Raul

The truth is that with certain Japanese baits like those topwaters I don 't see any extra edge over more conventional run of the mill baits like the Jitterbug, let 's face it, yeah they are strange, odd, rare but baits like the Jitterbug have a very long history of being productive, here 's another pretty jitterbugesque bait I 've got from Lucky Craft, got several and they are beautiful, don 't fish them either, what for ? got several older than dirt Jitterbugs that still catch fish: Lucky Craft Waterbug http://cgi.ebay.com/Lucky-Craft-Top-Water-Bait-Water-Bug-Tamamushi-/350327557682?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5191264e32

Well I 'm farther to the south than you and that 's the exact situation I 'm talking about, large weed growth but with about half to a foot and a half of water above the aquatic plant growth, the fish bury in the vegetation, it 's a matter of location "holes" ( places where for whatever reason the weeds are shorter than the surrounding weedbed ) in the weed carpet, Also it 's a matter of patience, to slap you on the head every time you feel the urge to give some action to your bait. That 's how and where I caught my first 10 lber, but it was with a Rapala Minnow, not with a popper.

For 6-8 lbs a Daiwa 2000 size is fine For 10 lbs a Daiwa or Shimano 2500 size is fine Even though 2000 and 2500 Daiwas are the same body size the spool is different, the 2000 size has a shallower spool so when you spool in heavier than 8 lbs the line capacity isn 't that much, plus, the line coils badly for being spooled on a smaller surface, None of them are "trout" reels as you call them .... I still don 't understand the trout reel designation, trout in my neck of the woods grow quite large, as large as the largest LMBs and require larger reels and lines, but they are not stream trout, they are lake trout ( not the species ).

What 's your point ?

Can 't tell, I 've got several Turbuleance and Parahatch but never fished them, they are so expensive and hard to find that I only have them as collectibles, for the ooohh 's and ahhhh 's my pals say when they see them ( food for the ego ).

Daiwa Exceler 2000/2500 + 6 lbs Yo-zuri Hybrid/6 lb P-Line CXX = match made in heaven. Yeah, a member of the Shimano posse recomending a Daiwa , well, I love my Shimanos, yup, I 've got Shimano spinning reels too but Daiwas are much better than Shimanos when it comes to budget spinning reels.

Ok, that 's it, now I 've got a headache. Wish Irene was here.

The two locations I 've had luck fishing with surface lures under those conditions are completely opposed, the first location are shallow flats ( 10/12 ft deep ) with aquatic vegetation growth, the other location are bluffs, yeah as crazy as it sounds, those bluffs that plummet to 30-40 or more feet in depth, the fish rise from the depths to hit the bait. Normally when you fish a bait like a popper you chug it hard and the bait makes PLOP!!!!!!!, well, on water like glass that 's not the approach I use, on the contrary, I try to make the least ammount of commotion, more like plip, and then wait a little before the next "plip"; methodical and deliberately slow pace.

I 've got some great luck fishing in those conditions with poppers.

Another possibility, RI is actually manufacturing the baits for NetBait, NetBait is selling them under a different name. My partner and I do that a lot with our products, we make the exact same product we sell for other people ( the only difference is the color and the scent ) and we sell it to them either in bulk ( they fill their containers on their own ) or already bottled in the containers they choose ( all they have to do is label it or we can even do that, of course that process has an extra charge ).

What if Netbait is manufacturing the bait under license from RI ?

...... and don 't forget about getting a bottle of Mend It, you are going to need it !

Functionally one is as good as the other but the Curado is superior in line capacity, which means not that it will hold a lot of line but that it will hold more and heavier line that you 'll probably need, in the Sol once you begin thinking about spooling in heavier than 12 lbs the line capacity plumets to the floor.

For how long you 've been fishing righty reels ? I 've been doing it for more than 20 years Why would I bother in changing suddenly for lefty reels if I mastered the hand switching a loooong time ago ?

Man, I love them things, since Matt don 't wanna make a weedless Baby Bass swimbait for us southern guys that fish wood choked lakes that 's one of the baits I fish in places like that along with the wedless Huddie, and they not only work by only swimming them-

Wanna badasser Porsche ?RUF RUF is to Porsches what Saleen is to Mustangs.

I 've been fishing for more than 3 decades, I don 't have a single white/red head bait. Edit, now that I remember, I do have a white/red head bait, a Zara Spook from the guanim finish era ( late 80 's ), hasn 't touched the water ever.

I 'm skeptical about such claims about their supposedly "extreme" agresiveness, throughout my years as bass fisherman I 've caught the same fish twice in a matter of minutes many times, you might ask, how he knows it 's the same fish ? many times the fish has a peculiarity you can identify, for example, a couple of years ago I went to fish to Zimapan, I caught a healthy, very nice, hard fighting two pounder with a Grass Minnow, what caught my attention was the mouth of the fish, it was deformed to the point where the fish could not open it wide open, that fish had been caught previously by someone who tore the mouth while unhooking the fish, released it and the mouth healed the best it could, so it was a LMB with a sucker mouth. So I unhooked it and released, two casts later I caught it again with the same bait 30 ft away from the spot I caught it the first time, 30 ft ain 't that much. I can tell many of such events. On the other hand, if you fish a place where the fish seldomly see a lure ( newbie fish ) it 's not uncommon for you to release a fish and the same fish being caught again by your partner or even by yourself again in a short period of time, that doesn 't mean the fish are super agressive, that means the fish are really dumb, naive and inexperienced.

s All the time, being a hybrid of northern & Florida strain it 's one of the most common bass you 'll catch around my neck of the woods. What 's different ? they grow faster than pure Florida or pure northerns, they grow bigger than pure strain northerns. And no, they won 't jump on your bait, they can be as hard to catch as Floridans or northerns.

The Money minnow isn 't a tube paddle tail Matt. Money Minnow like bait but better ----> Mattlures Minnow :

There 's no such thing as "old school" there 's a reason for using either, stitches are for surfaces not subject to too much tension, staples are for places subject to tension, cyanoacrilate ( "super glue" and more accurately Dermabond ) is for places whith very little tension and particularily for places where the cosmetic importance is great ( like the face skin ). Of course, ya 'll know I 'm a vet, no, we do not use staples in small animals, we use stitches designed to work like like a staple.

Mattlures are AWSOM !!!

If there ain 't paper there 's plastic ya know

I do, Scorpion 1000 and Scorpion 1000 Mg, don 't have the newer XT models yet, anything particular you want to know ?

I didn 't have the opportunity to learn to fish from anybody, my pa wasn 't the outdoorsy kinda guy even though he was born and raised in a ranch, my grandpappy was outdoorsy but not a hunter or fisherman, he was outdoorsy beacuse he had to be, owning a ranch gotta make you outdoorsy. The only "crazies" in my family are my cousin ( which no longer fishes on a regular basis because of his profession ) and I. We are now living times of bliss, information is readily available in places like here, magazines, tackle, videos, oh boy! if I had back then ( over 3 decades ago ) what we have know I would have become a better fisherman faster. However, the only thing that will really teach you how to fish is landing what you read and see on the water, if you don 't practice what you read and see you 'll get nowhere.