gnuisance

Interesting. Do you use the same bait or different ones? This could be a great tool to see what the bass prefer

If the lake is as clear as you see use a natural colored craw trailer but keep it small. Rage baby craw or zoom speed craw 3.5"

Try fishing a smaller jig extremely slow. Like one hop every couple of minutes. Takes crazy patience but works really well when the bite is slow.

Just picked up a Cabelas ZX tournament frog rod for $69.99 on sale. haven't fished it yet but it seems really nice.

I fish them like a crank with a slow retrieve and some twitches. I like the Zman diezel minnow because it is so durable. Swimbaits get hammered by pike and pickerel in my area so it is nice to have one that holds up.

When I first started fishing jigs I wrote Mike at Siebert and told him the types of places I was fishing, the bait I typically see and how much I wanted to spend. He put me together an awesome little package of lots of different types of heads, skirts etc.. That was like a year ago and I still catch fish on those jigs consistently. The ones I like best are the football head and dredge style head. Arkies are a great all purpose style as well.

I use braid to fluoro for everything except frogs

A 3 foot crow bar from home depot works just fine for me when I am fishing early or late season (less than 6" of ice).

cabelas tournament zx 7'3 frog rod. Just picked one up for $70

if you are fishing a more horizontal presentation stay away from a spro. They are made for vertical jigging hence the eye location. You want a smiling bill style bucktail with the eye more forward.

Actually you don't. Your posts are pretty well thought out and coherent for the most part. This forum is sponsored by Rage Tail which is a Strike King subsidiary. There are more Rage Tail apologists in this forum than you can shake a stick at. I gave up trying to get information on how to rig or fish the baits here because every time you offer a hint of criticism then guys pop up and say how you are fishing or rigging the bait wrong because there is no way there could be something wrong with the bait itself. My experience with Rage Tail products is that they have awesome action and catch fish but fall apart way too quickly. I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of action for more durability but that's just me. In regards to guys just posting pictures and memes as a response to your post, this is a tackle forum and there is nothing wrong with what you posted. Opinions about tackle should be welcome here. You don't like strike king and you offered an explanation as to why. I will say that not all sponsors are bad because I have had a number of good experiences with Siebert outdoors and I think they make very good quality, reasonably priced jigs.

pit boss in dark green pumpkin

I like a 4/0 1/4 oz

I agree with Torque Converter. I think it is a bit presumptuous to attach a brand name to a fairly basic type of rigging / terminal tackle. The fact that Rage Tail is a sponsor here only muddies the water.

they are weak and will break quickly if you replace the trailer often. I just break them off and use glue but thats just me.

The philosophy of the typical bass angler has evolved from tournament fishing. "get the fish in the boat at all costs bc it could cost you the tournament." That is why we use super stout rods for with massive hook sets and then we just winch the fish in the boat. It's a matter of personal preference. I personally like to play a fish a little bit, especially with a spinning reel. I keep my drag set tight enough to get a solid hook set (always with braid) but loose enough as to where a bigger fish can take some line. To me thats part of the fun. If a bass is going to shake the hook it will happen when he's in the air. When he starts coming to the surface keep your rod tip down and keep the line tight.

try some swim jigs or if you can't get those just swim a football head or other type of jig. Find the ledges and bounce the jig from shallow to deeper water. The bass are going deeper this time of year so you gotta figure out what depths they are at. A jig is a great tool for that. Good luck.

I've placed a few orders over the last few months. I like the ability to customize so many aspects of the jig on his site. Also a good selection of rage tail products.

Wait. ...? People still fish lines other than braid???

I'm big on the rage rig right now. There is a guy on ebay selling weighted swimbait hooks, 10 for $5. Get some of those and spend the rest on plastics

how do you avoid backlashes when skipping?

It's the best. I just got started frogging recently also and now I don't want to throw anything else. Now try a hollow body

if there isn't much structure then the fish will hold tight to what little there is. Try and pre-fish the area and mark stumps and brush piles. If the water is stained and lower visibility I would be fishing a black and blue football head, slow rolling a chatterbait or a t-rigged 10" black worm. Squarebills over the stumps could draw some nice reaction bites. Good luck.

much better choices if you are targeting largemouth. They also tend to get hung up a lot. Dynamite for panfish though...

What size and type screw locks do you recommend?