Raul

You are using the wrong hook, baits like superflukes, shaddicks & shad assasins ball up and choke the gap of the hook when you make the hookset, you need either a wide gap hook or a straight shank hook, guys love to use monster size hooks for those baits, dunno but I don 't think you need them, 3/0 EWG is what I use and I do fine.

Well, I ain 't in the mood for a spinning reel right now, more suggestions ?

Now that 's a good advice, anything ... anything like whut ? :-? Suggestions accepted, cuz ... I can 't think about anything I "need/want/desire" .

From that list: Exceler: excellent value, great reel for the price, silky smooth. Tierra: for $95 is a no brainer. Add to the list: Shimano Symetre

but I think ..... The BaitMonkey has abandoned me and I 'm no longer one of his favorites. My friend Edgar called me Thursday last week, here 's how the conversation took place: Beep ! Beep! Beep ! ( NEXTEL ) Raul: "whassup Edgar !" Edgar: "WASSSUP man !, whatcha doin '? " Raul: "nuthin other than work" Edgar: " hey man, gotta question, when are you gonna order stuff ?" Raul: "dunno, there ain 't much that I "need" right now, reason why you ask ?" Edgar: " Remember I told I wanted reel covers ?, I called to know when you gonna order stuff so you can add them reel covers fo me to your order so we can get free shippin '" Raul: " how many you want ? " Edgar: " I just need three " Raul: " well there are a couple of models I 've seen, so whatya want ? " Edgar: " if you can find them covers that only leave the knobs uncovered those, if not then the others will be fine " Raul: " okie dokie, those cost 9.99 ea " Edgar: " no problem !" Raul: "as soon as I get them I 'll give you a call " So it 's been 4 days since Edgar called and other than a bottle of Mend It I just can 't find what else to purchase to fill an order. :-?

Plus you 'll have to purchase the knobs and bearings.

For baits you work with the rod like: worms, jigs, poopers, prop baits, walk the dog. For baits that need to be retrieved fast: buzzbaits You can also use it with baits that are not affected by the high speed but you want to retrieve fast: lipless cranks, single bladed spinnerbaits

The fact that the female finish runs out of stock faster doesn 't mean it sells more, it only means it runs out of stock faster. You can 't determine how many baits were purchased by the dealer when their order was placed, maybe he stocked 10 baits in female finish while stock 50 in male finish, so female finish will run out of stock faster.

The running depth of a lipless crank is determined by how much you allowed it sink and how fast you are retrieving ( faster retrieve ---> the bait rises ), line diameter has little to do with how deep the bait dives.

Basstrix Paddle Tail, if you want big fish better purchase big baits, 4" is too dang small, 4"+ BTW, you don 't need swimbait gear to fish them.

I fish pea soup green water just as I fish muddy water.

NO

The concept is pretty old, my XLT plus Abus have it and they 've been around for more than two decades. The Flipping Switch appeared in lots of reels of the mid 1980 's era when flipping became one of the hottest fishing techniques, not only the switch but also Shimano manufactured a flipping specific reel ( Bushmaster ) which actually was not a very good seller and finally dissapeared from the market, now I think it 's Ardent who came with the "new" quite old flipping specific reeel concept ( nothing new under the sun ). Well back to the flipping switch, as I mentioned, my old Abus have the feature, because my everyday lake is choked with standing timber and brush I do flip a lot you may think that I make a lot of use of the flipping switch, been fishing that lake since the 80 's and I must have used the flipping switch maybe 20 times in more than 20 years of fishing. Like me many people paid little attention and made very little use of the feature so manufacturers quit putting the feature in the reels for more than a decade and now they are back at it again. On the other hand, the flipping switch is a creature you have to treat with respect, the switch disengages the spool as long as you have the thumbar pressed, engages the spool when you release the thumbar, the catch is that in between the gearing can be accidentaly engaged if you happen to lift your thumb from the thumbar, the result can be broken gearing.

Guys with the spinning reels pointing up and reeling backwards --> I 've seen several. The Coke bottle, that 's common down here, you arrive at the lake and along the shore you see these guys not with one but several bottles spooled with what looks 1 ton test mono, several hooks attached to the line and a spark plug as sinker, they cast their lines ( hooks baited with tortilla ), then they wrap the line around a stick and add a small bell ( forget about strike detectors ), once all their rigs have been placed they sit on a chair and wait for a carp to bite. I 've seen them catch some really big carp with that gear.

It sinks and it 's far from weedless: in-line spinners To make it weedless.- Unscrew the body and remove the treble hook, insert a single hook, screw in the body, t-rig a small grub to make it weedless. In-line spinners are one of those forgotten lures that catch a lot of fish ( great for kids ).

I know that trick, done it many times and ...... the danged hook points where it wants and not where I want so > .... if I can get hooks to do what I want why bother in purchasing hooks that don 't do what I want ?

Bass can be quite stoopid when it comes to striking a topwater bait like a frog, you see the blast and actually the fish missed the bait in reality, it never mouthed it; so when it comes to topwaters you have to wait until you feel the fish on your line before setting the hook.

Well, popular consesus is to wait until you feel the weight of the fish before pulling to set the hook and there 's a lot of truth behind it, incredibly bass seem to be stupid as heck when they strike a topwater bait, many times they miss it :, thus what you see may not be what is really happening.

Good question, 1.- Popper, when there 's chop on the water or when it looks like glass. 2.- Propbait, just like the popper 3.- Walker, like the popper 4.- Frog, on and around weeds 5.- Buzzbait, since apparently buzzbaits and I don 't get along well, buzzbaits ...... I 'd rather try with something else 6.- Jitterbug, that 's one bait I won 't fish when there 's chop on on the water.

30 gal tank is awfully small for a bass of any size.

Don 't know about ya 'll but them "dropshot" hooks always looked to me awfully small, 1/0 and above is what I use for d-shotting and for D-shotting in my everyday lake ( full of submerged timber n 'brush ) this is what use cuz I can texpose and not get hung all the time: Another reason why I like 'em is beacuse I just can 't seem to make an ordinary hook be horizontal when I tie it to make the d-shot rig. :-?

Forgot to add: Wanna turn your TD Zilion into a mean casting machine ? ---> pop in a TDZ GIGAS spool and hold your underwear cuz you gonna get a surprise.

6 lb YoZuri Hybrid.

That 's the only flaw I see in a TDZ, the drag system is not weak nor inconsistent IF it is clean, just a little moisture or lubricant contaminating the pads and it becomes weak and inconsistant ( studdering ), very touchy and finicky dry drag system, but fortunately a Carbontex drag pad upgrade and the studdering issue dissapears.

Man, we crankers do that, banging the bait against objects only helps out to create an erratic action the catch is you don 't necessarily need them you can live without them, the art of crankbaiting is giving the bait an erratic action added to the built in action to create a positive response of the fish ( attack response ) making it look like if: 1.- It is alive 2.- It is an easy meal In your own words: "ram the bait and the fish then can not swim upright, veers wildly, goes to the surface, nose dives down" That is what we recreate with the bait, many people tend to think of crankbaits as cast and reel in and leave all the work to the built in action but that most of the times doesn 't cut it, most of the times the built in action only is good to attract the fish but not enough to trigger the attack response we are trying to obtain. We reel in, stop, twitch or jerk, allow the bait to rise, remain neutral or sink, twitch, jerk, pause, reel in, pull, change directions to make the bait come to life; how many times we pause, how many times we twitch or jerk, how much we pull or how fast or how slow we reel in is not written as a book of instructions, we try several times with variations until we find the type of erratic action the fish respond to, it 's something you learn with time and practice. Crankbaits can be divided, cataloged or grouped depending upon how deep they dive, upon their profile, upon the presence of rattles and so on, in other words crankbaits are not equal and even between groups and divisions there are differences, let 's put an example with lipless cranks, the most well known or the most representative bait of this group is Bill Lewis ' Rat L-Trap but this gruop has lots of other lipless cranks like Rapala 's Rattling Rap or Cotton Cordell Spot or Heddon 's Bayou Boogie, they are lipless cranks but the difference in the frequency they wiggle, the sound they emit ( in case of rattling baits ), the vibration they emit is different, one day you slain them with the Trap the next day they don 't even sniff at it. One day reeling in a lipless crank at warp speed is the ticket, the next day that approach doesn 't work, you have to experiment to find the retrieve technique that works best.