kickerfish1

Nice work Hootie! Now to start carving wooden fishing lures!

Black is just one of those colors I can't explain why it is so effective in what to the fish should be a baitfish imitation. Years ago club guy one "angler of the year" by almost exclusively throwing this color from March through October. Yea, talk about boring and uneventful but the results sort of speak for themselves. I have had days fishing side by side with friends with virtually identical setups except he was using a Green Pumpkin fluke and I had black. I was at least 2:1 on fish caught and bites. After that he grabbed 3 packs for his own stash. I think I keep about 7 or 8 packs of them on hand plus mend it. To me they really excel when bass are pushing shallow around the spawn and during the summer and early fall period. When guys are tossing frogs and toads this bait seems to be a nice change up to pressured fish. The action and sort of "dying glide" when killed is pretty irresistible to fish. With the black color I can fish it at the crack of dawn and evening to dark plus every time in between.

Hawgtech and Hedgehog Studios to top off Rippn's list.

Have been fishing flukes for years. Have not found another color that can compete with black and believe me I have tried. It doesn't look like anything special but it just gets bit!

I have some older Team Daiwa rods and some original Gen 1 cumaras. I dont plan on letting them go anytime soon. I have kind of a kid of rods from the 90s and some from today.

Since the year is over and I am going through and cleaning and getting everything ready for next year I thought I would snap a pic of what reels I ended the year with. Going to sell a few and probably add a few.

I would use a Poison Head or a California Swim style head. You can fish it effective with a 3/8 or 1/2 oz with the difference being the rate of fall.

It is a bit confusing. The pointer SP series is probably the most popular. The 78 and 100 sp baits are among my favorites. The differences are size, weight, and dive depth being slight different. Then you have your slender pointers which are longer and narrower. Great for cold water IMO. Lastly you have your deep divers for when fish are relating deeper. There are other variations of the pointer but I would start with the 78, 100, and a slender if it were me.

I have stored jigs that way but it was for a short duration where I only needed them for a weekend trip. Bending of the weedguard would only be a concern if there was significant weight placed on them for an extended period of time. The nice thing about using something like a 3600 or 3700 series box is the hard shell of protection they provide. My jig collection is stored in all 3700 series boxes and 3600 series boxes.

Another option to consider if you will is possibly pooling funds for a nicer rod for your bottom contact apps. Instead of 3 or 4 bottom contact rods maybe splurge on 1 or 2 nice rods that will give you better feel. Many years ago I purchased lots of sub $100 rods and then migrated towards rods around $150 to $200. After upgrading to something nicer I lost a decent amount selling. For example a rod I bought for $120 new I was only able to get about $80 shipped for. This has taught me to buy the best you can afford especially if you think you may try to upgrade the reel or rod at a later date. Most of what I buy now I plan on keeping for a very long time.

Seems pretty well rounded and doable to me. I would say you may want to drop down to 10# for your jerkbait setup. Also as far as adding something else it may depend upon a few things. You could add a great all purpose setup like say a Loomis MBR 843 and the reel of your choice for those outings where you can only bring a limited amount of gear. If you fish a lot of tubes or shakey heads you could buy a dedicated outfit for that. Then you have the swimbait outfits if that is something you think you may do. Lastly there is the BFS or Bait Finesse System craze with casting gear. Basically you are throwing baits under 3/16 oz with UL or Light action casting rods with finesse oriented reels with special spools and generally line size around 6#.

Haven't yet. I have already purchased all my line for the 2017 season. Perhaps I may add a spool of this new finesse line but it will likely have to wait until next year.

RC STX, Rogues, and Storm Twitch Sticks. Then Rapalas, Bombers, and Huskey jerks would be my next 3 favorite cheaper hard jerkbaits.

What is your favorite rod and reel under $100?

Another trick to help with line twist and memory is to close the bail manually after each cast instead of engaging the handle. You can also spray some KVD line and lure on spool before each outing and that will help it remain limp and manageable. I too find myself fishing smaller diameter lines than most folks do. The heaviest line I use on casting gear is 15# and on spinning is 8#.

My two most commonly used styles of jigs heads are what some would refer as a Poison Tail / California and Brush / Alien head. I fish a lot of weed, rock, wood lakes but the main obstacle seems to be weeds. Football heads or ball heads just seem to collect weeds.

For a 500 sized reel you probably don't want to go over 4# line as the reels are tine and line capacity is reel lacking. I have some tiny panfish reels this size and I run 4# Triline on them. Cant recall what exact line but it is mono. This allows me to throw anything from light jigs and cranks to small topwater baits when the crappie are feeding on the surface on small bugs. For the 1000 sized reel you can probably go with up to 8# line but then again on my 1000s I like 6#. Once a reel hits the 2500 size I go to 8#. Tatsu is pretty pricy but I have found it to be strong, manageable, fairly sensitive, and its best quality seems to be longevity.

So that is the key to deflated balls and cheating... Hmmm... Lol!

I agree! He is already screwed. I noticed that when he started selling off some of his "Lewsers"

Good stuff buzzedbait! You need to post your entire aresenal

Every lake here is heavily weedy and weedy in nearly inch of the lake. I can probably count the days where the weeds aren't an issue. By early April the jerkbait will come back with vegetation on it. We dont have many lakes that set up good for treble hook baits and if we do it is very limited time.

During the spawn and in heavily weeded lakes.

I am a big fan of the Majorcraft rod lines. Lots of UL, L, and ML options from various series and price points. Like Ripp'n said most are under 6'7. They are bringing around 3 of their rod lines over from Japan to the US so it may be worth the wait to avoid shipping and fees.

It is just part of the game. I lighter weight would be my suggestion though you may sacrifice casting distance.

I probably would not. As mentioned above you never know if you are a dealing with a crazed person with a weapon. It is one thing if it was your own property they were littering on.