Cgolf

Over the last couple of years I noticed the slim shake go out of production and now on TW the finesse worm and pack craw color selection has gotten a lot smaller. Anyone know what’s going on with the brand?

This looks really similar to a lindy or roach rig, except they have a swivel that keep the free slidin sinker a little bit distant from the bait.

Yup, and I think there was some shipping costs involved, so not totally free, but a nice hoodie. Warm one too.

The hoodie I got with my crush combo is awesome. Great for cool morning fishing trips. Totally don’t blame ya.

Hey @Glenn if you are back Friday if you could get some pics from the Salmo booth that would be awesome. Caught a video on Instagram and they had some nice looking deep jerkbaits and soft plastic swim baits, can’t find any other pictures. Thanks to you and @Keri for the great pictures. As much as I hate jet skis and a specific Yellow Sea doo run about on our vacation lake that seem to hate anglers, the Sea Doo thing looks pretty darn cool. Thankfully my fishing budget will keep me from impulse buying;)

When weeds aren't an issue I have fished them on a ballhead jig with a 1/0 or 2/0 hook. I just find the slider spider head comes through rocks better than most so I stick with that.

Brown bass on rivers. I fish it on a slider head and do apply gel scent to it. I fish it on a rocky stretch loaded with craws. I always intend to try it on a lake, but it always gets lost in the bait shuffle.

I too have a fair amount of Yum products and the Crawbug has caught the most fish of any lure I own. Go figure since it really doesn’t have any action but still catches a ton of fish. I will use the Menace till it gets its price raised to 6.99, fingers crossed it doesn’t, and only buy them on Black Friday like I do now. The other baits in the Rage line I have go tos that are similar. Just a bummer with the prices on some of the stuff I am seeing early on TW. Thought the Storm glide bait would be cheaper too, oh well.

i saw this when Lucky Craft first came out, once companies saw some people would pay the extra, brands like Rapala and others suddenly got more expensive. Chatterbaits now that the Jackhammer took off, most new offers are over 10 bucks. Now it is starting in soft plastics. While I understand it, it is frustrating, and does cap what some/many folks/kids can purchase.

Just caught the new Rage Ned baits on TW and have to say I am disappointed in the prices. It seems all the new Rage baits are 6.99 (Googan Prices) from the Ned baits to the Punch bugs and the magnum menace. I hope the Menace, baby menace and standard structure bugs don't go up as well. I will stock up on Black Friday, but wow to the prices. I guess if people pay it the companies can charge it. If they push up much higher, I will have to go with other options.

The Lunkerhunt topwater spider looks interesting. The short video they had on instagram showed it definitely had a unique action. It is pretty out of the box thinking, which means someone will point out this was tried before;)

Yup, I am having a cyst removed for the 2nd time in 6 years. It has caused pain and weakness in my wrist, but I always found ways to work around it. With a spinning rod, I would let the butt end of the rod either anchor against my body or rest against my forearm to ease the pressure on my wrist when fighting a big fish. I did have to give up golf because of this, because the wrist wasn't strong enough to close the club face at impact. Thankfully, while I am sure it limits some things, it hasn't forced me to stop fishing. Once this is clear it is possible there is the start of arthritis too, but at 45 I hope not.

Anyone know when the Mag Menace will be available? Really hoping they add more colors to the Menace, smoke Purple and Baby Menace, Smoke Purple and Motor Oil Red. Also any other Rage releases other than the Ned stuff?

I have one rigging and essentially 4 styles of baits I rely on. I rig 90 percent of my plastics on slider spider heads, both the pro with stouter hook and the lighter hook model. My top 2 creature baits are the Rage Menace and Gambler Ugly Otter. Both great baits, the Menace is a bit more durable. The other 2 are a 3 to 5 inch single tail grub, I prefer Kalins, but they are many good options out there. Lastly a tube is still an amazing bait in the 3 to 5 inch range. Brand doesn’t really matter. I will list a Ned rig, but for the way I target largemouth I don’t use it much, that is my river bait for smallmouth primarily.

If all goes to plan the new rage Ned plastics and mag menace will be under the Christmas tree haven’t seen much else yet, but I know more is coming. Usually if I hold off on ordering I eventually realize I don’t need every new lure just a third of them? The semi big big ticket item that could get me is if that motorguide TM prop fits my Terrova, it sounded intriguing.

Sales are definitely our friend, especially when they close out the previous years models. My wife has taught me a lot over the years, it just took me a while to learn;) Don’t get me started on clothes and shoes, those prices are ridiculous. Thankfully we find sales there and stay away from trendy name branded stuff. Guessing stores hate me lol, but we do ok.

I have both and the savage gear smash tail. I didn’t try the choppo on a trip last week because I really liked the savage gear 100 size which is only 2 bucks more than the choppo. It ran well with a light steel leader and got me the most strikes I have had on a plopper style bait. So that could be another option to toss in. I will I’ll try the choppo soon, but will admit to not being a fan of what Berkley did with their topwater line. In the past they have been the leaders/innovators, not the cheaper imitators.

From what I have read about Ned and the Midwest finesse approach these fall right into what a Ned rig is. Have read that Ned has been using the TRD hawgz. Essentially it’s a sub 4” plastic retrieved on a light jig head.

A while back I had posted an I am not buying anything for a year other than gifts, well how did I do. Believe it or not pretty good. I did 3 internet orders outside of my Christmas order. One was spending a gift card I got for Christmas and some small lotto winnings to get a dobyns Sierra during the 25 days sale. Another spent the check I got for getting a fishing article posted on two Abu Revo reels on an amazing deal at academy. The third was a fluke when DSG honored a typo on one of their sales and I got a few WP 75s for 5 bucks a piece. Just remembered I had a 30 dollar lurenet order in there too. The only other splurge was dropping 40 at a small shop in the quad cities area on a family trip we took. There were a couple lures and boxes picked up here and there at Wally World, but really nothing else. I fully expect next year to be the same. Essentially replacing the plastics lost on vacation and during the year. The biggest purchase is hoping to find a good price on a retirement lot in the location We want to settle down in when that time comes. Way early but if we ever find a deal that can’t be passed up, we may have to do it. I guess for me tons of tackle isn’t as important due to the boat I fish out of. Since the max I can realistically carry is what a co angler would on tour, that limits me a lot. Guessing the guys with the full size bass boats can cram more into one compartment than I pack for a week long trip;) so yeh for the most part the bait monkey can be beaten. As long as you stay away from the sale page. Also it helps I have been fishing a long time too, so I have most techniques covered, and icast seems to not really bring out anything exciting enough for me to run out and buy it lately.

Would love to see a close up of the terminal tackle box and some specs, interesting to see how that looks and the price of course. Hope they are cheaper than the Bass Mafia boxes. I think 3 or 4 things popped for me, but I have enough tackle now that I don't get as excited about icast. One thing that did catch my eye was the new TM prop from motorguide. If it does all they say I might need to pick one of those up, as long as it fits on a Minkota Terrova. Does anyone know if they two companies props are compatible? My vaca lake has a lot of millfoil and if I have to recharge less that would be great.

I have never fished without it. I carry the paper copy in my river bag, and we paid to get the credit card style license in WI that I carry in my boat or wallet. I will say the DNR really annoyed me one time they did a boat check on the water. I had my fishing license on me that day, so no problem, but I didn't have my wallet with my drivers license which was almost a problem. They ultimately were fine, but it was a good reminder to have your DL with you as well.

It's awesome, N WI is amazing. Loons and Eagles sharing the water with you makes for a great trip. The only downer is the Millfoil, but they are working on getting rid of that. The weird thing that day was most hits were close to the boat, essentially 50% reeled in. I generally work my way slowly through the interior of the reed beds, I don't stop often because there is a lot of water to cover. The wind/waves were coming at me so I think that makes it look like I was moving rather quickly, TM was set just above the move forward or slip back speed. Having an aluminum boat makes TM control a blast on a wide open lake especially when the wind is blowing.

As an aside, having fished the 90, 110, and 130 ploppers, I found the smashtail 100 to be the easiest to work. Tail got going relatively quickly even with a short and light steel leader to protect against Esox bite offs. It also worked pretty slow too, really nice bait.

I know that you and others fish these a lot. What I would love to see is a thread talking about the conditions you fish them in. The day I had was mid 80s a bit overcast with a little wind to ripple the surface about 2:30 in the afternoon. The plastic bite on bottom had disappeared at that point. Right now now I am just chucking it at different times and noting when it works, which isn’t often.

Wanted to add that I started my Menace journey as a skeptic, because I thought many were saying good things because they were a site sponsor. Ultimately now I am a fanatic even using them successfully fishing for trout. After posting Tuesday morning, that night reminded me they aren’t a miracle bait. A go to bait of mine in years past the gambler ugly otter (slider head too) slayed the fish that night when they wouldn’t sniff the menace. The menace still was my top bait the rest of the week, but I made sure to mix in other baits a bit more frequently than before. It was a great lesson for me to not rely too much on one bait. What I discovered with the otter and used with the menace around vertical cover, reeds, is they liked the bait dropped and then shook in place, like I got shocked is the best description I can think of for the shake. Then I reeled it out fishing it like a jerkbait for the first few feet before speed reeling it in.