Cgolf

For open water I totally agree. In this scenario where I am pitching with the spinning rod and not bomb casting the baitcaster there is no issue. For some reason the bass have always preferred lighter lures. It is also interesting watching a bass fight up close in the reeds as you can see them try to get to a reed and try and wrap the line around it, very instinctive fish.

So today at work they cut me a 14x17” cover out of a piece of scrap aluminum we had. It is fairly thick as well. So in many ways this ends up being a free solution because I had the handle laying around along with bolts to hold it on. If a zip tie breaks just replace with a new one. If this doesn’t work I really like the cutting board idea and I will give that a try. Appreciate the ideas. the one thing I can say for sure is I really like the option to have storage in a small boat that I can cover the boxes up to keep the sun off the crank baits and plastics. It’s a never ending journey with a small boat lol. Each change I make I think will be the last, I tend to find something better at least temporarily.

Not sure if it has been mentioned already, but the tiny creme craw crank that you can pick up for 1.25 at Walmart has caught a lot of fish for me this year and I am on my second set of hooks on one. It catches both large smallies and of course smaller ones too with the small hooks. Once I learned to loosen the drag a bit more than normal I stopped bending out hooks.

I have a spot in my boat where this crate I bought for the kayak and it would hold 3700 boxes. Being it’s not waterproof I would use hydro flo boxes. my thoughts for a lid are a thin piece of scrap metal from work held on one side with clips from a tackle binder on one side and a handle on the other with magnets to hold it closed. Any other bargain ideas for a lid?

Haven’t tried anything less than a 1/4 ounce spin on the MHF baitcaster which with components is slightly heavier and on the spinning rod a 1/4 ounce slider with a rage baby menace which is probably the lightest plastic I fish. For the most part I am pitching the plastics on the spinning rod so distance is not an issue. Baitcaster I will Chuck a ways, but the farther it goes the more chance to hang up on a reed, so I am happy with the distance I get without any weird motions. I will still likely use the MF Dobyns Sierra spin for Ned rigs, and since I pitch open hooked Ned’s a bit off the cover to limit snags I should be ok. Not sure how much I will use the MLF Sierra spin now.

I have definitely found uses for the victory like tossing square bills in open water and around home it can still be used as a spinnerbait rod. Heavy cover just pushes me to heavier rods. Oddly heavier spinnerbaits and heavier rigged plastics don’t get as many bites.

Over the years I have lost numerous fish to getting wrapped around reeds because I couldn’t always control the fish properly. I mostly fish 1/4 ounce slider heads and spinnerbaits in the reeds, sometimes 1/16 ounce Ned heads if the wind is down. This became clear to me when I got a MHM Victory and a H Kaden for Christmas. The backbone of the Victory was disappointing and I could not keep bass from wrapping the spinnerbaits on reeds with that rod. Compared to a MHM Premier I have that has a very stout backbone I feel the Victory is mislabeled and I is really medium power. I do like the rod though just not for what I bought it for. The Kaden allowed me to control the head enough to keep the fish from wrapping me around a reed. This fall I tried my MHF Avid X with the 1/4 ounce spinnerbaits and it worked great not having one fish wrap me on a reed. Like the Kaden I felt I could control the head enough to keep them from wrapping and included a couple of 4 lb smallies too. At the St Croix store I picked up a MHF Legend Tournament spinning rod, blemished so I got a great deal, with the same thought. By the time I tried it the plastic bite was gone or impossible to fish due to high winds, but I did get some fish on it. I really liked the sensitivity even with the lighter baits, and it will serve me well in the future. No big fish on the rod but I expect I will have less fish wrap me on a reed. The only downside with the lighter lures on these rods is that accuracy suffers a little bit. Most misses with a sidearm cast go to the left and short. I just really need to focus on the release point with these sticks as there isn’t a lot of forgiveness. Overhead casts are more accurate but not my favorite way to cast to vertical cover.

Went to the St Croix factory store and picked up this blemished Legend tournament inshore rod for the price of a victory. It fills a hole in my spinning rod line up. Hoping it will help me get the bass out of the reeds without them wrapping me on a reed. Test casted a 1/4 ounce slider on it and it casted fine. After getting a fish on it in tough conditions I like the sensitivity and the extra long handle like a musky rod. Having a cranky wrist from too much golf back in the day, it is nis to lock the handle in between my body and arm to support my wrist. Accuracy is decent with the slider head but I can dial that in. Heavy cover forces trade offs.

I am curious what issues you had with locking them in particular. I still at times will have one side not fully latch while the other side is perfectly latched, mostly if I try to close it with one hand. Now I close them with both hands on the ends and 90% of the time it seals up fine.

Building spinnerbaits is addicting especially when they out perform my best store bought baits. All I have been doing is using less common to non existent combos of blades to give a different look and vibration from what everyone throws. I am hoping the Stanley spins kick butt this fall, the tapered were is very interesting.

How many spinnerbaits do you carry? For 2-3 hour trips I carry one or two of these. I do drill holes in them to let some airflow through them, and they work great for me and are small and easily stashed anywhere. I do still let wet lures air dry before reboxing them. For other baits I use one 3700 hydro flow box. Half for cranks and other half for plastics. Yes I am super careful grabbing the hydro flow box from under the seat. I pack really light.

Great product, and these fit the need. 60 for the terminal box no way, the 30 I paid yes good value. The box pictured below, great deal, I have like 25 of them and I hope they never stop making that box. I love Plano boxes, I just don't have the extra cash to drop on the high end boxes except for specific needs. It seems the more I make, the more the wife shrinks the budget;) Not a complaint just reality. Like I said I do really like the ones I have, they fit the need perfectly.

So for my fishing budget, higher price boxes don’t generally fit the budget, but I did get 3 of the 4 on sale and the 1.38” tall 3700 terminal box was 29.99 at fleet farm half of the BPS price. TW has their Edge 3700 terminal more than double the price, but it is 1.5” tall, so guessing it might be different. The 3600 works great as my spinnerbait parts box, 3700 I can adjust the dividers properly and carry a lot of bass jigs and other terminal tackle, and the terminal box will carry just that all very nicely. The there is the jig box, this is my overflow spin box, that goes in my truck on vacations, two full blade Krates wasn’t enough spinnerbaits. It just didn’t work for me as a jig box, nice way to hold them, but not the most efficient use of space. fishing out of a small boat I try to be as careful about how much I carry. I see myself buying one more 3700 box, maybe a deep one, as I buy more spinnerbait components, time will tell there. Wanted a flex box so I could put the frames in to, but saw the price and decided against it. My crank bait and plastics are stored the way I want them so no need to change there. The double decker Plano 4700 box has been my go to plastics box for years. Great boxes, just difficult to justify in most cases for me. What are other’s thoughts?

I do think the pros are better than us for sure at being able to go to different lakes and catch a limit of bass most of the time. The argument that they go there at prime times kind of works, but the Covid year shifted the schedule and they did alright. Personally doing vacations around supposed ideal times only to see Mother Nature crush my hopes and dreams happens to them too during the tournies . And yeh on my adopted home lake or a lake with reeds I could probably hold my own, but put me on other lakes I would suck. I guess they would be considered a Jack of all trades. Generally they don’t capture the largest fish, but seeing a fellow Wisconsinite hit the century mark with smallies impresses the he!! out of me. The big bass specialists like Tom and others are special fisherman and I honestly don’t know how many of them tourney fish as well. I would think the mindset shift would be difficult. the only worry I have is the new sonar technology will make it too easy, but time will tell with that.

I have learned that a rapid warm up one day to the next shuts fish down harder in September than multiple cold fronts in a week during the summer. That September trip was a tough learning curve but figured it out on the last morning so left with a small victory of knowledge gained.

I bought a pack to try recently so glad to hear this. Now if I can get a bass to bite a bladed jig I will be happy. I think they are cursed for me lol.

Jades Jigs has 20 percent off on their website.

As a change up from the drop shot the 3,5” also works great on a Ned head with a wire keeper. Got some big smallies including a 20 “ fish from a smaller river system. Great little bait.

Yeh quality control should have caught that. The one on the bottom right even looks a little weak too.

What BR discount?

The fact that over half the baits were almost all brown sounds like more than color variations and they should have been caught. Baits like that will always have variation, but almost no secondary color to me would not be acceptable. I like rage too, but all companies have issues from time to time. Do you have pictures of one with little color or were they used up?

The only thing I have never understood is the accuracy argument. I am equally accurate with both and can thumb the spool or feather the line to drop the bait where I want. The reason I am a huge fan of spinning gear is I fish a lot of vertical cover and spinning gear allows for a light bait to drop straight down very easily. If the bait were to pendulum away from the cover, I would catch a lot less fish. I could see an argument that it is easier to thumb a baitcaster vs feathering the line on a spinning reel for some to control distance accuracy. It all comes down to what you are comfortable with and what fits the fishing situation. This is a little like a discussion about scent, I don't think anyone is going to change their opinion.

I think this is a good price. Half of BPS. That said this box is 1.38” tall and TW says the one they offer is 1”5” tall. Tried to do some research but couldn’t find that they offered two 3700 terminal boxes. You get this picture because the wife put the box away for a gift to me.

Crawfish for me, but only because I started to fish the crawbug before I cared to learn anything about them.

I have done that as well. The 2/0 light wire spider head works great. I went with calling it the sled rig marrying the two old school finesse tactics lol. The funny thing is I never tried it when fishing reeds on a lake, just used it on the river and the ultra weedy lake near home. on the list to try for next vacation. As a side note I am surprised more folks don’t use slider heads. Once I started to I haven’t looked back.