Cgolf

Crank baits in general. It’s not that they don’t get bit, it’s just I way over purchased especially when I found some really good sales. The only other I can think of is I have a bunch of swim jigs and rarely fish them. I find myself always grabbing a spinnerbait instead.

Its a #8. It looks good on the 1/2 ounce, but super crazy on 3/16 frame I fish it on as well.

They are whiptail blades got them from Barlows. Then Barlows was nice enough to send me a paper copy of their catalog to figure out my next order.

Got 6 more done today. Blades I have run a little on the small side, but I hope that means they run a touch deeper.

I fish with the slider pro heads a lot and since I use snaps I keep the plastics rigged all year in a plastic style shoe box with holes drilled in the bottom to allow the water to drain. This goes for swim jigs too. I have pulled some plastics off these after being rigged up and not used much for 2-3 years with no rust. Gernerally I find that the Nickel plated hooks tend to not rust at all. I know folks say just toss the plastic to save money, but with the price of plastics really going up, IMO tossing the plastics will cost you more than the ocasional hook or Jig rusts. Take a Rage Menace that at the standard price of 6 bucks a pack now is 75 cents a bait. On a slider head I average 12 fish a bait and have even caught over 20 on one or two baits. If I toss it at the end of the day that gets expensive fast. I think many forget that plastic costs can really add up. My other baits, tubes and Kalins single tails I can probably get 20+ fish per bait on average. So yes I am ok with throwing away a jig or hook once in a while. I may through away 5 bucks in jigs and hooks a year due to rust, so it is very small, especially compared to what I lose due to snags.

Kind of torn on posting this, but it might be my last purchase of Baby Menace and Menace grubs, 24 total packs. TW sale price was pretty good and the 1/4 oz firetiger RES was on close out so I grabbed 4 since it has been a good color for me. trying another 6th sense lipless, some spinnerbait components and some smallie smashers.

I have one of the smaller sizes and the quality is really good. There are similar/same to some Orvis boxes I have and those have been good as well. I have the sub 3600 size that I use to store treble hooks. The only bummer is I really like that size but since they aren't common there is no tackle bag for them. That is why I never bought more than two of the Orvis branded ones or more of these.

I have always gotten them from Cabela's/BPS. Just bummed they no longer sell 100 packs.

Only thing I can think of is to not stick with 1 lure or another for a long time thinking the bite will eventually pick up. In my head I always think just one more cast and they will eat it and 30 casts later... I have plenty of confidence techniques and I always delay switching up when the bite is slow thinking I will miss a fish when the reality of switching up is I may get more bites. Amazing how easily ignored that last sentence is when you are on the water.

The chart mostly agrees with how I am going to use my 7'2" MHM, but I really struggle that they don't have this rod listed for jerkbaits, spinnerbaits and deep divers. Spinnerbaits and jerkbaits would be my first use for these rods. That said I am in the minority where I far prefer rods with a slower tip for most if not all presentations. It is how I learned to fish and hard to change a hookest after years of doing it a certain way.

I have zero but use Bass Resource, Catalogs, and Magazines to figure out what new baits I need to buy this year, cause unless we get a seriously odd winter I am not fishing in January for bass;) March and April is our January.

Biggest river smallie, 20” on a Big Bite green pumpkin purple 3.5” Smallie Smasher on a Ned Head and Lake Smallie was a 21” on a 1/4 oz War Eagle smoke red spinnerbait. Caught pike bigger than these, but relative to big pike I have caught, they were rather pedestrian.

Read a little over half the books on the bookshelf. I think I got 6 new ones this year I need to work in between the library books the wife gets for me Nice lipless box!

Last Christmas post. Added the Lucas on Bass to my bookshelf and the Solunar tables book, will reference to see if the hot bite of the day matches the book, and some Musky books. Included a grab of my bookshelf, it is fairly solid and got some based on suggestions from this site. Also got some 1/4 and 1/8 ounce size Jades Jigs mushroom heads to fish Ned baits around vertical cover under windy conditions when true Ned rigs get blown off the cover and out of the strike zone.

Last night we did an order, Menace and Baby Menace at 4.19 sadly is a good deal so 24 packs ordered, and we used the random card number thing so that they don't have her actual card information. I will also say the credit card area looked different, so perhaps they have made changes there, but it is a gut feel it changed as I don't have before and after screenshots. Only thing that sucks is that I forgot to add the free t shirt!

Alright and number 2 is done. Yes it is one of those war eagle easy skirts, but that color has been very good to me. While I realize the size 4 wide willow probably has similar surface area to a standard size 4 willow, I outdoor like to try one with a size 5 or 6 trail wide willow to get more length out of the trail blade.

I have always gotten a look too, but have a good supply of colors in the sally hanson hard as nails. From my fly tying days I remember this being the prefered brand. oddly with my fly tying and jig tying I have just been doing two whip finishes and not cementing them at all.

I am dabbling with 1/2 ounce baits with unique blade styles to see if that unlocks the heavy bait curse. My strike ratio is just so much higher with the lighter baits that it borders on not making sense. Thanks for the sizing info, I may not need to get many bigger blades. The only ones might be the wide willows. A size 4 wide willow is much shorter than a standard size 4 willow. Going to try a size 2 and 4 wide willow combo. Guessing the wide willows run shorter due to the wider width.

For Christmas I got a 12 pack of of unpainted 1/2 ounce frames from Barlows. Went with the War Eagle shaped frame and unpainted since the nickel plated WE heads rock. Worst case I paint the heads with nail polish. Since I haven’t had a lot of luck with this size baits I went with size 2 and 4 whiptail blades, to give a different vibration pattern than the common offerings. Later today I will do one with size 2 and 4 mag willows. In the future I will be buying some size 5 and 6 blades too. Most of the baits I will be modifying will be 5/16 or less so the smaller blades will be good.

To answer @Glenn comment about TW recovering from the bad PR and the hit to their reputation, I think it will take time. For me persoanlly It will take a lot of time to regain confidence hitting the place order button and a different way of doing things. I get they weren't the company that had the data breach, their card handler did. Where I felt they dropped the ball was not telling me to take measures to protect my info. Yes I got an email from IDX, but it was roughly 2 weeks after my card was comprimised. Had I known when I placed my order I might have gotten a paypal account or done what we are doing tonight and getting a one time use number. Yes I am doing an order tonight as a few items are at a price we may not ever see again. Just waiting to see if any other items go to prices that the monkey puts more items in my cart. So in my eyes they aren't clean in this mess, which no company ever wants to go through, but if they handle it well from here on out that will tell us a lot about TW. Even giving a one time discount code to those that could have been or potentially impacted would be a nice gesture that could be stacked with sales. Acadamy did this for me when they sent me the wrong reel, left handed instead of right for my troubles, and it was a way bigger discount than I expected. Granted the left hand BC was a blessing in disguise as they are now my 1st choice for BC reels. Time will tell.

I think those other companies are also owned by the same group that owns TW. Learned that on here a while back. Someone will correct me if I am wrong.

If we all had local tackle shops like yours we would be asking what is this Tackle Warehouse place:) That is better than our local cabelas or what our Gander Mountains were 10 years ago before they closed. That is insane in a good way, you are very lucky!

I used to spend a decent chunk of change at a local tackle store, and they eventually sold. Once the new owners took over everything seemed to get marked up 2 bucks across the board. At that point the extra just wasn't justified. I do go there occasionally and the prices on some items are okay, so maybe they learned by that early price increase. We are also in Musky and Walleye first territory so Bass stuff always felt like an afterthought and were super light on plastics selection. They never had the cool stuff seen on the Latest tackle thread, but did have a ton of Rapala's and sometimes would get new baits early.

I wasn't as lucky as T-Billy. I did finally get the email from IDX, but it was 2-3 weeks after my card was hit with 2 fraudulent purchases. I guess the good news is that this likely clears Barlow's, ALF, and Amazon, but I will purchase differently online going forward. Now I need to decide how to handle TW. My thoughts are use them for great sales, but not sure the full 3-400 buck orders will go to them anymore. I am really frustrated, but they may have some good deals on baits on the 25 days sale I might not be able to pass up. Yes the thrifty side wins out over the p*****d off side. I think PhishLi said it best, there is just a trust issue now, on top of already being annoyed with pricing on some newer items being higher than other sites I am not the TW fanboy I used to be.

Won’t get it out on the water till April or May so unfortunately I can’t give an on the water report for a while.