Cgolf

The Bandit 100 has been good to me for years on both lakes and rivers. It has a more subtle action. For a bait that pushes a ton of water, the now out of production xcalibur SB is a great bait, the 200 size worked well for me and I think they may eventually rerelease these under the Booyah brand. If I have those two baits I should be able to catch some bass. Others that I tried for the first time last year and did well on are the shallow Bandit Flatt Maxx and Bill Lewis echo. For deep divers pretty much all I own are Norman deep little Ns and DD22s along with the Rapala DT series.

I too agree that custom painted and super detailed cranks are overrated and overpriced. I do think color matters and have lived through it a lot fishing clear water. With Crankbaits I just make sure the bait has the colors of the prey I want to match in it to give the bass the illusion it is say eating a bluegill.

On TWs site I think I saw just the swinging jig head sold separately allowing you to use any hook you want. I am guessing the ones you have don't allow you to change out the hook?

I like what you guys did with your boats, really slick. I did something similar with my 16 foot alumacraft Kit boat. I ended up putting depth finders front an back, but both transducers are on the back due to the 80lb terrovas terrible design for transducers and all the interference it gives off, thankfully with the short boat I don't lose much because of this. The trolling motor was a much needed upgrade from the 55lb motor that came with it I did add a removable front deck next to the front so that I can lay down 7 and 8 foot rods on deck. As you can see from the picture it is a bit tight, but for 60k less I can make it work. I also added a new storage bit on the front with leftover plywood from the deck and treated 2x4s I had lying around. The only thing I need to add to that is putting a piece of tarp or cloth on top that hangs over to give better sun protection to bottles of scent or bags of Zman baits I don't want to roast in the sun.

One other thing I have found is that I catch a ton of fish on my ugly sticks. I have a few 100$ sticks, but the ugly stick stays in the truck all season so I can stop and hit some shore spots on the way to and from work. Not saying the expensive sticks aren't great, but some cheap solid products are out there. Saying that I bought some cheap graphite rods once and had the tips break on the cast, so I have tried to stick with uglies for budget fishing.

With a kid in college now, I am really watching and waiting for sales. I also got lucky with Coke rewards, I have been saving points there for a while now and they are offering Walmart gift cards as rewards so I am getting them to replace the ancient line on some of my reels and will get some tackle with the left over proceeds. The biggest thing I did was look at the gear I have and decided what I really needed for next year and am trying to keep my expenditures to just those items. Impulse buying has got me in the past, and a lot of times I have found those baits that I had to have are sitting in a box and were never used.

I will admit that TW got me hook line and sinker, but I do frequent a couple of smaller soft plastic sites, one before I was on this site and another that has ties to my favorite swim jigs that I got my first order for Christmas. Other then that, Slider gets an order whenever I lose enough jigs and need to restock. For small stuff and one off buys I still try to use the two local baitshops we have to do my part in keeping them around. Have not found another site that gives me one stop shopping. If my jig fishing takes off this year, fishing skirts website could get a chunk from me over the winter.

The part that I struggled with was the take on slack line. By the time I felt it, and changed the next sweep into a hook set they spit it. I don't want to always aggressively pop it in case there is a fish there, because the more subtle retrieve got me the bite, so how do you hook up with those fish? or do you just expect to lose more fish with this presentation?

But they do, the 10% gift card and 25 days sale. They got some of my money for both sales.

The two exceptions I can think of are perch and pumpkinseeds, they got lots of colors going on and tossing in a different trailer color would be helpful there. Generally I have matched the trailer to the main color in the skirt. Like others I am going to try some oddballs combos this year including an electric blue jig.

Maybe it is my fishing style that steers me to other brands, my T rig staples are Kalins grubs, BPS tender tubes or any cheap tube generally works, and netbait and zoom finesse worms and slim shakes and swamp crawlers. On jigs I went with a Paca craw selection. I do have some chigger craws, one pack of the crazy legs version that I will have to give a toss this season and see how they work. I do have a bunch of old power bait shaky worms that I have done decent with, but I don't think you can get them anymore. Probably end up kicking myself for not stocking up on the pit boss with the sale, but live and learn. Also with the above baits Berkley is the more expensive choice, vs the brands listed. The grubs may be the exception, but kalins just work too good for me. I had some success with the twitchtail minnow on a jig head river fishing for smallies, but before I go crazy with them I want a little more time on the water to confirm it wasn't a fluke.

I have never made it to the Memorial Day sale, I have been very weak in the past lol. The only sale I have ever made is the 25 days and gift card which then burn a hole in my pocket. This year I had my wife hide the gift cards on me to protect me from the call of the bait monkey! Just hoping nobody releases anything cool before the opener that I must have, last year the Lewis echo called to me and just made me put an order in:)

I have been on the fence with this bait for a while now and just can't pull the trigger on it, not sure why. Some of it is I have a lot of jig trailers and want to put money elsewhere, but I should pick up at least a pack for next year.

And all the guys knockin the 25 days sale this year get added to the naughty list too;)

Back in the day I used Berkley soft plastics, but now I have found that I really don't have any interest in any of their products. For the 25 day sale I had 1 pack of twitchtail minnows in my cart, but I ended up removing them. generally I have found other brands that I like better, either because they are cheaper or at least in my eyes have a better product. What am I missing? Has Berkley stopped being innovative, or are there just too many options out there now?

First one that I know of is Memorial Day. I am in the same situation, I split a 25 days order with my father in law and now I am waiting for the Memorial Day sale.

I have had really good luck with the Strike King bleeding bait series. I did have to replace a ball bearing swivel on one, but this was after 30 or 40 fish. The fish to money spent on these is pretty good.

Rapala shadow rap, it worked pretty good for me. The only problem I had was I lost two of them because the Musky appear to like them too.

I got a bunch of Smash Tech swimbaits and smash bugs and have 10 1 ounce plus Santone rattle hogs coming from the evil 25 days sale to punch through millfoil next summer!

For my bank box 90% of the baits are pre rigged with maybe 1-3 spares depending on the durability of the plastic. This lets me carry a bit more of a variety in less space with me than if I carried them bagged by color and style.

For a bag I used something similar to this - http://www.planomolding.com/fishing/plano-tackle-systems/448500 For boxes I would use either the 3500s that come with it or get one of these and put plastics on one side and cranks and extra jigs on the other. http://www.planomolding.com/fishing/stowawayr-utility-boxes/350022 For extra stuff like snaps, split rings, or swivels I get a small pill box from Walgreens or Wal-mart. I also carry a lip gripper, needle nose, tape measure, stream thermometer, scissors, scent, and a good luck charm from my daughter in the bag. I go very minimalist on tackle when on the bank, stuff I know works and something new to try. If the something new works well it gets rotated in, and something may drop. The only hiccup I have had is Zman stuff, I hand carry a separate small box for these to keep them separate from other plastics.

XT is awesome stuff and always has been. I have some 8 year old 10lb XT line on an old quantum lite reel that rarely gets used and it still casts great. Picked up a new spool of 10 lb to possibly try on deep divers to see how different it is from braid. I wish they still made the solar XT, I loved that line and it even worked great on gin clear water.

Thanks, I added the KVD stuff to my list for my next order. Glad I didn't use the reel magic all these years. It was still in the airosal can, lol. It will meet the garbage can.

Day 16 for me. Picked up 18 Santone rattle hogs to split between my father in law and myself. With the millfoil taking over my favorite lake, these should be the ticket to bomb through. Overall though it was just ok, picked up some gambler baits and trying some cobra flipping hooks that were dirt cheap as well.

Now that I am trying big game and gamma flouro, should I give the reel magic I have had for years a shot with these lines? If so, spray it on the line on the reel? Also should I do it now or wait till May when the season opens back up? Last question with this stuff, does it do anything for braid or fireline?