smalljaw67

Try using the popper in low light conditions like overcast days, early morning or early evening. Also, anything more than a slight ripple on the surface isn't great for poppers, so what you want to do is try using it when the coditions are good for it, that way you'll be able to hone your skills with it.

I agree with gobig, I don't like glass as they just have to much weight for me but when it comes to lipless cranks I like a fast action rod, I know I'll lose some fish but the way I use them doesn't allow me to use a rod with a parabolic action. Most of my lipless cranks are getting pulled over weeds and when the bait snags the weeds I rip it free, and it works just like you hear pros say, when the bait pops free that is when a lot of stikes occur, ripping a lipless crank through weeds with a soft rod is incredibly tough at times, that is why I use the fast action rod, I compensate for the action by using a medium powered rod in a lot of cases.

I have always liked cork and I thought I'd never use EVA but this isn't your fathers EVA, it has improved. Traditionalists will scoff at EVA grips, but for me, either is ok as long as it is the correct thickness. I don't have any experience with the new one but I had the older Bionic blade and if you haven't got used to that handle then you shouldn't have a problem, if you had one previously then you might not like it but as long as you don't prejudge before getting it in your hand you should be ok.

If you find a deal they are fantastic, I have that rod but they retail over 100 dollars. I also point out they are rated for 3/8 to 1oz and I would say it is spot on, a 1/4oz bait on that rod seems over matched but 3/8oz cranks and the rod loads up great and the feel is there. I would also point out this doesn't have a deep parabolic action either, instead to rod flexes equally along the length so you it still keeps a relatively fast tip, this is great for big cranks and deep cranks as the action and resistance of the bait doesn't make the rod overly flex when working them. I really like it for throwing Vision 110 and Rapala X-Rap XR10 jerkbaits on it.

I guess I shouldn't have been over reaching because I use a lot of the jig hooks that appear on you jig in your avatar, an Owner 5304 Deep Throat jig hook is one of if not the best jig hook around, so yes, I will admit I'm wrong. I should have been specifit, the Owner 5326 cross eyed hook I use for shaky heads is one I do not like and it is due to the cutting point, it makes a big hole for a lite wire hook. The Gamakatsu 614 does a similar thing, I guess I should say the lite wire hooks from Owner and Gamakatsu aren't great but the flipping jig hooks are a different story. I don't like the spinnerbait hooks as I said, the cutting points do cause that problem and it isn't so much with largemouth as it is with smallies, the smallies tend to jump far out of the water and twist while doing it and the cutting point tends to really open up a hole. I should have made it clear as it did sound like they were all bad and they are far from it. My personal experience has been great except for a few model, primarily the lite wire jig hooks and the spinnerbait hooks and if they would make the gap on the spinnerbait hook just a tad smaller and add a little bit of length to the shank it would cure the problem.

When you fish a muck bottom weight is more important than head style but so are better than others. The best overall is a round head, it has no resistance being pulled out and if you use a weight that doesn't completely buey it you should be able to fish it effectively. I make a finesse jig in a round head and it is excellent on a lake that I fish that has a lot of sediment so if you need a jig choose the round head.

I love Owner and Gamakatsu trebles and recently tried and love the Trokar hooks now also. However, when it comes to lures like spinnerbaits I don't care for them, only trebles and worm hooks. The reason is I used them when I was testing hooks out a few years ago because some guys wanted Gamakatsu and still others wanted Owner so I made them for myself and I found on a spinnerbait they are the worst possible hooks to use which I why I won't even give a Trokar a shot as it is the same technology basically. What I'm talking about is the cutting point, the cutting point on those hooks are fantastic to go through plastic or bury a small treble in the jaw of a fish but spinnerbaits and jigs it isn't the same, the bigger hook makes a bigger hole and a lot of times the hook just falls out, I can't tell you how many fish I lost of got to the boat and the hook just came out. For my money I use the Mustad Ultra Point or the VMC cone cut bklack nickel. Worm and treble hooks Owner Trokar and Gamakatsu are great, spinnerbaits and jigs not so great.

Yep, the blue goes on top which is were the weedguard is as the weedguard is on the top of the jig. I know exactly what you were doing, I still do it as I'll be painting spinnerbaits and then go and do some jigs and mess it up as I do them upside down. I think it does look good however, the flake is a nice touch and I don't think the colors being flipped will make a difference as it is a swim jig that will be moving so as long as it has the basic color it will work and it is a very nice paint job, I'd feel good using it that is for sure.

Denali Jadewood series and Falcon BuCoo, bother very good rods.

That is the problem, that mold uses aberdeen style hooks which don't have a wide gap at all. I use a 60 degree mold that I can use flat eye hooks or normal eye hooks and it is fantastic. There is nothing wrong with the mold you have but you sound like you more of a flipping style hook but believe me, even though those hooks don't have a wide gap, they are very good at penetrating a fishes mouth with very little effort, try it and try not to compare to other jigs, you may be surprised at what you discover.

First off don't beat yourself up, we all struggle with wind and waves, but how you go about fishing in it is the key. When using a texas rig in wind learn to use the 3/4oz and 10z worm weights, the weight isn't only to get your bait down but it is also a tool that helps you maintain contact with the bait in wind since it will move your bait as well as your boat. When you find a spot to fish use visual triangulation to keep on or near your spot, you do this by lining up points on the shore in conjunction of where you are positioned at. Find an odd looking tree on one part of the shore and maybe a rock further down the bank and make a mental note of where those things are from where you are, and begin to fish, then take a look after a csat and see if those spots are still lining up, it isn't hard but you do need to make adjustments, in the wind it is constant adjustment. When looking for deep structure and cover you can start at obvious places like points, cruise over them at different angles and watch the screen on the fish finder, if you have a color finder you can tell if a big object is weeds or wood pretty much by the color, before color was available you would use gray scale to determine the hardness of an object.

copolymer is mono plain and simple but some are better than others. I found a copoly line that has more charateristics of flouro than mono but it is mono. Cajun clear lightning gets a bad rep because it is cheap but also because people that don't read the label and use it due to price don't realize it is meant exclusivly for baitcasting reels. It is clear like flouro, impurities are removed and I believe it as it is clearer than most mono line, it is extremely abrasion resistant and has the least amount of stretch I ever saw in a mono but it doesn't handle well which is why you don't use it on spinning reels. Another good one and my favorite for spinning and casting is Silver Thread AN40, this is very soft supple line that does not have much memory and is very tough, it has about the same stretch and abrasion resistance of Trilene XL but I would say it holds up better over a longer period than the trilene. I consider copolymer a better grade of mono, it is still nylon so you call it mono but it doesn't matter because I use the stuff every day.

What you need is confidence and the way to get it is by catching fish on it. When you get a day on the water and you are getting bit try finding a laydown or a weedbed and use a normal casting jig, 1/4oz I say to use as it appeals to a lot moe sizes of fish. Make a cast as close to the cover as you can get and watch your line, feel the jig and slowly work it, maybe a hop or perhaps a lift and drop like a texas rigged worm but once you catch a few fish, which you will, you'll become confident and be able to use it more often. I think a jig is one of the easiest lures to fish and the hardest to learn, the action is up to you in the way you use it and the trailer you pair with it. It isn't a bait to cover water with, it is a target bait and when you find cover that may hold fish a jig is a good bait to try.

I've been messing with these since Basstrix created a craze with the original hollow paddle tail swimbait and never could do any good. I've tried several and after the Berkley Hollow Belly didn't work I was ready to pack it in until I discovered the Luck-E-Strike Bass Magic 3.5" and 4.5", now I'm hooked on them. I thought maybe I was fishing them wrong but I found them to be a nich bait here in the water I fish. I can thow them in spring and catch nothing and the same in early summer but late summer seems to be the ticket. The funny thing is you would expect to get your arm broke like the way a smallie hits a spinnerbait but it just isn't so, instead I find it to be more like a deep crankbait hit, the rod just sort of loads up, a lot of times I just feel weight and set the hook but I do have a time and place they work so I'm looking to build on that knowledge and find the right conditions for them to work at other times of the year. So, which ones do you like and how and when do you fish them? Basically for me a slow steady retrieve with a weighted hook is what works, but I want to know what everyone else is doing, perhaps I can find something new the fish aren't conditioned to that will work.

You have a little bit of a problem, any of those rods will make a great all purpose rod but it sounds as if you are going to use cranks a little more than occasionally and there is the problem. You can get a rod that will fish cranks, topwaters, jerkbaits and spinnerbaits just fine but it is not going to be very good for jigs or soft plastics. So the Powell 705CB is out as it would be the worst of the bunch as it is a glass rod and there isn't much if any sensitivity to it. In all honesty I think you need to go with a medium powered rod, I'm leaning to the Vendetta because I have one and I'm familar with how it performs. I have the VTC66-5, it is a 6'6" medium power and fast action but it feels like a medium heavy. The nice thing about it is I use it for jerkbaits at times and right now it is my topwater rod, if you take your time fighting a fish you can probably get away with using cranks with it. It will fish jigs and soft plastics pretty well, it isn't the most sensitive rod but it is pretty good, more like a rod twice its price. Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits will be a joy to fish with it and the casting ability of the rod is amazing. You can probably go with a 7' rod but I think the 6'6" has the right blend of power and flex, it fishes jigs and worms like a medium heavy as it does have a lot of power but enough tip to let you get away with fishing a crank. I'd go that route and then save some money up for that powell 705 CB, for a dedicated crankbait set up, I don't like glass but you have to admit the action is perfect for cranks and the powell is a price that is hard to ignore.

Here is a pic of what I like for cold water in spring, the craw has blue claws with a green pumpkin body and the skirt is a medium green pumpkin along with a little bit of rootbeer with red and green flake. For a summer craw I like a craw in brown with burnt orange claws with a brown and dark green pumpkin skirt and in fall I like the craw with the same burnt orange claws but with a natural pumpkin body with a pumkin and brown skirt with a few strands of orange.

You really need to grind it up and do so until it gets to a powder state otherwise it will create heavy spots and the jigs won't look good not to mention when you hang them to cure the excess paint will run a little bit causing the paint to form a nipple on it. Get some new paint and be done with it, also you don't need to use the pro-tec, if you are using basic colors harbor freight has their own and it is cheaper than the pro-tec. Are you using a fluid bed or just dipping jigs into a jar of paint? I ask because if you smash up the powder enough to be useable, when you put it in a fluid bed the bigger clumps will not fluidize and you can actually use the fluid bed to sort out what is good paint from the stuff you need to crush more.

When you use those tubes you'll see how well they perform. I buy them by the 100ct. in the 3" and 3.5" size, the 3" I use just on the river for smallies rigged with a jig head with a 2/0 hook, the 3.5" I use on the river with a jig head with a 3/0 hook and on the local lakes texas rigged with an EZ tube insert weight and a 2/0 EWG hook, it is one of the best presentation for skipping docks.

Rage craws are a different animal than the Jakes craw, I use it for finesse jigs where I want a trailer that adds some bulk but not too much plus it gives it a more realistic profile and fall with a subtle action. Finesse jigs are different in that you want to give the fish a smaller more subtle presentation and the Jakes craw is perfect, the rage craws which I use on my swim jigs and flipping jigs add too much bulk and have an exaggerated action for a finesse jig. Trust me, the Jakes craw on a finesse jig or a plain 1/8oz jig head is a fantastic bait when the fish become finicky.

I use a 6.3:1 which is 25 or 26 IPT (inches per turn) for most of my cranking, the onlt time I use a 5.4:1 is for deep cranking. For jigs and plastics I use a 7.1:1, or any bait that I'm using the rod to move the bait, the high speed makes it easier to pick up slack in the line after you move the bait with the rod. I do like to use the high speed reel for spinnerbait too when I'm burning them, I can really get the bait moving and keep it near the top without fatigue.

If you must touch them up try the Quick coat lure markers, they are actually paint markers that use real paint, they come with six different tips and it makes it quick and easy to touch up lures plus it dries fast and last longer than using a sharpie or dye.

With you being in Virgina I'm surprised you aren't using River Rock Baits, they are hands down the best tube you'll ever fish and the Jakes Craw is now my main trailer for finesse jigs, super soft with a lot more durability than I ever imagined.

Do you have to have a 7' micro? The reason I ask is a friend of mine who fishes the Susquehanna river like I do found my Fenwick Elite Tech smallmouth to his liking and got the 6'9" MH-F casting rod pretty much for slinging 3/8oz and 1/2oz blades and he loves it, he said the tip is perfect and the backbone is incredible which I can attest to as I have a 6'10" MH-MF casting rod which I think would work also. The Falcon lowrider is another good one.

This is spot on, trick worms on casting geat I'm using a medium powered rod. You can get away with a medium heavy but you aren't going to get much in the way of distance but for weightless worms you are usually fishing some form of cover so more accuracy would be needed rather than distance anyway. I use a spinning rod for trick worms weightless unless I'm in cover but I'm only casting 30 feet or so and my custom RX 8 does a good job.

If you are looking to fish cranks with a spinning rod I think you need to look at something else. I do throw a #5 shad rap with mine but that is it and only when it is too windy that I can't use casting gear since it is such a light lure. In fact the Vendetta as well as the Smoke spinning rods are all too stiff to be used as crankinging rods but this is where I can't help since I use casting gear and only use spinning for finesse presentations most of the time. It sounds like you are spinning only and need an all purpose rod which most spinning rods are but when you throw crankbaits into the mix it makes it tough because while you fish cranks with just about any rod, it really isn't great because you end up losing most of the fish you hook simply because the rod has more backbone than flex and that tends to overpower small treble hooks and pull them free from the fish. You need to look for a more moderate action spinning rod, take a look at the new Tourney trail rods from Cabelas, these are now being made with more moderate actions and will work with crankbaits.