Cgolf

This is a bag I have that I got a long time ago that had I fly fishing chest pack that strapped onto the front straps. Attached some pictures, it has two side pockets that are pretty spacious along with 2 bigger front pockets one having 2 small pockets integrated into it. In the main pocket I have 2 4700 guide series double decker boxes in their. Something like that would probably work pretty good for ya.

Knowing the Orvis bags, I have one, can you get a couple of 3600s in yours? The one I have wouldn't do that. If price is not a big deal fishpond usually makes bulletproof gear, you do pay for it, but the quality is really good. Saying that Jim if you have a fly shop in your area take a look there, they should have lots of solutions for bank and wading anglers.

Best thing to do is go to a sporting goods store like DSG that caters to more than fishing and look at both fishing packs and standard backpacks. That way you can see how the fit and how the pockets are set up in person. REI stores have a huge variety of packs if you have one nearby.

When we were at my parents a while back my mom was cleaning out her closets and had a sling pack meant to be used I guess as a purse, thankfully it is black. It actually has better pockets for fishing gear inside and out than my Orvis sling pack. I am a minimalist for shore tackle, so this probably wouldn't work for most since it wouldn't hold even one 3600 size box. I am with others, look beyond the branded bags, a good Jansport or other backpack will likely be more solidly built and you should be able to find one with a pocket layout that would meet your needs.

Yes, I especially enjoy fly fishing for smallies. I have done ok with it on the lake too, but the last few years it has been too windy when I was the only one in the boat. With a 16 foot boat it gets cramped enough with 2 of us casting conventional gear.

This sounds like a terrible accident that could have been avoided, I noticed that this lake in particular seemed to have more accidents then normal. We just had a drowning a few days ago here, but not a lot of collisions get reported here. Is there something with this body of water that makes navigation difficult? I have seen my share of idiots on the lake, from bass boats to jet skis, thankfully I have never had a close call, other then getting buzzed a few times in a channel. Regardless of the reason for the collision, my heart goes out to the guys family, terrible thing to have happen.

I have some and at least shaking them in hand they are silent. Of course there will be some hook noise, but you can never get away from that. The only issue I ever had with the red eye shads was the opposite when they first came out that the rattles were stuck on some, but will give them credit, they took care of the issue for me.

Don't have the pictures to back it up, but they worked really well for me last year. The echo definitely has a different action than other squarebills I have tossed. The only downside is mine didn't like to be burned back. Essentially it is a fat flat bait which is quite different from other flat cranks I have seen.

Slider spider heads are really awesome, they work great on lakes too. The only problem I have run into, is that sometimes the hook point gets toasted after a rock snag. Quartering the current with cranks works really well, totally agree that they can't be cast directly upstream or downstream unless you are casting into slack water. . My fish count is pretty much split 50/50 between soft baits and cranks.

Personally I fish all my tubes on a slider style head, or a texas rig would be the same. I really don't worry a lot about brand, just pick up a couple different kinds, some skinny and some bulky. I have never used an insert head, it is something I need to try. What I do like to do is put a shot of a gel scent inside the tube, which in theory shoots into the mouth of the fish when they bite down, and probably gets them to hold on a bit longer. They are just so versatile, you can imitate anything from a craw, bouncing on bottom to an injured baitfish swimming it. In theory if you only had one bait this might be the one.

As of last year Gander mountains did not carry Zman products, which really surprised me. For some reason the only item stores would carry is chatterbaits.

Personally I have looked for deals. I have been a fan of Santone Jigs and the last 2 years I have picked up a bunch on TW's 25 days sale at very good prices.

What I have done is created my own notebook either drawing out rigs and ideas in a smaller notebook or by taping magazine articles/pictures of rigs and stuff printed off from websites in a composition size notebook.

I just thought I would share what I have learned both fishing rivers and creeks for both Bass and Trout. I have fished mostly smaller shallow rivers that are not boat accessible. I would love to have some other river rats help fill in many of the holes I have left open to help out newbies on the river. Trying to find smallies Smallies love current, and will be on current edges or sitting in current breaks. What you want to look for are eddies, which essentially are pools of water where the water swirls and the current is much less severe from the main flow, but could be smack in the middle of the main flow. Less active fish can be caught within the center of the eddy, while actively feeding fish will hang on the edges waiting for food to be washed by. Running cranks or soft plastics through these areas is an effective way to catch these fish. If the river has a lot of rocks on the bottom, the fish will position themselves behind the rocks and also in front of the rocks (there can be some slack water on the upstream side of an obstruction) in the main flow to conserve energy and pick off easy meals. Many times they will crush a bait that briefly gets hung on a rock and is popped loose. Contact with the cover is key in these situations regardless if you are using crankbaits or softbaits. Since many times the water is to dingy to see the rocks, just tossing and retrieving over a boulder field is most effective. I know that in theory you should always retrieve with the lure on a downstream trajectory, to mimic prey being washed downstream, but I have had a ton of success bringing lures upstream too, probably because craws and preyfish will move upstream too. Other less obvious holds can be washouts or small depressions that will have a dead spot in the flow. In a tailwater I have fished, I have seen a spot where the flow was rapids level that I could drop a crankbait in and pull it upstream and usually hook up with a big fish. Now looking at it from the surface you would say now way in heck would a fish hold in that much current. When I waded in though, I found a small depression in the bottom that the fish could hold in and feed. These spots are of course more difficult to find, but gives you a reason to never give up on a cast and to learn the stretch of river that you are fishing. Trying to find largies Alright here is where I need some help, I have gotten a few, but most have been seen in slack water. Once in a while I will catch one in heavy current areas, but that is very rare. One thing that I have found is that when the river starts to flood the largemouth come out of hiding and I tend to do better with them then smallies. Baits Be prepared to lose a lot, it just happens. I personally would go with lower cost options to make the pain of losing a bait easier to swallow. I have had trips where I have lost 3 cranks in an hour. For soft plastics what I try and do is find a jig weight that will 9 times out of 10 bounce off the rocks, and sometimes snag. Too light of jig will wash the bait past the fish to quickly and not contact the cover. Most of the time I am trying to mimic crawfish, so my #1 go to soft plastic has been a Yum Crawbug. Other baits I have tried are some of the cheaper swimbaits like the swimming fluke, small curltail worms, straight tail worms with some success. Tubes and 3 to 5” grubs do rather well for me too. Of course there is the Ned rig which did really well for me last year. It still allows me to bounce off the rocks, but seems to snag up less due to the buoyant plastic. For cranks my go to has been the Bandit 100, and there isn’t really a close second. One that could inch its way in there is the newer Strike King shallow SB, but it didn’t catch fish for as long in the season as the Bandit did. Another crank that worked really well was the smaller, not smallest, X rap when the water was really cold. The best attributes that I have found for river cranks are a subtle tighter wobble. They just seem to track better in current. Shad raps also love to be run through the current too and can also be pretty good. Wide wobbling looser action cranks don’t do as well. I will say though that the Scatter Rap crank did pretty well as long as I didn’t horse it in. It is one that is on my list to work with more next year. It did wash out in heavy current sometimes, but I will pay that price if it continues to catch fish for me. Setting the hook With this type of fishing there is no waiting, you feel something you hit it. Many times due to the current your bait and line will be going different ways, so waiting to set the hook only ends up as a bad thing. I will say the quick set has served me well on lakes too, I don’t miss a lot of fish, and only really lose fish that wrap themselves around some cover. So that is it from me, hopefully some find this useful and others can expand on this, especially with some info on larger deeper rivers with wing dams and such. I will say the best place to learn to fish current is in the tailwaters of a spillway style dam, there is a lot going on beneath them, and really gives you a crash course on how fish hold to cover.

I was late to the game on the XCal square bills, and now they are gone, not being converted to Booyah. I have the same fear with the Bandits, the 100 is a river staple bait. I also like a lot of Norman baits, especially the deep little N, so hoping they don't screw those up.

Got it, with that context, makes sense where you were going with it, it just read funny after my post. I totally agree though and I am worried a bit about it. Maybe this will inspire some more small bait makers start up with some innovative products, one can hope.

The problem is if pure fishing and Pradco continue to buy up brands, competition is going to be limited. I guess it truly depends on how they are going to handle the brands, are they going to allow them to operate independently and just infuse cash into them, or have all the new designs come out of 1 R&D lab and then figure out which brand the new design would fit under?

Now that it looks like Pradco is in a shopping mood, I had missed that they had aquired Norman lures too, what impact will this have for us? I have already seen Bandits prices move up a bunch on TW, and to be honest I am expecting to see the same thing happen for Norman. Beyond the potential for price hikes, is this going to limit innovation? With Pradco and Pure fishing having so many brands under their umbrella, where will the innovation come from? In the past it seemed like the one label guys were the ones pushing the envelope further, now that many are being pulled under one huge umbrella will the innovation slow down? I am sure arguements could be made either way, bigger budgets, more testing, etc. Curious what you guys think, but usually consolidation of companies into one mega company doesn't see us little guys coming out ahead.

Primetime made an excellent point with switching Crankbaits. I spent a week on a lake slaying them with an xcalibur squarebill that pushes a lot of water, but the bite just died after the second cold front rolled through. I switched to a bandit 100 which has a more subtle action and started slaying them again. So yeh you could stick with what you have confidence in and still cover a lot of different conditions.

I have two, one I never saw, and a monster largemouth underneath the dock at our vacation rental. The one I never saw had to be one of the monster Muskies I see hanging around the shallow reed beds. I was fishing a 5" grub on a spinning reel and all of a sudden line screamed off the reel as I went to set the hook. After I reeled in, I tried to pull line off as fast as the fish did and I am guessing I could only pull it off a 1/4 as fast as the fish. The second was a solid low to mid 20 toad that was under our dock when I went out on a couple hour trip. When I got back she was still there and I was able to get her hooked on a tube jig. I got her half way in and she gave a head shake and the bait came flying back at me. What was so heartbreaking is there aren't a lot of big northern WI girls like that in that lake, I am hoping for another shot at a fish like that sometime. This one still haunts me, I didn't do anything wrong, it just wasn't meant to be.

Welcome to the boards For me it is a progression. When fishing a body of water I tend to work from an active presentation down to a more subtle presentation. Personally I haven't used a chatter bait much so I can't speak to that. On the first trip I would probably start by fishing a squarebill to try and pick up the most active fish in the area, and then follow it up with a spinnerbait, which to me is a more subtle bait. The third in the progression would be the swim jig, which I would both swim and hop along bottom. If any of those three didn't work I would go with soft plastics worked slowly to pick off less active fish. Once you get the general mood of the fish, and dial into the bite, say you come out the next day, if they were biting on a swim jig the day before I would start with that. Now of course if there was a major cold front going on, well slow down and find some gnarly cover the fish are hunkering down in. What it comes down to is time on the water and just trying and learning. It is definately humbling at times and rewarding when you hit it right. I generally stay away form top waters, not efficient enough for me, they catch fish, I just am not good with them yet.

I have the bag that was the model before the one on the bottom and love it. One thing that I have found as a must for boat bags is a hard sided bottom to keep the moisture out of the bag if the carpet is wet from either the early am dew or from rain.

Just thought I would share that Ned rig supplies will be available this spring and summer in South Central WI at Dorn True Value on Midavale in Madison. This is a big deal, other than Cabela's carrying one or two colors rarely, we should now have a better supply available. For some reason Zman stuff has not been readily available in WI which is ludicrous with all the fishing we have available to us.

I just looked at some prices I had from last June for TW and the 100s went up a 1.10 on there site. Unfortunately my local cabelas is not the best when it comes to fishing tackle, but I will definitely be on the lookout for good deals and closeouts. I will be a little more selective where I toss them now and work a little harder to get them free instead of just breaking them off.

It was very noticeable though when very recently the Flatt maxx went from 5:49 to 6.79 at TW. It was then that I noticed the 100s were now more than the SK KVD squarebills. Thankfully I still have 20 or so 100s (1 year and a 1/2 supply), but will be combing clearance racks to pick some up on the cheap, at 6.49 a pop I won't be doing a bulk order. As far as the Lucky Craft impact, Rapala was the worst for their price increases.