mnbassman23

1/4oz-3/4oz. Depends on depth and the mood of the fish. Most times though I either have a 3/8 or 1/2oz tied on. 1/4 oz if the fish are inactive or there is heavy "matted" weeds on the bottom of the lake (this helps keeps my bait from going through them and up on top were the fish can see it). I jump up to a 3/4oz if I'm looking for a reaction strike or 15+ ft deep weedlines. I always go as heavy as I can get away with. The fish will let you know though. I have seen days were dropping to a 1/4oz from a 3/8oz is night and day in the number of fish landed, same goes for bumping up weight as well.

Congrats buddy!

My all purpose cranking rod is a St. Croix Mojo 7" MH M that was given to me. It has been a great rod and I enjoy fishing it. With the rebate all 3 of those rods are a great price.Obviously the Avid will be the most sensitive. If your choosing between the premier and the mojo i'd decide based on, do you want a full grip or split grip rod.

SHHH I don't need to hear this right now lol. The bait monkey has gotten enough of my money this loooong winter... We're in the middle of a blizzard right now and 3 feet of ice on the lakes still... Maybe a new rod would cheer me up

I use to only have 3 rods and I made it work. Now I have 8 and seem pretty content on were i'm at.

I take the same approach as .ghoti. I always have a rubber bobber stop on my t-rig setup. From there I can either slide it down to peg or leave it a foot in front of the weight for unpegged. 2 things determine pegged or unpegged for me. Cover and Fall Rate. If its matted or heavy vegetation I always peg. If it's open, sparse, or moderate cover I will use fall rate to determine if I peg or not. Most of the time I seem to go un pegged in those situations, unless i'm looking for a reaction strike.

^^ I usually yoyo 2-4 times making the bait come in contact with the bottom of the mat and letting it fall to the bottom. Somedays you have to try a few different approaches to see what the fish want. All good advice above.

This. I know I sounds like a broken record advocating a straight shank hook with a snell knot, but it made a big difference for me..

State- Minnesota Water Depth- 3 ft. Lure/Technique- Pitching a NSCB Black Series 1/2oz jig Structure/Cover- Wood Weight and/or Length- 22" Picture-

I thought it would be interesting to collect some information on everyones biggest fish and see if there are any trends/similarities. Also it's fun to tell people a little about your biggest fish. Here's what I was thinking, but feel free to add additional details if wanted. State- Water Depth- Lure/Technique- Structure/Cover- Weight and/or Length- Picture- whats the point of having a thread without pictures! If you are from MN make sure to specify lake and GPS location

You won't regret it! I did the same thing about 7 years ago and each year I throw them more and more. In return the number of big fish I catch each year keeps growing more and more. The past 3 years my PB has gotten bigger as well, and you guessed it, each one has come on a jig. Enjoy the ride man!

This is great advice. You read so many articles that say you "HAVE" to have cover to run a crankbait into for it to be effective, be it wood, docks, rocks, sandy bottom, etc.. While it is true bouncing them off cover does create strikes and is a great technique, but it is not needed for them to be effective. Using a retrieve that ww2farmer described will produce fish with or without cover near by.

I've used a couple different brands and keep coming back to Zoom Super Flukes

I've posted this vid on BR a few times. Simple to tie and very strong. Never had it slip and i've used it for 3 years.

Not as stiff as a regular flippin jig, but they are still fairly stiff. I would say medium stiff. For me, if i'm throwing them in open water with 10-12 lb copoly or fluoro I will trim them a bit. If i'm throwing them around moderate cover I usually have braid on and will leave them "as is".

Same here I don't get caught up in superstitions.

I've cut back on fall hunting. Chasing ducks, geese, pheasants, and bow hunting whitetails use to be my life. Nowadays, I still find time to do a bit of each, but my passion for bass fishing consumes most of my time.

I've caught a lot of fish on Scum Frogs. I still use them today, along with a few others that you didn't list.

NorthStar Original Swim Jig for me as well. Their jigs are top notch in quality. I throw a lot of 1/4 oz and have had luck on 4-5" single tail grubs, twin tail grubs, berkley havoc subwoofer and grass pig. Every trailer mentioned in this post will work great.

Havoc line up is my favorite. I have had a lot of success on them and the prices are great. Pit boss and the craw fatty are my favorite pitching baits out there. I've caught some real pigs on the craw fatty. Also did decent with the rocket craw last year as well. Subwoofer and grass pig are great as a swim jig trailer. Subwoofer is my number 1 producer on a swim jig. Devil spear is great for punching. Juice worm produced for me last spring. I never got around to buying more and kinda forgot about them until your post. The only one I didn't like was the slop craw, for some reason I just didn't get much for bites on it. I also did so-so with the Wide Load but probably won't buy anymore.

Same here on the hooks. Same here on the retrieves. If they sluggish work it slow, if they are active don't be afraid to work them fast and get a reaction strike.

Don't even get me started on Carrot Stix's. I purchased the original series rod 3 years ago when it was 150 dollars. I had the 7'3"mh for 1 month using Pline CX and 5 of the guides had really deep groves in them already. I sent carrot stix an email, warranty money, and 3 months later I had my replacement rod. I then fished that rod for a week and it snapped like a twig. Upon further inspection I noticed that some of the guides were starting to groove on this rod as well. At this point I was ticked beyond belief and sent them a nasty email and asked to speak directly with their product manager. To my surprise a few days later I received an email from one of their managers saying that this was "the first he had ever heard of their rods having issues, and that I could send in the warranty fee for a replacement rod." I replied that I could send him links from plenty of people online that have had breaking issues and that I can contribute to that talk online as well. He then promptly replied that he would send me a free replacement and also send me an additional gold series rod of my choice for free. Sometimes it pays to call companies out on their crappy products and crappy service. I'll never deal with E21 again..

Really?? I pegged you for a crankbait guy I tend to use a lot of swim jigs, spinnerbaits, traps, and square bills.

1/2oz NSCB New Gill colored Flip and Swim. With either a berkley havoc subwoofer or grass pig for a trailer.

First off did you notcie what they 2 guys were throwing? Doesn't even have to be the exact bait but were the using a steady retreive, slowly dragging on the bottome, etc.. This can give you a clue as to what presentation the fish were wanting. What was the water clairity like? Heavily wooded area to me means jig, especially if the water was stained or muddy. If I cannot get them dragging a jig i'm usually throwing a swim jig/spinnerbait or squarebill to cover water and find the correct depth zone on were they are hanging.