didn't notice while browsing his site, was that the PB&J comes with a bi-tone weedguard......AWESOME, never seen that before. With the unique Owner hook, beautiful hand tied skirts and bi-tone weedguard, you can definitely see the attention to detail these jigs are given. The premier jigs certainly are in a league of elite jigs.

I mostly use them on a weighted EWG hooks and have had good results with them. The only problem that I have had with using the weighted EWG hooks is that the lure generally gets stretched and slightly torn while sliding it over the weighted shank so I try to spit on the hook to reduce the abrasions to the plastic. I usually get 2-3 bass out of a swimming fluke this way. If I fish it weightless, I can get 4-5 fish out of the fluke before its too tore up. If your presentation was good enough to fool an 8 lb'r, I wouldn't worry to much about changing it up

Braid to lure = Palomar Braid to Any Other Line = Uni to Uni Make sure that when you use the uni to uni with braid and another line, that the thicker line (larger diameter) wraps around the smaller line atleast 6 times before exiting the loop.

I decided early on to go big this winter, and so I haven't fished with small lures at all this winter. Because of this, I honestly can't say whether big or small is better for me this year because I haven't fished with anything small. With that being said, I've had good luck going large this winter and I'm not planning on changing anything up. So my opinion, and completely biased as it may be, is that large baits have produced well for me THIS WINTER.

To start, most of the waters I fish are clear. When I am fishing structure such as rip rap or brush piles, the sound of the jig head banging on the structure is more than enough "noise" for me. As the jig gets close to me, I can usually hear the head bouncing off of rocks, kinda weird. Unless for some reason the fish are keyed in on rattles, I wont usually have one tied on because the jig is making enough noise on its own. However, when I do use rattles, it is usually at night, in weedy areas, and only when I feel that the bass are in a lethargic mood and aren't actively searching for food. I feel that it helps bass key in on a jig that they otherwise wouldnt be searching for.

10" Worms 7" Worms Trailers More Trailers Topwater and Minnow Terminal Tackle Spinnerbaits Rage Tails Panfish Football and Standup Finnesse Grass and Swim Jigs Hair Jigs Frogs Craws Chatterbaits Shallow/Medium Cranks Medium Cranks to Deep (Just Starting) Deep Cranks (Just Starting)

Though not a true wake bait, it sits at the top of the water column and depending upon retrieve, you can make it wake........Bomber Model B....it has been good to me. Caught 2 doubles back to back with it.

some of my bags that arent labled as having cofee scent, smell just like the ones that are labled. I'm not sure whats going on there, could just be my nose, I dont have a great sniffer.

X2

Not sure if the first question was directed towards me or not, but I dislike the senko and prefer to toss other lures at locations where I feel big bertha is resting. I have never used a senko as a search bait and probably never will. Like you mentioned, the Senko doesnt exactly elicit large amounts of excitability from bass in my experience. There are much better ways to locate bigger more active fish. Sorry if I read your post incorrectly.

Does a 10lb bag of flower make a really big biscuit? I dont think line conspicuity (diameter, color, or type) has ever really been an issue when fishing topwater, atleast in my experiance it hasnt.

Depending on the size of the waters that you fish, throwing additional shad or perch in there might not be the best idea. If they dont have the necessary environment to thrive, they will starve and die-off eventually. One of the things that you might could do is to check into water enrichment to get a healthy population of phytoplankoton and phytoplankton. This will help establish a healthy ecosystem that allows the growth of all levels of the food chain which will in turn provide a better bass habitat. A healthy ecosystem will provide a better long term solution for larger bass than to simply throw food at them that wont be around in the long run.