Bluebasser86

Luck E Strike and Excaliber Erratic shad are my two favorite cheaper jerkbaits. The X rap is a good bait too but just doesn't seem to produce as well as other jerkbaits for me.

Those shallower running Husky Jerks and the shallower running Rogue will be much easier for you to fish and are all good colors.

Wipers are a white bass/striped bass hybrid. They're build more like a white bass but they can grow upwards of 20 pounds but they average 3-6 pounds in the lakes I fish.

If there's no schools of baitfish in your area the effectiveness of an A-rig goes way down.

A 1/4 or 3/8oz solid white spinnerbait with a single colorado blade is one of my favorite big fish baits in the spring. A buzzbait comes into play just a little bit later but a 3/8oz black on black Cavitron is a staple for me from spring through fall.

I always use and educated thumb on every cast. If you can make a normal cast without touching the spool the tension is set too tight and you're losing casting distance. I can cast a 3/8oz spinnerbait a long way on a calm day.

I just counted total numbers of largemouth, smallmouth, and spots but I have a lot of it documented through pictures and I can remember a lot of info on each catch.

Actually figured out one of the more productive patterns of the year with you. Also got a picture of you with a rare 18" keeper Melvern smallie

I had one for a long time and it was a great reel, just a little heavy and big for my likings. They make a good reel for small swimbaits and traps also because they hold quite a bit of line and the since they're a super free they cast a mile.

VMC inlines or short shanks. I was thrilled when my local Cabela's started carrying #3 VMC short shanks, switched over a TON of #4's to #3 short shanks. They also had a bunch of Owner Stinger #6's and #4's on sale for $1.88 a pack, key word is they had a bunch now I have a bunch

Thursday will be my next day off. Right now they're saying a high of 48 but a slight chance of rain and a little stronger wind than I'd like but we'll see how that changes between now and then.

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I would have if I'd kept fishing in December and if I hadn't switched more to fishing for big ugly fish on the river when it got really hot out. I wish I had the patience to write down all the details like you do but I just don't have it. Thinking I may just keep track of how many keeper sized fish (>15") I catch this year rather than just overall numbers.

We always have a pitcher of Lipton cold brew in the fridge at home. I love their green tea with citrus if I'm buying a bottle of tea at the gas station or something.

It's actually bright white, chartreuse, or low vis green. I believe they call the white color "clear mist" but it is not clear at all. I love the stuff and how easy it is to see the white line, I just add a short fluoro leader and the fish don't mind at all. Haven't gotten to use it for trout yet but I will be using it this year.

Great fish! Have never caught a steelhead but I'm sure that big, broad tail in the current makes things interesting.

They work great for bottle rocket fights. Saw one in half and shoot from the shoulder like a bazooka or from the hip.

I liked how it felt but I think I usually go for a different feel than most others do. I would guess it would probably balance an inch or to above the reel seat and would be considered tip heavy by most. The whole combo is 9.9 ounces so it's extremely light weight and comfortable to fish with.

7' 6" LTB with a 200E7 and 20lb Seaguar. We have very, very little need for a punching rig because of the lack of weeds in our lakes so I'm mainly flipping and pitching water willow, docks, and timber with this rig.

Sam you can get almost any color skirt you can imagine online, problem is the cost efficiency when you're only tying a few if you're wanting a bunch of different colors too. If you're only planning on doing a couple colors then it's pretty cheap tying your own. I get my lead for free and without trying to figure the cost of the molds or melting pot, my baits cost me about $1.20-$1.75 apiece, mainly depending on what hooks I'm using. You'll probably be better off buying the jigheads because it's very time consuming and costly to first get into jig pouring with the melting pot, molds, lead, and tools you'll need. The paint adds up and it's time consuming to paint and bake all your own jigheads also. I use floral wire to tie my jigs, I get it from a craft store. Not 100% what size it is but for some reason 18 gauge sounds right? Copper wire looks prettier IMO but it's also more expensive and I lose a lot of jigs. Living rubber is round, and more stiff so it tends to flare out while at rest. Silicone skirt material is more supple and moves more while you're moving the bait. Check this site out for pretty much any skirt color you could want. http://fishingskirts.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=56

I have one of their lipless baits and it's a great little bait, a little hard to cast for a lipless bait though.

I use a ball head and a darter head. The darter head has a little less resistance with the pointed head so it sinks a little faster and comes through the water a little easier, seems to help if you're fishing deep water. Not sure the position of the line tie will effect how it works for you.

Put me down as another fan of the RC STX jerkbaits, both the large and smaller sizes produce for me very well. I have one of the bigger KVD jerkbaits that I tried last Wednesday and it produced for me on a bank we had already pulled a bunch of fish off of, so far so good I guess. One that nobody mentioned that I really like is the Excaliber Erratic shad. The same price as the RC baits but a little more subtle action and for some reason it seems to be more of a big fish bait for me.

That's what we call water willow, most of our lakes banks are lined with it and it's a great fish holder during the summer and fall months as long as there is enough water. That's great stuff to run a weedless Hudd through. Catch a lot of fish flipping Pit bosses and Rage craws into it too. I haven't ever flipped a finesse worm into those weeds but pitching a Zoom trick worm into timber saved the day for my in a summer tournament on Truman Lake in Missouri a few years back. That thin worm fell really quickly and got the reaction strike I needed from otherwise inactive, midday fish. In hindsite though, I believe I would have done better with a senko or magnum trick worm on the same rig and maybe a heavier weight just from the bigger profile. One of the first tournaments I ever won was flipping a senko through grass. As I mentioned earlier, if you haven't tried a weedless swimbait in those weeds give them a try. The lake I tried it on first is normally tough to get a fish over 15" on even the best days. I took a weedless 6" hudd and 4" shad and had a limit in 3 hours. You can see the water willow this fish came out of and swallowed my 6" hudd in the background.

That first one is similar to one of my favorite colors

2687. I didn't quite hit the 3,000 mark I was hoping to get to, spent all of December trying to get a big buck that never did get close enough Was a really good numbers year but the big fish were lacking with the hot weather and lack of rain all year. The year started fast when my brother in law and I decided to test some of our new fishing gear at a neighborhood pond New Year's Day and I caught this one and 30 others despite partial ice coverage on the pond. I hit 100 the second day of February and landed my first fish over 5 of the year later that week. A trip with two buddies in April was my best numbers day of the year when I put well over 100 smallmouth in the boat. Didn't hit the 5lb mark again until April Number 1,000 on the heels of a 82 fish day on April 30th, a day after my goal to hit that mark on my birthday. My biggest fish of the year came in May from a 30 acre state lake on a homemade black and blue chatterbait and weighed 6.10. Lots of largemouth over 4 and smallies over 3 but no true monsters. My big smallie of the year was 3.37 on December 5th and was one of my last bass of the year.