BobP

JMHO, bearings - how many, what type, and where, is just one factor (and not the most important) that goes into making a good reel. I agree about more bearings making for a smoother retrieve in a well designed reel. But a poorly designed reel is a piece of junk no matter how many bearings are stuffed inside. Most first tier companies are turning out reels that are much better quality than a decade ago. But it will take several years for the "classics" of the current generation to reveal themselves through countless casts by thousands of fishermen.

If you're talking open water and a 3/4 oz weight, I like 20 lb Fireline. Nothing casts farther and has as much sensitivity. When a bass bites 125' away, max sensitivity and zero stretch work best. I use fluoro but superlines have their place and this is one for me.

Really Nice! I'll take five

I fished for a week at Reelfoot and didn't catch a single bass. It's noted for sunfish and the area lodges cater to that. When I was there, they only guys who caught bass took their boat a few miles over to the Mississippi and whacked'em.

I use colors from the 3 Basic Food Groups: shad, craw, and sunfish. Some days the color won't matter. Sometimes it will if the bass are concentrating on a particular prey species. When that happens, you better throw something in the right size and color or get zeroed. Plain marshmallow white is pretty good in moderately stained water because it says "shad" but gives off few negative cues. But do I want to fish only white? Nah

I use a 3/0 EWG Gamy too. To prevent it from balling up on the hook, I coat the Fluke with an oil based attractant like Kickn' Bass before inserting the hook. Lubed like that, the Fluke will normally climb up the line instead of getting balled up or torn. So you use fewer baits. I usually deadstick Superflukes and it's easy for a bass to swallow it before you sense the strike. It happens often enough that I now crimp down the hook barb so I can get it out more easily. Never had one jump off, so crimping the hook is good for the fish and gets me fishing again faster, too. I'd try a short leader of 20lb fluorocarbon leader material. It's tougher than regular fluoro line.

My year 2000 "Precision Casting" book says the +20 dives 18 ft on a 100 ft cast with 10 lb mono, while the +30 goes 21.5 ft with the same setup. 100 ft is a LONG cast! A DD-22 goes 17 ft, so you're only getting an extra foot with the +20. A 3/4 oz Hotlips Express gets you 22 ft with the same setup. I haven't tried a Rapala DT-20 yet but I generally like the DT series baits.

If you powder coat and bake it afterwords, I think that's about as durable as it's gonna get.

My best was the 4-5 Ambassadeur Promax 1600's and 3600's I got on Ebay for $35-70. Sweet little round reels with 8 bb's that originally sold for $169 back in the 60's and early 70's. I've owned a lot of bass reels and these are the best casting, least backlashing I've ever used.

I've checked out a number of "industrial coatings" and auto clearcoats. Always open to something better and less trouble to use! Of course, DN is an industrial coating, just repackaged by DN for resale in small batches. The McGrevor sounds very similar to DN from crank4bass's comments. The basic problem with auto clears is that the best ones are two part coatings that require a hardener and have a limited pot life after mixing. And I figure if you have to mix it anyway, it's not much different from epoxy. I'm still looking for a very durable, non-yellowing, cheap as dirt, easy to apply coating that will win me the prize as America's laziest bait topcoater. :

I used salsa jars because of their fluted shape but in the end, the DN cooked off anyway when the level dropped as more air was stored in the jar. Well, I changed salsa brands and now my jar looks like a Mason jar. I couldn't get my super deep divers into the salsa jar because of their extra wide lips! The big difference for me was Bloxygen. I was about ready to give up on DN. But now, it's my "go-to" topcoat and I'm not worrying about it curing in the jar. I pour a little more DN into thte jar when the level goes down and as long as I shoot some Bloxygen in there before sealing the jar - no problemos. I do wish I could find a cheaper Argon gas though - that's all Bloxygen is.

I started making crankbaits as a hobby about 10 yrs ago when I got tired of buying $10 wood baits and having them disintegrate after one trip. Also, there were popular baits I liked EXCEPT I wanted a different action - harder thump, tighter wiggle, different size, color pattern, etc. I don't "invent". I just build cranks from scratch to perform as desired (and that's no mean feat!). Hundreds of baits later, I still have fun building and catching fish on them.

RoLo, I just bought Navionics Hotmaps Explorer DVD sold by Fugawi with the 10,000+ Hotmaps lake maps. The program allows me to explore lakes on my home computer, mark waypoints and download them to a SD cartridge for my Humminbird 987C chartplotter. I'm not a cartographer so can't comment on the accuracy of Garmin versus Navionics. Though I used numerous Garmin GPS units over the years working for the USG, I bought a Navionics/Humminbird GPS when it came time to buy a unit for my bass boat. I agree with you that for many lakes, it won't make a difference because the Navionics and Garmin cartography is based on the same data sets. But Navionics also conducts new hydrographic surveys of popular bass lakes in 1 foot depth resolution. I thought that was sufficient reason to go with Navionics. Were I a coastal fisherman, it might have turned out differently. I'm also more comfortable using cartography employed by many GPS manufacturers versus one, for consumer-oriented reasons. That isn't a knock on Garmin, it's just a function of my buyer's caution.

Oh yeah, if not for Bloxygen, I would have given up on DN by now! My dipping jar has been going for more than 8 months now with no hardening because of the Bloxygen. When it gets low, I just add some more DN.

Doggone it. And I just spent $30 on a qt of Target Coatings 9300. Idlov, I dip in Dick Nite and don't feel there is unreasonable wastage. A quart still goes a heck of a long way and many many baits. There's also wastage with epoxy. You have to mix enough, so you always mix a little too much. I choose Dick Nite or epoxy based on the bait I'm topcoating. Each has advantages. On crankbaits, we layer the waterproofing, the color basecoat, the paint, and the topcoat, and hope they are compatible and will hold together. Most of us aren't coating scientists and have to learn how by trial and error. Once you develop a coating sequence that works, you become wary of changing it. Nobody wants to topcoat a batch of baits and stand there as it bubbles and wrinkles all that work into garbage. That's one reason epoxy is so popular. It's inert in regard to other coatings. Brush it over anything. Brush anything over it. And it will lay there and do its job without bubbling, wrinkling, or eating the coating next to it.

Nice job and to think he has only started airbrushing! I understand Marty's reservations about drilling through the undercoating but it should be OK as long as the eyes are clearcoated. Also, you can paint the raw wood in the socket with superglue as a quick waterproofing before you shoot acrylic paint. Personally, I like the chartreuse/brown but know you have a purple/blue fetish. ;D

If it's me, jerk it out and keep fishing. If the other guy in the boat wants more refined treatment, drop him off at the dock....and keep fishing.

Lowrance, Eagle, and Humminbird use Navionics cards including the popular Hotmaps Premium cards. Garmin uses proprietary map cards. JMHO, if you're a freshwater bass fisherman, Navionics and a compatible GPS is the way to go for the best and most complete sets of lake maps. I say that as a long time professional user of Garmin GPS units. They make a great GPS. If they used Navionics, they'd be just about perfect! To answer your question about map cards for Etrex units, go to the Garmin website and look at the Etrex specs. It will tell you whether and which Garmin mapping cards can be used in your unit.

Hey, wait a minute! As I understand it, flipping is done with the reel ENGAGED, so there's no way to get a backlash. Any pendulum cast with the reel in freespool and releasing line is a pitch. The fact that you're working with a set length of line is one reason you want a 7 1/2 ft or longer flipping rod (8 footers are becoming popular). I normally switch hands while the bait is enroute when pitching, so it's not a big problem but you're lucky if you can pitch with the rod in your off hand because that's a more efficient motion.

It's more about bait presentation than it is about particular baits. The 3 times I think a 7:1 works best are: burning a small or lipless crankbait, pitching jigs when fast gears get your jig back quickly so you can make more pitches and cover more water during a day of fishing, and a Carolina rig where fast gears let you take up slack and set the hook a bit faster. It's true that you can always slow down a 7:1 reel but it's hard to speed up a a 5:1 reel to warp speed for any length of time. But most like to crank at a moderate speed so choosing different gears helps with different presentations, if you fish with multiple rods/reels. BTW, gearing is not the whole story. You need to look at how much line the reel retrieves in one handle turn. That is the truest measure of reel speed.

According to tests in "Precision Casting" by Holt and Romanack, very few crankbaits dive 20 ft +. One that does is the Luhr Jensen Hot Lips Express 3/4 oz, which will run 22 ft deep on a long 100' cast with 10 lb line. Max depth is attained only in the last 30 ft of the retrieve. Using 10 or 15 lb test braid will get a foot or two deeper. For comparison, a Norman DD-22 runs max 17 ft deep under the same test conditions (which gives you an idea of the hype used in naming crankbaits!). One brand I "sorta trust" is the Rapala DT series, which includes a DT-20. Other than those, you probably need to get in to some custom built wood baits with very large lips.

squertz, most bucktails don't come with weedguards. If they do, I trim them the same as a regular bass jig. Trim the length so about 1/4" of the guard covers the hook point. Next, bend the bristles back and forth to break any glue that worked its way into them when the guard was glued into the head. Thin the bristles "by feel" until it's just stiff enough to protect the hook point while pulling the jig through obstructions. Some divide the weedguard and bend bristles out to each side for more protection. If you do this, leave it stiffer since there will only be half as many bristles in each "bunch". You can trim a bucktail to length to "match the hatch" but that will lessen the undulation of the hair when it's in the water. That subtle action is what makes bucktails attractive to bass, so it's a last resort.

I don't think there is anything you can do to a Junior D to make it run twice its design depth. On wood baits, you can add ballast in front of the belly hanger and it will run a little deeper, but not twice as deep. Adding too much ballast will kill all a bait's action. Some guys fish for suspended bass by adding bullet weights to the line 2' ahead of the crankbait, then count them down to the desired depth before beginning the retrieve. This preserves the bait's action and gets them deep, so it may be the solution for a smaller crankbait. I've also heard of guys carolina rigging floating baits like an original Rapala balsa minnow.

If you like the price, the quality, and they catch fish for you - what's not to like? Lots of guys build a crankbait arsenal around inexpensive brands like BPS, Cabelas, Academy Sports, Bandit, etc. I bought some BPS cranks years ago and didn't like them. But perhaps BPS has switched or improved the quality of the contractor that builds that bait line for them. The old saying - Beauty is as beauty does - applies.

Baits that spin and behave badly are worthless. Sure, you can find exception to any "rule". Put trebles on a 5 cent cigar and somewhere, sometime, a bass may bite it. That not really the point. You want to maximize the number of fish that will bite your bait. It's a numbers and percentages game. Baits that run straight, that consistently reach the depth where the fish are holding, that swim with the desired wiggle action, and that resemble in size and color what the bass are feeding on - those baits will get bit more often. They are also the ones you can cast and retrieve reliably through the spots where you think the fish are - multiple times. If it can't be tuned to run straight - get rid of it. Life is too short to be throwing crap baits. IMO, choose a bait that fits the depth, size, wiggle, and color criteria, in that order. Fish it with confidence, hit cover when you can (the bottom, brush and rock piles, submerged wood, etc), experiment with your retrieve speed and pauses, snaps, etc. You'll catch fish and have fun.