smalljaw67

I wouldn't say that yet. War Eagle makes a really good spinnerbait with good wire and top of the line swivels. The issue is they were purchased by Pradco and they typically move production out of the U.S. for their lures. If they do that I'm guessing they will use cheaper components, especially the swivel, but I'm just guessing. Anyway, what I would do is go to a Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, or another store that sells tackle and pick up the package and see where it is was made and if they have the brand of swivel named.

I agree with you, for some reason that mouse pattern is highly effective. If you like War Eagle baits you better buy all the old stock you can get.

Any slow current with relatively deep water. When I say deep, I've caught them in mid December with water temps at 35 behind islands in 4' of water. You also have to remember, these fish need to eat and a sun filled day will warm shallows up, especially where the water is still. With high water even winter hole smallmouth will go to the bank in order to feed, again, this will be better on sunny days but it holds true most of the time. What you want to do is scan the river flow from shore, look for areas in the middle of the current that look like oil slicks, you can spot them if you take your time, they may only be a few feet wide and maybe 5' or 6' long but they are key. Those spots show where there is an underwater current break with slightly deeper water, it will look as if the current is flowing around a small patch. When you see a spot like that look for the nearest eddy or dead fall that has slow or still moving water, I guarantee that you will find a few fish, not all end up in wintering holes. The thing about those small patches is very few anglers fish them so the fish aren't pressured and since the areas aren't big enough to hold schools they typically only hold 1 to 3 fish most of the time but they tend to be giants. You may even want to walk the bank without any tackle and just scout the water, there are more of those spots that I like to call "mid river patches" than you know of and most will hold fish.

It depends on the size, for larger 1/2oz I like .035" diameter wire and for 3/8oz and 1/4oz I use .031" wire. That is a general statement as there are times when I'll use the .035" on the smaller baits and times I will go up to .040" for a 1/2oz bait. But 90% of the time, I'm using .031" and .035", I want a lot of vibration but I also have to have some durability. Sick Custom Baits uses like a .028" wire and I've used that and you can get away with it with smaller fish but a 4lb smallmouth is going to bend that wire up, and it will be bad at times. I find .035 is like the best of both worlds and I can adjust the blade spacing to get a little better vibration. On burner type spinners it isn't about vibration however, it is about flash and speed, this is a good technique for clearer water, from gin clear to a little off color. I usually have more success with more natural presentations when the water is gin clear but when they are chasing a fast moving spinnerbait is a killer way to go and when that water has some color to it where you can see bottom in 3' but it is hazy, that is the optimum time for burning the spinnerbait, the fish can see it from a distance and chase it with having the cover of darker water, it works really well.

Willow leaf blades and you want blades smaller or ones with a shallow cup to them. The reason is that when the blades spin they create not only vibration but torque. The faster you retrieve the bait, the faster the blades spin and the faster the blade spins the more torque it creates. Use a blade too large and it creates too much torque and it causes the bait to lean to one side and sometimes even roll over so it is important that the blade size be right for the head size. The one problem with burning type spinnerbaits is they really aren't great for using for anything other than burning as they don't put out a lot of vibration and the flash is less than a regular bait of the same size.

I don't like the hidden head bait at all. I had a custom mold made when they were all the rage but I have sold it after using it for a season, very one dimensional spinnerbait IMO. I like doing different things with a spinnerbait and I don't use trailer hooks so hidden weight spinnerbaits are out for me. I like burning a spinnerbait and then just stopping it dead and letting it free fall into holes and then ripping it up, a hidden weight doesn't have a nose first fall that lets the blades rotate or "helicopter" on the fall, instead it falls almost flat so the blades just kind of do nothing. As I said before, I don't use a trailer hook and for a hidden weight head it is a must, the weight is distributed along a good portion of the hook shank so you only have a small amount of the hook that is free, it leads to fish being barely hooked when you get a hard strike, it is almost like the issue with big football jigs blowing the fishes mouth open on hook set. It isn't as bad with largemouth but I lost a lot of smallmouth on it and while I don't use a trailer very much, if you want to use one with a hidden weight spinnerbait you need glue or you need one with a large wire keeper to hold the trailer in place. Yeah, they are nice in that you get the smaller head size but even before they became a thing I would just use a standard head size with a 2X long shank hook and custom make a smaller size wire frame with downsized blades to keep my baits compact and remember, the hidden weight isn't making the bait compact, it is just reducing the profile, the bait is still as long as a regular spinnerbait, the difference is a 1/2oz bait will have the profile of a 3/8oz bait but it is still a full size 3/8oz bait. I would also caution you to not knock one before you try it, for me, I use a spinnerbait in a lot of different applications and so I want specific properties but you may find the way you like to use one works well with a hidden weight head, and there are benefits like being able to use the heavier bait with smaller profile but it just want my cup of tea, so my advice would be to experiment and see what works.

I like my own spinnerbaits for river smallies. Spinnerbaits are my favorite lure and fishing them in the river is what got me into making my own in the late 90s. I like weights in 1/4oz to 1/2oz but my best river smallmouth spinnerbait is one I make I call the SS 44. The "SS" stands for smallie slayer and the 44 is because I made the bait using 4 different wire diameters and 4 different wire lengths before finding what worked best. I made it for burning across the current so it doesn't roll over but it is also great for the areas where there are patches of water willow and eel grass, it comes through that grass exceptionally well. As you can tell from my rambling I get a little carried away with spinnerbaits, they are just so versatile and they not only catch numbers but also big fish. There is nothing like burning a spinnerbait just a few inches under the surface of the water, just deep enough that it doesn't make a wake but is still in full view. You're cranking your reel handle at a pretty fast pace keeping an eye on the spinnerbait flashing just under the surface and then it happens, the strike, and it all seems to be happening in slow motion. You see the swirl on the water and your bait disappear right at the same time and then the rod get pulled forward so hard it almost flies out of your hand. you pull back and the rod strains and the handle of your reel is hard to crank and then the massive 4+lb bronze missile leaps from the water while your heart races as you fight the fish to the side of the boat. That has to be the best strike in all of fishing, pure violence and ferocity, yeah, I love spinnerbaits for river smallmouth!!!

The type of hair jig he is talking about RW is the "preacher" style. Those have long feathers tied in that extend past the bucktail and so no, those aren't used with trailers. Now the regular hair jigs that I tie I use with and without trailers, it depends on what the fish want, but in warmer water I use trailers but something subtle like a chunk. I normally don't throw them in summer but there is a small lake we fish that has clear water and it fed by cold water springs, even in mid August the water temp rarely exceeds 75 degrees. That lake we catch a lot of smallmouth and some nice largemouth throwing 3/16oz and 1/4oz bucktail hair jigs with Zoom super chunk Jr. trailers on them, they actually will catch you more than worms or other soft plastics, even finesse style baits. Come late Summer/Early Fall when the water temp drops down into the 60 degree range we fish the same jigs only I tie them with craft fur and we use the tiny paca chunks as trailers. We will normally throw square bills and spinnerbaits at that time but when you get that first temp drop that drops the temp from the low 70 down to the mid 60s for a day or 2, that is when the craft hair jig with paca chunk is killer. The reason I switch to that hair is because it usually takes a bit more action to get the fish to commit at that time, the sudden change in temps puts them tight to cover but it is still relatively warm and so a jig with a little more movement seems to get them to bite better than the more subtle hair jig. I normally don't fish hair during the warm months and not because it doesn't work, they actually work very well anytime, but because there is usually a presentation that will work better when it is warm in most situations.

I'm a hair jig enthusiast, I've been tying and using for more than 20 years. I got into them for cold water smallmouth fishing and that is what I make them for and fish them primarily. The "preacher" type jigs you are talking about are mainly ledge baits but you can use them in different situations. The one thing you need to be aware of is that they don't work well in heavily stained water, they are a visual bait and guys that I've made them for over the years have all told me the same thing. If they are fishing water with less than 3' visibility they don't even get them out of the box, they opt for other baits when they have off colored water. That said, I know a few anglers that like using them on mid lake humps and rock piles in 12' to 15' and for working the outside edge of deep weed beds. So the 2 main things with these type hair jigs is that you need clear water and you need to be on fish, they aren't a good tool to use as a search bait but other than those two things I'm sure you can find areas that they will work for you.

Using a hard alloy will keep it from becoming loose but you will still loosen the hook should you continue to break the sprue off. Jig Man was spot on, you need to use a gate shears and cut the sprue off, in fact I believe it says that on the mold somewhere that you should cut the sprue off the small sizes.

Yo-Zuri 3DB jerkbait, dives to 2 feet and suspends nicely. The patterns are mostly prism colors, really good in clear water, in fact I'm a fan of all the baits in the 3D series.

I don't know if I have a favorite as I like them all and some are good in just specific situations. That said, if I have to choose just 1 as a favorite it would either be a Mann's Baby X or a discontinued Xcalibur XCS 100 square bill. Honorable mentions would be the Storm Arashi square 3, Rapala DT-Fat 3, Bagley Balsa B2 and the Bagley Rattlin' Kill'R B and the Xcalibur XCS 200 real craw series square bill.

I like the 5" for that bait and it works well on both a 3/0 and 4/0 Owner twist lock light hook. I have a few favorite colors, pearl, custom flash shad, poison ivy, and blue glimmer, all of those colors have produced good fish on the Susky and Juniata rivers. https://river-rock-custom-baits.myshopify.com/products/5-jointed-jerkbait?variant=1101201899545

I don't like weights with soft jerkbaits, even a light weight ruins the action. The baits I use have a good salt content so they sink at a faster rate so you really don't need weight and so I just use the hook without any weight on it.

I use a River Rock Custom Baits 5" Jointed jerkbait in pearl and custom flash shad. The smallmouth crush it and I found the Owner Twist lock light hooks in a 3/0 or 4/0 works great for soft jerkbaits. BTW, I know a lot of guys get hung up on heavy hooks, the Twist Lock light isn't a light wire hook, it is a regular medium or standard wire hook and while I normally fish them on 8# line on a spinning rod I do occasionally throw them into cover on a MH casting set up with 15lb line and never had a hook bend out.

I can see a topwater/jerkbait rod but topwater and spinnerbait aren't in the same power range for me. For topwaters I'm using a short rod in the 6'2" to 6'10" range with a fast or mod fast action with a somewhat soft tip section. Spinnerbaits I use a 6'6" to 7'2" in a medium heavy power with a fast action or mod fast action but the tip has to be a little on the stiff side. The only topwater rods I think would be good with spinnerbaits would be a light frog rod or a rod used for magnum topwaters that use larger trebles that you don't need to worry about ripping them out.

I have a rod that I use a lot that won't break the bank and cover all your needs. Fenwick HMG 7'2" M-MH CB, it is a 7'2" medium power rod with a mod-fast action but it is rated 3/8oz to 1oz. It is a strange deal, the rod has a soft tip that transitions quickly into backbone, the tip section feels medium but the backbone is more medium heavy. I use it for lipless cranks, and I really like the Bagley's B minus as well, and for a good bit of my square bills and also DT-4s and 6s. The rod retails for $99 and I really like it, to me it is a really good all-purpose - mid depth crank rod, does well with lipless and square bills but is also great for any billed crank that goes 10'-12'.

I don't think the detail is critical when it comes to color for topwater but there are some patterns on certain baits that have their time and place. I use 3 different patterns, dark, light, and clear or natural, but I do have one that doesn't fall into any of those. A Super Spook Jr. in Nickel is really tough to beat when it is sunny and I don't know why, I had a lot of success with the nickel pattern in a full size Spook for largemouth that a friend turned me on to but you could only get that pattern in the saltwater baits back then. If it is overcast or just partly sunny other patterns work better but for some reason that nickel is flat out deadly in bright sun. My other favorites for a Super Spook Jr. are blue shore shad, bone, and Florida Bass. The Super Spook Jr. is pretty much a favorite for smallmouth and I tend to pay attention to the patterns more because of that but every other topwater I go with the light, dark, etc. approach.

It depends on the year it was made. Kistler had an excellent rod in the Helium LTA when they came out but then 2 years later they switched blanks and had a really high number of rod breaks. If it is a rod from 2005 or 2006 then stay away from it.

Flashabou works well and is what you want. As for adding it to a trailer hook, well I don't think that is a good idea overall. The reason is the trailer hook is on there to help catch those short strikers, adding a dressing to it just invites short strikes. You want the fish to hit the body and get the main hook as you have a better chance at hooking and landing the fish hooked that way rather than just on the trailer hook.

Special colors as Bluebasser86 pointed out. I love Rogues, they get overlooked in favor of more expensive options when it comes to jerkbaits but I've caught more fish on them than any other. The one thing I hate about the Rogues are all the different models, you have the pro models, suspending, original floating as well as a smaller Jr. size along with a shallow, medium, and deep diver. Then to add to the confusion you have "pro" models which are different colors, then you have the Limited which is bigger with Gamakatsu hooks, then the Elite 8 and perfect 10 not to mention the top 20, yeah, they are a pain to keep track of, especially the way they package them, but well worth the effort.

I never tire of seeing your jigs Will, very well done sir!!!!!!!

Turkey sandwich is correct, a lot of getting a dedicated jerkbait rod depends on how you use them. I like to fish jerkbaits aggressively so I prefer a fast to mod-fast action in a medium power. I also prefer shorter rods as I use hard downward rips, I will hit the water surface with rods over 6'10" so my preferable rods are 6'2" to 6'8". The rod you are looking at is a rod that I would call a jerkbait rod and should work well given the specs.

I watched your videos (very good) and I figured you might be into selling your lures which is why I responded to this thread. D&M had a popular bladed jig called the Piranha and they had to stop selling them, now if you go to Tackle Warehouse you'll see they have the Piranha II swim jig and you'll see it has a split ring to attach the blade, they used an oval one at first and it was causing the blade to foul but they now went with a round ring and the bait works fine now. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you will draw attention as Z-Man had Evergreen International go in with them on their new Jackhammer chatterbait, Evergreen is a high end Japanese company and the bait they are selling is $15.99, knowing how expensive they are I doubt they will have much patience for anyone selling a bait with even a small infringement issue so I wanted to make sure you knew the way the blade is attached is protected.

If you plan on selling them you will be in for a rude awakening. Look at what is on the market now, Z-Man was granted a patent on both the shape of the blade and the way the blade is connected. Ask the good people at D&L what happens when you sell a bladed jig with a blade directly attached, I'm sure they will respond with some kind words for Z-Man. If you want to make them for yourself then there are a few ways to do it but if you plan to sell, and I'm thinking you are, you will get hit with a cease and desist or taken to court depending how many they think you've sold, and if you think you are too small to attract attention you'll be surprised at how fast they get to you. I'm not being funny or sarcastic, I'm just warning you now, I know of several small independent lure manufacturers that have had trouble over this very same topic.