timsford

I'd call zman and find out what law company they used to help enforce their chatterbait patent and hire said company to file for the patent and protect it. Otherwise within a month, luck-e-strike, castaic, strike king, Berkeley, and a slew of other companies will be making copies "tuned and designed" by the pros and luck-e-strike will file a patent blocking you from making your own bait like they did with the scrounger. Seriously though good luck, and whatever you do, no late night infomercial because no serious fisherman will buy it after the banjo minnow, helicopter lure, or mighty bite fishing system. Although I own all 3 kits so I guess maybe a few suckers will truly buy anything

I haven't fished the big bbz bait, but the smaller shad baits are excellent, especially when fish are feeding on shad schools like in the fall. A slow sink bbz shad would be a great buy and something that will give you confidence in swimbaits because it gets lots of bites. The hudd 68 is another bait that attracts both numbers and some monsters too. The Ms slammer and spro rat are both top water style baits that draw strikes and are very fun to fish. I haven't used the mattlures hard Gill or gantarel a ton, but I have caught some pond bass on them. Most of the ponds and places where bass mainly feed on sunfish and baby bass that I fish are full of cover, so I use mostly soft baits like the mattlures, huddleston, savage gear, and little creeper gills. I never bought into the clackin crayfish but I can understand getting burned. I feel the same about my livetarget sunfish, but all companies have good and bad baits and the s-waver is a great glide type bait for the price. Good luck and I hope you catch some hawgs on your new swimbaits

This time of year especially, but really anytime the fish are feeding I use buzzbaits, walkers, and poppers quite a bit. It's like any other technique, if I'm getting bites or seeing fish feeding on top then I'm throwing them until I stop getting bites. If not then I turn to other techniques.

If you want a hard bodied bait I'd look at the river2sea s-waver, bull shad, MS slammer, or the spro bbz or rat. Also no swimbait collection is complete without a hudd 68 and a few packs of keitech fat impacts and easy shiners.

I personally rarely use the trailers shaped like pork rinds. I use craw trailers in clearer water and beavers or brush hogs in muddy water. The size and action of the trailer depend on mood of the fish and water clarity. Also use big trailers anytime I'm looking for a big bite. It pays to experiment but generally I use smaller trailers with less action like zoom lil critter craws and big bite baits craw worms in clear water, when fish are finicky, and if I want a fast fall for a reaction strike. I use medium size trailers with a little more action like a rage craw or double tail grub if the fish are active, in murky water, and as a general starting point when throwing a jig. I use big trailers like whole beavers or brush hogs when fish are very active, when I want a big bite, to slow the bait if the fish prefer a slow fall, and in muddy water or at night to help fish find the bait. Swim jigs and jigs stroked up off the bottom that I use to imitate baitfish are a different animal but I still use the same basic rules. I use single tail grubs, double tail grubs, flukes, paddletail swimbaits, and flat type swimbaits like the lake fork magic shad or strike king blade minnow depending on what the fish want. I don't know if I could choose just one best jig trailer, but if I could have only one it would probably be a rage craw or double tail grub

Crankbaits, big spinnerbaits with a single willow slow rolled, football jigs, "preacher" jigs stroked and hopped, heavy underspins and scroungers slow rolled and stroked, flutter spoons stroked and hopped, heavy swimbait heads with paddletail trailers slow rolled and stroked, 10" worms Texas rigged, and rigged on shakyhead and swinging football heads, and large 3/4-1 oz lipless cranks stroked off bottom all produce at different times for me depending on the mood of the fish and the forage they are feeding on.

You can get the regular tatula for 110 and the tatula XT for 80 off of sportsmans outfitters site. I'd get a 7'-7'6" medium heavy fast or extra fast for an all around jig rod if you fish mostly 1/2nd and under. If you fish a lot of heavy cover or use a lot of footballs or 1/2 oz+ jigs, I'd get the heavy. The 7'1 mh xf tatula rod is a great all around jig rod and the 7'4" heavy "frog" rod is a great all around heavy cover and big bait rod. I use the frog rod for frogs, jigs, swimbaits, big worms, big spinnerbaits, flutter spoons, Carolina rigs, and about anything except deep cranks. It will handle those too, it's just a little too fast though for what I prefer in a crank rod. Excellent all around rod though. The Fenwick aetos is another great bottom contact rod with excellent sensitivity and build quality in all the models I own. Any of the mh or heavy power rods would work great for jigs. They have been on clearance on several sites but the cheapest has been on the fenwick site for under 100 bucks. If you could deal with a 6'8" rod, the powell max 3d 684c on sheltons clothings site for 100 bucks is another great deal. It makes an excellent all around rod that can handle 1/4-well over 1 oz in weight and is a cleanly built, excellent rod for the money. There are lots of great rods in the price range but these are all cleanly built rods with good guides from reputable companies with great warranties. If you want a very nice rod that retails for over 150(except the tat xt, but it's still well over 100), and at a price that leaves you quite a bit in your budget to go towards a reel, line, or lures, then I would definitely take a look at these 4 models

The longer heavy fast rods could be used for pitching and flipping, punching, swimbaits, and deep water ledge fishing with spoons, worms, spinnerbaits, jigs, Carolina rigs, and other single hook stuff. I'd pair one with my highest speed reel for flipping, pitching, and bottom contact, and the other with a 6 something to 1 ratio for swimbaits, big spinnerbaits, and moving baits. The mh moderate rods I would pair one with a low gear reel for fishing big deep cranks, and the other with a 6 something gear for fishing shallow, mid, and lipless cranks. Unless you have a rod for that, and then I'd just put another 5 gear reel and have 2 deep cranking setups

It might not be finesse to some but I like 1/8-1/4 oz buzzbaits, small shallow cranks and lipless, and hidden weight spinnerbaits with double Colorado blades. That way I can use a small frame and still have enough weight to keep hard thumping blades from rolling or coming up to high in the water

I fish below dams all the time. Try using some baits that run higher in the water like topwaters, jerkbaits, flukes, paddletail swimbaits, underspins, inlines, and if you do want to hit bottom I rarely use plastics, mostly crankbait that float up out of the rocks. You will get hung a lot less, and I always do better with shad imitation baits near the dam in my experience. I once fell at the local dam trying to fight two fish at once and broke both rods and almost my leg. I had also broken off some cranks earlier in the day so it was pretty expensive. I caught a 10 lb striper, 6 lb smallmouth, and 20 lb flathead that trip though so it about makes it worth it.

Here they are always shades of brown and green depending on the bottom type and water clarity, and all have orange tips on the claws and tails and other orange highlights. I use black and blue in muddy water but other than that, I either use those colors if they come stock, or buy green pumpkin or watermelon and dip in orange dye

Buying the blank and building your own gives you the ability to choose everything. The rod length (you can cut or extend blanks), handle type, length, and material. Type of guides and size of guides. You can build an ul spinning rod blank into a bfs casting rod. You can build a mh crankbait rod blank as a spinning rod if you prefer spinning gear. The possibilities are endless and you can have something you want, but can't find in an off the shelf rod. Guide type and size, reel seat material and design, and even the way the rod is wrapped can affect how the rod behaves under load, the balance of the rod, weight of the rod, and the sensitivity of the finished product

I use a moderate fast for any reaction bait with trebles or open single hooks. I use it mostly for cranks and traps though because I have a fast action rod I prefer for spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. Either works, I just prefer the fast. The Japanese market rods have lots of rod designed for bottom contact with moderate fast actions, and they catch plenty of fish too, so it could be used for anything really, especially depending on the maker of the rod since all manufacturers actions and powers are different. The type of line used makes a big difference also. Braid is going to stretch much less and makes a rod perform a little different than mono or even fluoro

Ned may not worry about feeling, but I do. Whether I'm dragging a football jig, hopping a Texas rig, shaking a dropshot, or working a bait on a split shot, ned rig, shakyhead, or even digging crankbaits into rocks and the bottom sensitivity matters to me. As I said feeling light bites is important, but knowing whether bass are relating to pea gravel or chunk rock, sand or mud helps to establish a pattern of where the fish are located. It doesn't matter if it's a 10 inch worm or a ned rig, feeling what's going on helps tremendously. The difference between most weekend anglers and the pros most would love to be is putting together patterns instead of heading to your "favorite spot" and blindly chucking and winding at any visible cover. Sorry op that the thread got off topic. That's a nice looking rod. I've been using a St croix ml for the Ned, but I'm thinking of maybe getting a light action St croix built since they are a little stiffer than rated IMO.

Sensitivity is key to any bottom contact technique Imo if you want to put together patterns and have more successful days on the water. It helps to feel light bites but it's also important to know the bottom composition and sensitivity of the rod really helps to know if you are fishing pea gravel or chunk rock. If you run into fish in a certain type of bottom, more than likely they will be concentrated in other areas that are similar.

Or reel it a few turns and pause on a stop on go retrieve

Weightless Texas rigged because I can throw it anywhere and skip it way back under trees and docks without worrying about getting hung. I use baitfish colors and fish them faster like a soft jerkbait or use browns and greens and deadstick and twitch on bottom

I use several 6'3" rods, both casting and spinning. I use them for skipping docks, really accurate casts, and fishing tip down stuff like jerkbaits and topwater walkers. There are a few manufacturers that still make this length, but not many

I haven't fished that particular river, so if not that deep, I'd still pack some cranks deep enough to dredge bottom in craw patterns. For what it's worth, I catch smallies and largemouth all the time with dt10s and 3xd's in 6 feet of water and deep little n's in 8-10ft of water digging them into rocks

Poppers, small walk the dog baits, and 1/8-1/4oz buzzbaits on top, floating and suspending jerkbaits, lipless cranks, square bills, flat sided and wide wobbling mid depth cranks, and a couple of deeper cranks up to about 15 ft in depth. Main thing with crankbaits most of the time is to hit cover or the bottom. Spinnerbaits burned on top or slow rolled on bottom, swim jigs around cover, bladed jigs in murky water, and football jigs around rocks or deep holes. Tubes, craws, and finesse worms rigged on split shot rigs, Texas rigs, shaky heads, drop shots, and Ned rigs. Swimbaits, underspins, and flukes if there are lots of baitfish, and senkos and weightless trick worms if you see the fish or pack a couple of inline spinners in case you aren't getting bites. Basically most of the same stuff you would use in a lake. Bring both natural and muddy water colors until you see the water. I do better with smallmouth with hardbauts with a little chartreuse even in clear water, or on baits that imitate craws. Turn over some rocks and look at craws and see what colors to use. Both species use current breaks, but smallmouth seem to like more current. Also try to retrieve your bait with the current and concentrate on anything that breaks the current.

If you want to be effective with crankbaits the main thing is to always try to hit and deflect off cover and the bottom. Pick a bait that runs deeper than the bottom and if you hit something just pause a split second so the bait floats up off the snag and then continue reeling

Powell Max 3d 684c on sheltons clothing site for 100 would make a great all around rod and save you some money. I can throw anything except deep cranks with mine, and it's way nicer and more sensitive than the price suggests. Check out the review that tackle tour did on the old Max version. They threw everything from 1/4oz to a 2oz+ swimbait

If you we're looking at the hmg or aetos, the aetos rods are on clearance on the fenwick site for 100. Daiwa tatula rods can be found for 110 on eBay. Just starting out with baitcasting, an excellent rod to start with would be the Powell Max 3d 684c on sheltons clothing site for 100. It's a great all around rod that can do about anything. All these are rods that retail for well over 150 for around 100 shipped. And if you like lews reels the tournament mb can be found for 108 nib on flea bay so I'd say you can find the tpro g on there cheaper too. I'd recommend the tatula or tatula ct reels off fleabay as excellent reels for the price that will last. Instead of going to bass pro and paying over 300 with tax for a 300 combo you could get an aetos and a tatula and have a combo that retails for well over 300 for under 200.

I use 15 lb big game or trilene xt unless I'm fishing really heavy cover or at night. Then I use 40 lb braid

The best catfish bait I've ever used in ponds for big cats is cut bluegill for blues and channels, and live bluegill for flatheads. Chicken livers catch a lot, but I always catch the big ones on cut bait