Fishes in trees

I think that Mepps & Panther Martins are better in-line spinners than rooster tails, primarily because it seems that the blades start to spin faster than the rooster tails do. I think that the Panther Martin baits twist the line less than other in-line spinners. I won't throw an in-line spinner unless first I've attached an appropriate size ball bearing swivel or snap swivel.

The wider spool has to help a little bit with distance casting. I think that reel would be a great jerk bait reel.

I'm probably going to start off the season with 14 to 18 rigs on board ready to go

I generally pull the trailers off. For me, in the overall scheme of things, the cost of trailers is negligible.

When I'm pitching soft plastics next to or into cover I like Seaguar Abrazx. 17 or 17 or 20. It works ok for me, I do squirt some KVD line conditioner on it from time to time. Be mindful that the KVD line conditioner is a water based product. Early Spring, air temps in the 40's I find that Reel Magic works better for me. That is a silicone based product.

I've thrown them on a variety of different rods over the years. What these rods have in common is between 6'6" and 7'4", rated at MH but with more flex in the tip than a worm rod. Hard to describe, but I know it when I feel it. Currently I use either a 6'8" Fenwick AETOS or a 7'4" BPS Extreme. I throw buzz baits on 15 to 20 lb mono.

There is a learning curve to using spinnerbaits. Are you fishing out of a boat or are you bank bound? Makes a difference. Early 80's - when I was first learning spinner baits I found that they worked better for me thrown from a boat than from the bank. If you've gothic waders and can get a few steps off the bank it is much easier to parallel the bank. There are lots of different situations where spinner baits work - takes practice & observation. For instance, on Truman Lake - post spawn through the summer, cloudy day with a little wind - bass often school up in the tops of the trees. (Truman is more or less a flooded forest). In those conditions, you will catch all kinds of fish, but you got to throw the bait. It is a leap of faith to throw a bait & keep it 2 feet down in 25 to 30 feet of water. That is just one situation, there are many more specific situations where a spinner bait is the best, maybe the only bait to throw. Do your research. Also throw the bait on the correct gear for the situation. I could see in a pond setting you might get by with a 1/8 oz spinner bait and gear light enough to throw it. Try that at Truman or similar lakes with lots of woody, stumpy cover and you're just going to lose your bait pretty quick. If you're addicted to the small 1/8 oz size, Strike King makes the Rocket Shad, which is about the size of the 1/8 oz spinnerbait but weighs closer to half an ounce.

War Eagle makes a quality spinner bait. They make a finesse spinner bait in 5/16 oz. Comes in neat colors. It is a tandem spinner bait that comes in Colorado/Turtle back blade, silver frame or gold frame and I don't know about your local Walmart, but they are on the pegs at mine. The turtle back blade is very similar to a Colorado blade, if you've got to have a single spin - 20 seconds labor with a set of side cutters and you've got one.

No

Just went to the Sun Dolphin web site. I wonder why you'd get the 12' Jon when you could get the Sun Dolphin Pro 120 which has all the stuff you want. I had a very similar boat for 6 years and it did everything I wanted it to do on the 50 to 300 acre conservation lakes that I fished at that time. I even learned how to pitch sitting down out of that boat (which is a very handy skill to have). I don't know that difference I price between the two boats, but I'd bet that buying the Jon boat and then making the mods that you want, all of a sudden you're real close to the Pro 120. The real difference between the two boats is alternative power. The Jon boat will be much easier to row - the Pro 120 looks like you're going to have to carry a paddle. BIG difference between rowing & paddling if you have to go any distance. Be aware of the other stuff you're going to need. How you going to move it? I'd recommend a small trailer & be sure that it has hubs that you can get wet. Trolling motor - web site says 40 lbs thrust - max, but also says it will take a 6 hp gas motor. There are power decisions to be made there. I don't know but I think that if it were me and my only 2 choices were between the 120 Jon and the 120 Pro, made by the same company, I'd pick the one with the decks & chairs already installed.

I have a lightweight balsa crank rig, but I don't use it very often. Most recently I've used a Fenwick MHG 6'6"/ ML with a moderate action - found it on a close out and paired it with an old indestructible Diawa Regal reel ( medium size, forget the number). I put some 10 lb nanofil and I get pretty good distance throwing the smaller shad rap. Most of the lakes that I fish are kinda snaggy though, so this rig stays in the fishing truck most of the time.

If you still have the foot, I'd be wondering about JB Weld and just fixing it yourself. Don't know exactly how old that reel is BUT, I don't know if I'd be putting north of $50 in to fixing an old reel. However, once you throw the phrase "sentimental value" into the mix, cost don't matter as much.

I've used Jansport back packs since I was a senior in college. They have a lifetime replacement policy on them should they wear out. I've worn out 2 since 1978, one of them really wan't my fault because I lent it to a buddy who took it to the rainbow gathering and it was in shreds when he brought it back to me. I would have complained, but he was kinda in shreds also. It took that back pack and returned it to the store I bought it from, told them "this pack came back from the rainbow gathering looking like this" and they replaced it out of in store stock. The other time I had to send one in and I got an upgrade from the back pack I sent in. I think that Dick's carried Jansport packs.

I store all my soft plastics in the bag them come in. Pulling them out of the package to store them in trays strikes me as a bad idea. Sure, the colors might not bleed, but why take the chance? Similar baits get stored, in their original packaging, in gallon zip lock bags. So, I'll have a 10" power bait worm bag. I'll have a 7" power bait worm bag. There will be a Brush hog bag, a Netbait Mad Paca bag, a tube bag, and probably 20 other different bags. Over the years, this storage system has worked for me.

My favorite one is a Lucky Craft Pointer 100 SP in Table Rock Shad. Sometimes I will use the regular one, other times, I got on with red hooks that works just as good. At last count, I had more than a hundred jerk baits, but less than 200. They lend themselves to collecting. Back in the day when I was fishing BFL's in the Ozark division there was a tournament every year that had a monster jerk bait bite. In most of those, if you weren't fishing a Lucky Craft, you were fishing for 10th place or lower. One buddy of mine, who currently fishes BFL's tells me that the Vision 110 is incrementally better than the Lucky Craft and has the tournament results to prove it. I wouldn't know - I haven't been to an early spring BFL Ozark division tournament in ten years or so now. But my buddy has, and while he might engage in hyperbole from time to time, he seldom tells me outright lies. I haven't gotten into those baits yet, but the Lucky Strike Rick Clunn jerk bait is a very close copy of the Vision 110. I bought a dozen of those and if I happen to get out fishing during jerk bait season, that is a bait I'm going to throw for a while, just to see. Before I found out about Lucky Craft baits, many years ago, I had a decent tournament on a Bomber Long A (clown color) where I finished one fish out of the money at 10.5 lbs and I had a different tournament ( on Grand Lake ) where a big Rapala Husky Jerk, in clown color ( with 3 suspend dots on the belly ) got me several nice fish, again a pound or so out of the money. I never could get Lucky Craft Staysees to work in a tournament situation, but in practice situations I had a day where on Grand Lake, going south from Sail Boat Bridge, but before you got to Shangra La - 4 points in a row got me a 19 to 21 inch fish. That bait had a blue back blending to chatruese sides blending to a pearl belly, with a bright orange spot directly behind the lip of the bait. With a long cast and 8 lb line, I was getting that bait at least 10' down. Never been able to duplicate that, and I've tried several times in similar conditions. Hope this helps.

I 'd like to know the rest of the story. What happened between May of 2017 and when this thread was resurrected more than 14 hours ago. Did the guy give away most of his stuff? Did he take the best advice out there ( i.e. get a boat so he could carry more stuff )? Some of both? None of the above? In his last post the original poster said he was "gonna" donate a box of the stuff he'd culled. Did he really do that? I'd like to know. If it was me I'd probably donate it to a different shelf in my fishing shed. In the winter time, and during the season when it is too windy or rainy or whatever other reason I make up to not go fishing that day, I cull through stuff. Really all I'm doing is moving it from one box to another, I'll find a few old gems and put them in the "I'm absolutely positive I'm going to try to use these next time I go pile". But really not much changes. Yesterday I was in Walmart and thinking about throwing A-rigs and I spent $30 more or less on A- rig jigs & baits, just so I didn't have to go dig through several boxes to find old A-rig stuff I've stored somewhere. I need to get better/ more consistent at labeling things.

I hope is is a good show. The KC area winter sports show sucks. I like going to a good tackle/boat sports show. Last couple of times I went to the KC show, I was fully armed - I had plenty of cash, a checkbook and a master card and nobody had anything I needed OR WANTED. That is just pitiful - kinda like inviting a junkie to your street corner and then not having any drugs to sell them.

Mine came a while ago. Do you live very far from a brick & mortar BPS? I was in there last week and 2 different sales clerks at 2 different desks offered me one for free.

I think some of my square bill rods are long out of production. I like my 7'4" BPS Extreme. It was a Woo Davis signature rod and he endorsed it as an all purpose pitching rod. BPS first brought it to market the next season after Woo Davis won the Bassmaster Classic, I forget what year that was, anyway, I bought one and didn't like it for pitching because IMO it has too much tip. It sat in the fishing shed for a couple of years and then on a whim I tried it throwing square bills and it worked great. I generally throw half ounce baits that that rod had enough tip that I didn't have to over muscle it to get the distance I wanted. It has plenty of backbone for moving fish once the strike occurs. I use either an old Curado D (the wide spool Curado ) or a Calcutta 250 TEGT and those reels handle 17 or 20 lb mono well. After finding a purpose for this rod which I originally paid $100 more or less for, when they went on sale for $70 I bought a couple more. They don't exist in the BPS catalog any more. When I have to cut down on the number of rods I carry, (like when I've got someone else in the boat) my 7' Falcon Bucco trap caster works good for throwing any half ounce reaction bait. I think this rod is still in production but I don't know, it has been a while since I went to the Falcon web site. I found a Berkley Lightning rod on sale at Academy a few winters ago, 7' Med/med action and I fished with it once. It is a good back up to the back up rod. Also at Academy I found some All Star rods (the purple ones) on sale/close out - their 7' crank bait rod. I think that it works ok for square bills, but it works better throwing wiggle warts on 10 lb line. On that same close out sale I found a purple All Star rod labeled as a Carolina Rig rod - I don't throw Carolina rigs, but it works great throwing Biffle Bugs - half ounce & 3/4 oz baits. Back to the subject of square bill rods, the jury is still out on what works best for the big, over an ounce square bill. Regular square bill rod seems too wimpy. Currently I'm using an old (mid 90's) 7 Diawa MH rod. I like that it is telescopic and stores easily, and I like the tip which is way too heavy to throw half ounce baits with any accuracy at all but over an ounce it has enough tip that you can do 60' roll casts with. Not a fan of the handle - handle is 6 or 8 inches too long IMO, but can't just shorten it cause the rod is telescopic. I hear guys talk about how great fiberglass rods are for throwing square bills, but I just can't get behind that idea because every fiberglass rod I've ever touched was heavier than a similar length & action graphite rod.

When I start tripping over stuff in my boat, that is when it crosses my mind that there is a storage issue. Then you must pile stuff on top of other stuff to create a wider path. More seriously though, when I'm on a lake that is going to require a serious amount of running ( like Truman Lake ) I cut down to stuff I think I might use that day, primarily so that I avoid that random wave that might catch my sideways and throw stuff out of the boat, and soft plastics are all in bags kept on the floor of the boat and all rods are bungeed to the deck when I'm running.

To resume. . .. full IPA (Firestone/Walker Luponic Distortion IPA). More observations on this subject. I can recall when A-Rigs weren't a thing, then they were, then the tournament organizations had their say .. .These days - in Missouri - certain times of the year, A-Rig is what you should be throwing. Spring & fall I've got an A-rig in my boat. Also a couple of times in the summer, just to practice. I can recall when soft plastic frogs & hollow frogs weren't a thing - then they were. These days if there is matted vegetation on the water, I'm considering throwing a frog. I can remember a time when these baits weren't available, much less a good option in certain cirumstances. BIG square bills - These haven't been on the market all that long, but a couple of years ago I got some and tried them out and I think that with assorted stick ups in 3 to 7 feet of water these baits are an excellent option - when the bass seem to be hanging out around shallow-ish wood. I've had situations where, throwing normal size square bills (Timber Tiger DC8 or any similar half ounce square bill), catch a few fish, bite would die down - move on. Come back 15 minutes later throwing the BIG squarebills and catch 17 - 20 inch fish in the same places. Did they just move in in the 15 minutes between presentations? Dunno - makes me think - anyway the big square bills are going to be in my on board boat inventory for the foreseeable future. (I haven't messed with the big deep divers ( like the Strike King 8 XD & 10 XD yet, but I probably will some this year) A long time ago In-fisherman magazine wrote about throwing "jig worms". All you needed was a 1/4 oz powerhead jig and a 7" power worm. You threw them into sparse weeds and to the edges of deeper, thicker weeds. It is safe to say that shakey worm fishing has come a long ways in the past 30 years. How many styles of shakey head jigs are available these days? Safe to say - lots. Same thing with shakey worm styles. That's all I got right now - might be more later - might not. As far as old baits that are no longer available, should someone decide to begin marketing pork frogs & associated pork baits (brown twin tails & split tail eels, flipping frog ) I'm good for a dozen or so jars a year .. ..put that in your marketing plan. re- edit - back in the 70's, when the first buzz baits came out, most serious bass fisherman thought those were the stupidest lures they'd ever seen. My guess is these days every bass boat on the water has a few buzz baits, maybe not tied on but in the boat and ready to get tied on. ( I carry a dedicated buzz bait rig on my boat) re- re-edit - I'll be darned. 7" of post and there is still slightly less than half of IPA in the can. . ..

Ned rigging ain't new. If you believe Ned & his pals, finesse fishing was invented in Western Missouri & Eastern Kansas in the 60's & 70's. Don't tell the folks in Kentucky & Tennessee that, they'll tell you that Charlie Brewer transformed finesse fishing in the 60's & 70's. West coast guys have similar stories. These days, Ned has a forum on the In-Fisherman website and he writes alot about finesse fishing. Mid to late 70's - I was a meat fishing bush hippie in central Missouri and my go to rig was very similar to a Ned rig - and I'd never heard of Ned and his western Missouri & eastern Kansas buddies. I guess great minds think alike. The Toko rig ain't new. I've been fishing a home made version of a jika rig 3 years prior to VMC coming out with the Tokyo rig AND I copied my idea from an article co-authored by Stacy King about a rig he was trying on Table Rock that he'd heard about from some pals who went to fish in Japan. When I first saw the Biffle Bug, I thought,"Oh, a novel way to fish soft plastics on a football head." Then I read that Tommy Biffle fished them more like crank baits than jigs, and I thought that was kinda nuts, but OK. I don't get to fish rocky areas very often but last fall on Truman I did. Biffle Bugs are my current first choice for fishing rocky areas, and they do fish more like a crank bait than a jig. When I first heard of tungsten worm weights and saw the price, I thought that was kind of nuts, I mean after all, weight is weight. Then a buddy of mine drank the Kool-ade and switched to tungsten. His catch rate went up - OK -- I bought some tungsten worm weights & tried them. These days I carry a small back up box of assorted lead worm weights and I would use them if I totally ran out of tungsten weights. So there are four things off the top of my head - stuff that I have personal experience with. I'm sure there are more, but my IPA is empty and I got stuff I ought to be doing. . . later.

Remembering the advice of my old grumpy shop teacher, "Use the right tool for the job!" I sometimes use mono, sometimes braid and often fluorocarbon. I don't always guess right, and there is something to be said for experimentation, so that is why I use all 3. Explaining the "logic" (if that is what it is ) behind my various line choices for various applications, and why I might want to experiment, would make this post excessively long.

There are lots of choices - I'd stick with something that said Shimano on it though.

There are lots of different brands & styles of lipless cranks out there. My current favorite is an old, long discontinued Berkley Frenzy lipless crank - mostly because they had a couple of unique colors and when you used a stop & drop technique, I liked the nose first shimmy that you got. On a straight retrieve I think the Berkley Frenzy baits work as well as any other lipless crank and maybe better than most. I think that the time & place for lipless cranks is any time you have vegetation and room between the top of the vegetation and the surface to scoot a bait through it. There have been more than a few springs when I haven't got to go fishing in March, but every spring that I've gotten to go fishing in March I've caught a few BIG fish very shallow on the lipless crank. Seems like surface water temp goes from 38 or 39 degree water to low to mid 40 degree water, the big fish want to come up and it seems just look around, early afternoon. They don't stay there, just looking it seems, but my experiences have been if I can be on a shallow flat, (helps if it is kinda close to deep water, but it doesn't necessarily. have to be) and run that bait trough 1 to 3 feet of water, before the vegetation growth has really started for the spring, I'm gonna catch a few BIG fish. The rest of the year, there just has to be space between the top of the vegetation and the surface, throw the bait and bring it back fast enough to keep it out of the vegetation and if fish are in the weeds they will come up and hit you bait.