Cgolf

Couldn't find a picture of the worms you mentioned, but I will do some more searching. I took a picture of one of the handful I have left. It is a cross between a ribbontail an c tail. The zoom 4" C Tail worm has caught zero fish fo me on the river while the worm pictured crushed them. Other colors worked too, but the smallies really liked the chartreuse.

In the past I used to have a bunch of rattlesnake brand (I am pretty sure this is right) 4-4.5” Chartreuse Silver Flake ribbontail worms that worked incredibly well for river smallies. Does anyone know of someone that carries a worm like this? Worst case would be is there a mold out there for this type of worm?

Reef runners have a ridiculous number of color options. I am curious how they would work for bass. Could see a deep little ripper working pretty good fished like a jerkbaits in 6-10 fow. There shad baits have quite a few color option. The little ripper could be a good shallow water bait too.

The bait monkey got me today, but I got such a screaming good deal I think it is a draw lol. I had a spend 25 and get 10 off coupon from Dicks and low and behold they had a buy one get half off sale going on. I picked up 5 chatter baits and my first bag of real senkos for 16$. I think I did all right. Excited to try the chatter baits after having success with the mini chatter frogs.

Yum Crawbug, all it has going for it is it's realistic look, not much action to it, but man this things catch bass. Since I have kept a log, this has been far and away my most consistent producer for the last 7 years on the river. Not sure why I haven't tried it on a lake yet.

I am surprised by the OPs bravado. After following the elites the last few years and watching arguably the best stick ever, KVD miss this years classic tells you fishing is tough and even the best of the best can't always figure it out. Same with Ike, love or hate the dude, but he is a solid stick too that has had it share of troubles. If those guys can't always figure it out after days of practice, I don't feel too bad if I blank on a weekend trip and can't pattern the fish. I go out with a plan and evolve it on the water as the day unfolds. If I fail I chalking it up to learning.

Agreed, I have a featureless lake that has a couple of nice flats that I will pick a depth and work it with a bait for that depth and change baits as I change depths. Here I just cast to an area though, not a specific spot since there is no visual targets on the flat vs say a dock where you are casting to a spot.

This summer I learned more about bass behavior when I had to grind for three fish during a severe double dip cold front than when I was whacking them earlier in the week. It really taught me how the bass bite and locations change as the front moves in and squats on your beautiful vacation lake. While the fish numbers were down, the learning opportunity was priceless.

I fish like you do now mostly, but I got there by trial and error. Time on the water teaches you what, where, and when to toss to cover/structure. When fishing a big flat, it really is just chucking and winding, but I do really work the retrieve in different ways to trigger them. Reading a river is both an art and a skill, bass will hold in spots you would just think there is too much current looking at it. Just takes the time to learn. Heck if you put me on a lily pad field right now I would be lost and would probably just chuck a tube and if that didn't work a frog and look like a beginner. Put me on a reed patch and I can hold my own with the best of them.

The swim senko is an awesome bait, I got really lucky to find my favorite color being cleared out at a local shop. So far I have not seen a bait that is like it, the yum swim in dinger just seems different. Oddly the swim senko was pretty durable for me.

Part of me has always wondered why the price of the Senko hasn't come down with all the competition, but it seems that everyone is willing to pay the premium for the bait and Gary is laughing his way to the bank. This thread kind of summed up for me though why he doesn't need to lower the prices. It has just a sad trend to see bass bait prices rise pretty much across the board, not by a little bit either, while the economy has tanked.

When I made a list of my baits I did a price compare between BPS, Cabela's, and TW. What I found on baits that all three carried was that TW was by far the cheapest and BPS was the most expensive, but not by a huge amount over Cabela's.

Are you on rivers? If you are Crankbaits are a great option. You could go with Bandit 100 and 200 and DT6 and DT10s depending on the depths. Smallies will hang near current, can be pretty strong current, and will hang in the eddies and feed on stuff being washed down the river. If there are sub surface rocks smallies will hold behind the rocks in the current, so don't give up on your retrieve after the bait leaves the eddy. Grinding square bills off the rocks drives smallies nuts. As for largies look for large areas of slack water. I very rarely catch a Largie in current, it happens, but is the exception.

Actually one of the rigs I keep in my truck and use 5 times a week for plastics is an ugly stick, and the second rod I got a 2 for 50 deal on the wright McGill Clunn rods I use for my cranking. Top end rods for me are my 2 100 buck st croix and 3 Cabela's prodigy rods bought on sale. As for reels, all are 80 buck reels with one daiwa viento bought on clearance for 80. Some of the rods I use regularly are15 years old and I don't feel this gear holds me back. But yeh I will never own a top end reel and rod, I make do quite well with what I got. unless I win the lottery then all bets are off lolYes I do shop sales, that is how I ended up with a big box of swim senkos:)

It does work for me sometimes, but I did struggle to use it on the lake. When the wind was down, it worked great when fished around vertical structure like bullrushes. As soon as the wind came up though it was unusable because the line/lure would get pushed all over the place not allowing the lure to fall where I needed it to because of the light jig head. Trying a heavier jig head kept the lure where I wanted it, but didn't catch fish. Works pretty good on the river, but wouldn't say the bait is magic, catches fish, yes, better than other baits sometimes.

I and many others probably fall into the bassin on a budget group. Over the years I have accumulated a bit of tackle, but each year I have a budget I need to fit everything into. So with the more expensive lures I always like to ask are they worth the extra coin to decide if I finally give them a toss.

I looked at the senko thread and this wasn't there. What I am curious is why do you buy senkos when alternatives are available that run a lot cheaper including the yum baits I just got for under 3 not on sale. I will say I am guilty on the swim senko as I have a deep 3700 box filled with my go to colors. Since the new yum swimming dinger has a different tail design and doesn't come in smoke purple, I may be stuck with the swim senko fo a while. I just need to compare the side by side and see how they work. Are these baits that much better, brand loyalty, the mystique of the bait? I just have a hard time plunking down that much cash for a one fish bait. 15 on a crank you catch 20-100 fish worth it, 80 cents to a buck a bait for hopefully one fish seems crazy to me. Not trolling on this one, just curious, because people do buy them, they always have a big display in most shops.

Reading some magazines made me remember one more bait that is supposed to be money for river smallies. The Cordell Big O. I wore out the bill on one without a single hit, would switch to another crank and bring them in.

Have seen some positive signs locally. I hit my favorite river spot last week and met some kids that had biked 7 miles to fish. Unfortunately I don't think this is happening everywhere though.

Wow that bites. I am lucky here, I have seen the river I fish go up 20 feet in some areas, but it is fishable as the waters recede. I only can fish the river as it comes up 4-5 feet anything over that is not safe to fish. Thankfully that hasn't happened to us in a couple of years. It is funny to see the carp come out to the edge of the floodwaters and watch them swim over a parking lot.

1. Start with a Crankbait grinding over the rocks. Varying the retrieved speed until you figure out what they want. Second bait would be a tube, Ned, or Crawbug crawled across the rocks. I have had good luck with all three and have the confidence to throw any of them as a 2nd bait. 2. Tube would be my starting bait here. Varying the retrieves to imitate a craw one cast and a baitfish next cast till the fish tell me what they want. 2nd bait would be a spinner bait which should come through moderate vegetation just fine. Depending on the vegetation 3rd bait might be a Crankbait of some kind. 3. Same as 1 I really like using Crankbaits to cover water efficiently.

I find crank baits on the river to be my number 1 option. Fish seem to love baits as they bounce off the rocks. I have also had a ton of success with cranks as the water rises. Depending on how much it rises I may have to switch to a deeper diver. They actually seem to work better in high water, which usually has a bit more flow. You can fish them at a normal pace, where as a soft plastic you will have to up the weight to fight the flow which can kill the presentation.When the river is running cool/cold xraps come through the rocks really well and catch a lot of fish. For the depths I fish I needed to go with smaller size to keep from snagging on the rocks.

Yes, but it depends on the time of year. Speaking to what I do most, bank fishing on the river, I start with what I expect them to be on and then progress to one of two options depending on what the fish are doing (learned this from trout fishing). Right now I start with a shallow crank and if that is off I will switch to a top water or a Ned rig. Which depends on the fish activity, 9 times out of 10 it is the Ned, but if fish are busting the surface the top water is next up. Other times of the year I will start with a Crawbug and switch to a crank. My progression though has been built based on time on the water over many years, and learning what the fish like under certain conditions. While I don't always hit it big, I can usually dredge up something and don't get skunked too often.

Net bait finesse and slim shake worms. Both catch fish and are dirt cheap.

I have had some baits that others rave about but draw blanks for me. I have a few Strike King baits that fall into this category, the 1.5 and 2.5 square bills and series 1 cranks just draw zeros for me. On the flipside the mini 3, 1.0 SB, and new shallow SB are winners. Also drew blanks on the xcite SB which really surprised me. It is weird how this happens, I give them all a fair shake in conditions where they should excel and with many of my baits that have been epic fails, I have tried multiple baits to verify that I didn't have 1 bait that was just a loser. Is it us or the bait? Maybe some baits just respond better to our fishing styles?