kickerfish1

Northstar, Siebert, Dirty, and some custom finesse/hair jigs represents about 99% of what throw.

Looks great! Nice work on a superb reel!

Among the the dobyns line the Savy 734 is a great rod for those three baits.

Rarely do I prefer braid or braid with a leader. Give me 10-15# tatsu or shooter and I am happy!

Just another satisfied customer here. Have ordered probably 4 or 5 times from Mike and most of the orders have been $60-$100 each. Great products and options to select from on his website. I have had Mike craft up some custom color options for me and he still has the "recipe" for these. He answers his phone and email promptly and it is more like talking to a life long friend than business man.

X2!

I have 8 custom reels. All of them get fished, but when they are not in use they are in a TW reel cover.

Nice! And thanks for the clarification.

Straight ball'n! Very nice starting 5 Matt!

Is that a painted citica/curado 200e with a hawgtech handle?

Thanks Jason. I will contact BPS for a new set of gears from another reel line all together.

The Johnny Morris Carbonlite is the worst reel I have ever used. I have exchanged several and they are all the same way. Specifically talking about the 7:0.1 ratio as I wasn't interested in the others. The retrieve is rough but as soon as you hook up with a fish it is like a coffee grinder. Huge failure over the previous prolite, carboline reel (orange colored variations) and the other lighter finesse reels BPS made. I would love to know if there are other gear sets that will fit the Johnny Morris carbonlite?

I bought 3 of them a few years back. Worked them pretty diligently on several ocassions when the frog bite was on. Results were less than convincing. Tried both the brownish and greenish colors and fish did not seem to be all that interested. Really didn't want to believe that they didn't work so I tried them on private waters as well. Had several good blow ups on the bait but no fish were landed. A few things about the bait. The concept and design is great. You combine the action of a soft bait with weight and rigidity of a hard bait. The problem lies in the legs which can wear easy. Though I didn't land any the legs are very fragile and made of a plastic material which can't be combined with other plastics. You can buy some replacement legs if you feel you may need or want them. The jury is still out for me. I will run them again this year in the summer to see if the results are any different. I probably prefer your standard spro frogs or zoom horny toads as separate frog offerings at this point.

Both.

I have seen bigfoot, the lochness monster, a chupacabra, and the abominable snowman all on the same outing. They were the only ones on hand to see me catch and release the new world record bass. All 4 of them winked at me and dissapeared in to the unkonwn after I released it. Unfortunately the footage is blury and out of focus!

I love zoom baits but this bait has failed me on several occasions. Compared to jackall cross tail shad it was severely outfished. At some point I will give it another shot but right now it isn't a bait I have much faith in.

I would never limit myself to one brand of rod.

Good to hear and thanks for weighing in. I have always enjoyed the d-bombs and it looks like these will be added to the list next.

The profile might be darn near the same but keep in mind the soft plastic material used as well as the scent aspect. Swimming action and the shimmy on the fall also differ slightly. I have fished these knock offs and others as well. Success was average at best. I am sticking to the Keitechs. Same principle as a senko vs knock offs for me.

The wacky jig head is what the bait was meant to be used with. I have also had very good success dropshotting them also rigged wacky allowing the bait to presented off the bottom. The flickshakes are great finesse baits.

Forgive me here, but I would not spend NRX and GLX money on reaction rods. The first 3 rods you listed... spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, and cranks all fish fine on any sub $250 rod. The dobyns champion series is a great place to find rods that match up with these techniques though you could go a bit cheaper as well. Also a big part of smallie fishing for me incorporates both Texas rigged baits and jigs. I would consider swapping one of the three reaction rods above for a 2nd bottom contact rod. Something like the NRX 893 would be ideal. The 854 or 894 would be good for baits around 1/2 oz. The 893 would take care of everything up to 1/2 oz. If it was me I would buy the 893 and 894 and call it good. The NRX 822 SYR is the most versatile spinning rod in the line up. Smaller tubes, dropshots, and shakeyheads, etc.. all fish nicely on it. A solid buy until you want a dedicated drop shot rod. For contact baits go NRX or GLX Rep sample rods from reputable dealers. Call Ron at Valley Sports to get you set up with some Dobyns rods for your reaction baits. He will give you sound advice and great pricing. If you are set on GLX reaction rods I am sorry I am of no help here...

By far the best jig I have fished during the early ice out period and just before the ice up period is the Northstar hippy jig. Combination of living rubber and hair. Fished it side by side with one that had silicone and living rubber with little success. Cold water is defidently a time for hair jigs and combination of hair and living rubber jigs for me anyways.

I don't know what to say about that speaker. I have caught plenty of 4-6 lb brown and green bass fishing standard sized drop short offerings (3.5-4.5 inch baits). You can always up your hook size and bait size on a drop shot to 'intimidate' smaller fish. But in all reality 10-12 inch bass will still eat both a tube and larger drop shot bait. Sometimes there isn't much to do about smaller fish other than change location or perhaps change something like a bigger jig or swimbait. Tubes and drop shots are both great presentations. To say one is more effective or consistently capable of only catching bigger fish is foolish. They have their time and place...

^^ This ^^

Very well. The only part where it has rubbed off at all is on the reel foot. Once mounted on a rod it isn't even noticeable.