MIbassyaker

Love that PowerBait. The reason I picked up some chigger craws initially was because I like the Power Worms so much. I am never going to get tired of those worms in 4", 7" and 10".

Consider my arm twisted. Next TW sale I see, I'm picking up some Crazy Legs Chiggers and the Zoom Super speed craws. I haven't used either of those, although I do use -- and like a lot-- the normal chigger craws and the Zoom ultra vibes.

one of my all-time favorite crankbaits is the Model A in firetiger or chrome

True anecdote from this morning: I was catching nothing buzzing plastics over the tops of emergent weeds in a little bay of a small lake. So I decided to try out a new spinnerbait -- double willow, silver, white skirt....second cast along the edge.... pike, a little over 2 feet, probably around 5lbs. Maybe that's why I'm not catching any bass here, I thought. So I moved across the lake and went back to the plastics....sure enough, the bass were over there instead.

Poppers are a good place to start. Easy to learn, hard to get wrong. I have a particular fondness for propbaits, though -- you can work them steady and fast like a buzzbait, or slow like a popper, or something in between..rip, rip, pause....., rip, rip pause...

morning, evening, cloudy, night Popper Buzzbait Buzz toad (Stanley Ribbit, Rage toad) Propbaits (Heddon torpedo) Jitterbug Spook Any weightless, texas rigged plastic bait -- senko, trick worm, fluke, craw, creature, etc. (EDIT: Did I forgot anything? Anyway, they all work!)

Yeah, OK, sounds good. But from their perspective, the question is, what is the purpose and how did you determine it? The answer is, you have knowledge about behavior and location and presentation that beginners don't have. The only way to get that knowledge is to learn it form someone, or learn it yourself through trial and error, observation, and inference. The realization that bass are not randomly hanging out just anywhere under the water, but relate to specific locations and strike particular presentations under particular conditions is actually pretty momentous.

Crankbait bite here has been totally nonexistent since early June. I love finesse fishing, but dang it, I bought all those shallow cranks for a reason, and I want to use them again!

If it's the medium-heavy Ugly stik, then yes, that may be the problem. I'm guessing it is if you have a 4000 size reel on it.

Follow the Five Step Plan: 1. Do whatever gets you to college. 2. Finish college and get a degree. 3. Use the degree to start a successful career. 4. Make enough money to support yourself and your family, with enough left over to fund your hobbies. 5. For the rest of your life, spend however much of your disposable income and leisure time as you wish on golfing AND fishing.

20lb braid has diameter equivalent to about 6lb mono; that should be OK for casting a weightless worm, although 15lb braid may be better. I'm guessing the problem is your rod. Do you know what power rod you are using? I use weightless t-rigged worms on medium, and even medium light spinning gear with braid quite often. You could also just downsize your weight to 1/8 or 1/16 rather than get rid of it completely, or use a heavier worm like a senko, as scaleface suggests.

I've just gotten into keitech swimbaits this year too. I like them texas rigged with a little lighter weight, 1/8 or even 1/16. They're also pretty cool on a Sworming Hornet underspin.

Just rig it weightless.

haha! No joke: when I saw "dock rocker" as the first suggestion, I thought, that's perfect, no way I'll top that. Great name -- Congrats.

I should use tubes more often for largemouth. I tend to use them strictly for river smallies, and I just don't think about them otherwise. On jigheads I like to hop tubes so I can get that crazy spiral fall going. For dragging on the bottom, i rig them weedless on an Owner bullet ultrahead or a widegap Spider Slider head.

I've been able to catch fish on it in 1-2 foot visibility. If it's a brownish stain, like one of the rivers I fish, I use the red head, and if its a green stain I use the chartreuse head (don't know if the color really matters, but I picked those for their visibility). The only issue is, if it's pretty murky, fish will be close to cover and you may get hung up more often trying to get to them.

Ha! The Carmina Burana is never wrong. Everyone knows the O Fortuna theme as the all-purpose soundtrack to Everything Ominous and Epic, but the whole thing is spectacular. Go see it performed live if you ever get the chance.

Hey, why not? Flies, jigs, and dressed hooks on in-line spinners and other lures with feathers, squirrel hair, deer hair, and other kinds of fur have been catching fish forever.

I may be exaggerating slightly. But only slightly. Ned is the new Senko.

Yeah, better to not lose an eye, but better still not to die from being out of the water too long.

That is what I do too. It seems to cut down on how often I deep-hook fish. I'm guessing it's because strike detection is easier if the line can slide freely through the weight.

The Ned Rig is some serious skunk repellent. I've started throwing it instead of a wacky-rigged senko (!) when I start getting impatient for strikes.

Cool -- sure! They do look great on a shaky head. And the vile craw really does look like something created in a genetics lab, lol. A very different look than most other craw baits I've used. I'm eager to try them out too next time I get a chance. BioSpawn has clearly put a lot of thought into their lure designs.

Last June, while browsing the BassResource sponsors websites, I signed up on the BioSpawn site for a monthy drawing to test some of their baits for free. In return, BioSpawn asks that testers spread the word about their baits. My name was among those randomly drawn at the end of July, and three weeks later I got a package in the mail containing two sample packs of baits to try out: On the left are samples of the forthcoming 6.5" PlasmaTail worms (TW lists them as available on 9/20), and on the right are some samples of the Vile Craw. There was also a BioSpawn sticker, which I used to decorate a Plano box: This morning got to try out the PlasmaTail for a couple hours (sadly, the Vile Craws will have to wait, for now) -- my first time ever trying a BioSpawn product, although I have heard and read many good things about their baits including the currently-available 4.5" PlasmaTail, both here and elsewhere. Here it is (Middle) alongside two of my other favorite worms: the 6" Roboworm (Top) and 6.5" Zoom Trick Worm (Bottom): A few features stood out right away. First, the plastic is soft and quite supple. Second, the PlasmaTail has no flat side, and therefore it's hard to tell whether it has a "top" or "bottom". A cross section seems close to perfectly round. Third, I don't know how well you can see this in the picture, but the PlasmaTail's thickest region in the front half is slightly bulkier than the trick worm, while the tail at its narrowest region of the taper, right before it widens again toward the end, is thinner, and about as thin as the Roboworm at the same point. This third property gives the tail portion a ton of action and makes it incredibly responsive to any movement of rod tip, which is especially noticeable on a shaky head. As the package advertises, the PlasmaTail is neutrally-buoyant. I found it sank very slowly rigged weightless on a single hook. When rigged on a shaky head, the tail tends to stay upright pretty well. It also tended to stay slightly off the bottom when dragged behind a weight up farther up the line, as in a mojo or carolina rig, although it doesn't rise after settling, as a floating worm might. I did not try it on a drop shot (I'm not much of a dropshotter), but the action and buoyancy seems just right for that application. Is it effective? A fish speaks for itself: This one was on a mojo rig. In the couple hours I was out, I also caught two more on a shaky head with the same worm. It's also notable that I got a lot of little strikes that didn't hook up, which I assume were smaller fish, probably bluegills, nipping at that tail. But the tail did not tear, despite the surface getting scuffed up a bit. So for a worm this soft, it seems quite durable. The worm that caught the fish is still rigged on my rod, and is probably still going to be usable through a few more fish. Overall, the 6.5" PlasmaTail has a very nice mix of properties that seem to make it a good candidate as an all-purpose straight-tailed worm, and I am definitely looking forward to buying some more of these when they become available.

I use all spinning too, always have, and haven't ever even cast a baitcaster. I keep thinking I should get a nice one and learn it, but I have yet to hear a clear, detailed explanation by anybody for what the added benefit would be. For instance, I use a MH/F 7' spinning rod with a 4000 reel (not even saltwater sized), spooled with 50lb braid for t-rigs, jigs and frogs. I use another MH combo with slightly softer tip and a Lew's speed spin reel for spinnerbaits and heavy cranks, and a M combo for lighter crankbaits and topwaters. Then I have a few lighter combos for smaller baits and finesse work. I am told BCs make it easier to use thicker diameter line, but braid seems to render that argument obsolete. I don't believe line visibility matters much so I don't see any good reason to use flurocarbon, and in any case I can always put on a mono leader. And I've never found a situation where I felt like my MH/F spinning rod was somehow not powerful enough, and that I needed a H or XH instead. I'm also not interested in throwing A-Rigs or big swimbaits, or, really, anything over about an ounce. Every time this topic comes up, numerous people jump in to say, no, you don't really need a baitcaster for anything. Then someone chimes in to say, yes you do, for technique x, y or z. Then somebody else says, no, really, the right spinning rod will do just fine, as long as you have specs A, B and C. Oh, but a baitcaster makes it easier. Easier how, exactly? That's the part I don't hear an answer to. And in the end, invariably, all the discussants agree you should "pick the right tool for the job", but also you should "use whatever works for you", which always seems a little contradictory to me. I don't doubt there are good reasons to use a baitcaster over a similarly-powered and actioned spinning combo sometimes, but it I have found it very difficult to get a clear sense of what those reasons actually are, in any detail.