Jaderose

I get it and it most certainly does catch fish. Maybe boring isn't the right thing to say. For me, the WR is too easy and as the OP says, it's wasteful. Yeah, I know you can use O-rings or shrink tubing or hair ties or other contraptions that make that better but (again) FOR ME, it's just not worth it. I try very hard to minimize the amount of plastic I leave in the lake. I rarely lose a plastic bait and when I do, it irritates me. As far as the technique itself, it's too close to hunting animals that are tied to a tree for me. NOTHING that I just wrote is meant to discourage anyone from using any legal technique, including WR. Just my own personal preference

You've touched upon one of the reasons I don't wacky rig. Biggest reason is that, to me, it's boring. Yeah it catches fish but it sucks to use! I used shrink tubing when I did it and it made things better but did not improve the fun factor

My shoes have someone's initials on them. L and R. Whoever that is. My wife swears she didn't write it.

I would second the Trashmaster. Especially to someone just getting their feet wet with jigs. I include myself in that statement as jigs are still not a confidence bait for me. Your picture looks like a great place for a newby ( like myself) to get frustrated by losing jigs but looks PERFECT for the Trashmaster. The Trashmaster is about as snagless as you can get. I like them and have several and some of a slightly different design that were custom made. For a traditional Arky type head or about anything else you could want, you couldn't go wrong with Sieberts. They'll take care of you.

I love those old Green Extreme Rods. The "Power Hump" fits my hand well and I just enjoy fishing with them.

The Trophy series is basically the ONLY frog I've thrown for years, with the exception of a little Pad Crasher that I cut the tails off of. The in becomes this little spastic ball of a topwater bait. I highly recommend for anyone to do this. I use this bait when I don't want the size of the Trophy series and the mats are not heavy or are nonexistent.

I threw mine for the first time just the other day and I like them. But.....I didn't notice anything particularly amazing about them compared to the Trophy Series. Yeah, the eyes aren't stickers you're gonna lose the first day but I couldn't possibly care any less about how they look. A little more compact than the Trophy and you can chuck them a mile. Are they better than the trophy series? For my style, not particularly. Will I buy again? Probably but not at a huge premium over the Trophy. I suspect they will walk and swivel better on open water or in pads but again, not really my style. I'm doing heavy mat combat and not much can beat that flat, wide *Splat* the TS makes when it lands from a good high arc. I intend to fully give them a go this summer to see if they are really anything special.

I have both. The Gammy's are better. I don't mind saving a buck here or there on less expensive but good alternatives. The XPS fish and work just fine. But I won't buy them again. The Gammy's are lighter, seem to be stronger, and are sharper. Good enough to justify the extra bucks IMHO.

Yep.....THAT is a good day. I love it when they knock the frog into the air. I think that's hilarious.

St. Croix Mojo Bass Glass is in your price range. Had one and it could flat out launch a crank bait. I did not care for it but I think that had more to do with the fact that I don't throw a lot of cranks and had a LOT of trouble dialing in my reel...any reel...on that rod. In other words, I think it was more of a "me" problem than a rod issue.

I'm reaching the other end of that spectrum. I'm slowly paring down to what I actually use. I have nothing against collecting, I just don't want to have a bunch of stuff I don't use. I've pretty much even eliminated an entire rig from every day arsenal. I took it and rarely used it so I've been going without it. Something about working from home this last year has made me want to completely declutter my life. To the point that it's irritating my wife. I'm of the opinion that if I haven't used it in the last year or 2, its got to go. If I can look at a box in the garage and not know what's in it? The whole box has got to go. The applies to my whole life.....not just fishing. I would be very happy to own literally nothing on the day I die...lol

Actually, that sounds like pretty GOOD customer service. Refunded quickly and they called to tell you. If it's over the fact that they called your wife, well.....who gave them her number?

Rage Craw or Pit Boss (still using the old Havocs) on an Owner Ultrahead Finesse Ball Head. Toss that around brush piles or laydowns and drop it in holes in hydrilla or hop it across shallow flats. If you ain't boating fish doing that, go home.

and just like that...poof! The magic was gone. Post cold front fishing the same lake yesterday. Conditions were rough and fish were scarce.

Calibration and Maintenance Planner/Scheduler. Responsible for keeping an entire veterinary pharmaceutical plant/R&D facility in compliance with all the various worldwide regulatory agencies. I semi-jokingly call myself a "Professional Bully" as people do not like giving up their equipment or entire areas to me to get serviced/calibrated. But they do. Oh yes.....they do.

Oh yeah.....I have no illusion that I have finally figured Happy Holler out totally and will now fish it like a God amongst men. I had a good day, did learn a couple of things, and will most likely have my butt kicked next time out

I forgot about this rig. Will definitely be tying this on next time out. Conditions are perfect for it

Froggin mats.

Buy some hooks and go fishing. You have asked this question multiple ways and it has been answered multiple times. Is there a particular answer you are actually looking for? If so, the answer is yes! You can can use basically ANY hook for wacky rigging. Go to Walmart, buy some hooks and some Yum Dingers or whatever, stick that hook through the middle of the worm and cast it out. The ONLY way you can learn is to actually fish. I think we all are happy to see a young person interested but for goodness sakes...GO FISH!

This. FROG TIME!

I've got some. I use them interchangeably with whatever weights are in my terminal box.

I'm going to guess you are very young. You are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overthinking this. Buy some of those Owner hooks and put a worm on there. Cast it out and let it flutter down on semi-slack line. Called "dead sticking". When you feel something or see the line do something odd, reel the slack and give it a tug. You don't have to yank it, just give a nice smooth sweep. Reel in fish. I don't care what anyone says or what hooks are out there, the wacky is not a weedless rig. If you want weedless you need to T-rig on a 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook.

My boat always has some Morning Dawn and Bubblegum Stik-O's in it. ALWAYS,

My usual day on this lake is 1-3 per hour or so. Some day a little better, some days a little worse. NOTHING like yesterday. I was just throwing the right thing at the right targets in ideal conditions. It was a beautiful thing.

Went out yesterday to my usual haunt in the afternoon. I usually go at dawn so this was different for me. Overcast, mid 60's, occasional sprinkle of rain but otherwise dead calm. I just had a feeling and man was I right. Yesterday was one of those magical days that every fisherman gets occasionally. I could do no wrong. My home lake is NOT a numbers lake although it is usually a quality lake. Yesterday I caught numbers and quality. In 6 hours I boated around 30 fish with most in the 2-3lb range. A few dinks and a couple of hawgs. Might not sound like much but for this lake, it's incredible. Used a grand total of 2 rigs. Both spinning. Weightless GP Senko targeting "bassy" looking stumps and such along the shore line and an 3/16 Owner Finesse Ultrahead Ball jig with either a black Yamamoto Kreature or a Candy Craw Rage Craw for targeting deeper stumps and hydrilla edge lines and holes. I spent about 10 minutes targeting a mat with a frog and had one small blow up but quickly abandoned that. (I can't believe I just said that). When I finally came in, a few shore fisherman asked how I did and I didn't even want to talk about it. I didn't want to sound like I was bragging or else the fishing Gods would skunk me for my next few outings. On top of that, I got to watch 2 little fawns drinking water, some lake otters chasing each other around and an old raccoon foraging around for some grub. What a gift of a day and I could only hope you all have at least one day like that. Where you can do no wrong.