Cgolf

Rock bass crack me up. Fishing plastics I get them a lot and the bigger ones can fight like a largemouth with the exception that they have this shake like they are electrified when you are reeling them in. Not sure what causes them to do that, but it is an easy way to know you aren’t hooked up with a largemouth or smallmouth.

Watching the video was enlightening. While on the first one I twitched the tip well after it was gone, in my mind I thought I had pulled it away from the fish. Second one I didn’t twitch at all. What I noticed about the first two that missed was they were near reeds, that may have messed with the fishes attack angle. The third was in relatively open water giving the fish room to work. Turned off the video after I caught the one, but had a few more misses. Guessing the tight quarters had a bit to do with it, or could have just been one of those days.

I will work to get a video up on you tube and link it in. Frustrating but glad I finally started getting some hits. Topwater has never been a strength, I struggle finding the right time to toss them.

Trying to figure out if it is me, the bass need glasses, or it is the nature of the bait. Fishing the savage gear smash tail 100 I had six blowups that missed before one connected. Is this normal? I was retrieving it as slow as I could and have it still plop while fishing the interior of a reed bed. While the hits are cool and exciting, I want to land more fish. I did have a go pro on, so I can rewatch it, but when they came out of the water for the bait their white belly was facing me. The day before I was 1 for 1 but it was a rush from behind hit and the bass never came out of the water to take the bait.

I am killing it again with the Menace and slider head around reeds. Not sure what it is about that combo but no other bait has been as productive. Rage bug gets bit, but not as much. The menace also holds up better and you get more fish per bait than the bug.

It has worked fine for me. Before the pro sliders I used to fish tubes on that head with no issues. The classic spider with the 3/0 hook and the pro slider get the most use now, but I need some more of the 2/0 size because it is a perfect fit for the small yum crawbug. Because of the hook design I hook it below the midpoint on the nose. To make the menace last a bit longer I flip it 180 to rerig it through undamaged plastic. I am a bit thrifty, but they seem to hit em pretty good once they are properly seasoned;) What I am learning this year is river fish are hard on plastics. The menace and baby menace only last 4 or 5 fish on the river vs 10 to 12 on the lake. Had one menace get 23 fish. Went to to do a picture of one, but it looks like the baby menaces are rigged on the 3/0 version because I am out of the 2/0 version.

What Strike king should also do is rebrand the baby menace as the Ned menace. It has been very effective for me on either a Ned head or a slider spider head with the 2/0 hook. Not sure many have given that bait a try. Also hope they bring out the menace in smoke purple in all 3 sizes. That has been a great clear water color for me. Why, it is just a gimmicky name for a rig/style of fishing many of us have fished for years without even realizing it. I think Zman just marketed the heck out of it which has brought it to a different level. The Strike King Ned baits give me hope that companies won’t just over charge for half a senko.

I believe Petenwell is a pretty good walleye lake. Some Ned heads and plastics would be perfect, because the Ned heads could do double duty as a bass bait with the plastic and you could fish livebait for walleye too. Also suggest some 5" Kalins single tail grubs or something similar that could also be fished on the Ned head and give a more active presentation. If you have access to something like a slider head with tubes or the grubs for weedless fishing that would be nice and easy and you wouldn't have to worry about dealing with worm weights and hooks.

My wife is our accountant, so she just followed the rules. Wonder how many calls companies get about this, because it wasn't common knowledge it was taking place.

What ticks me off is we always listed all of our internet purchases on our taxes, where they of course took out the money then giving a slightly smaller tax return. This was invisible to me, so who cared. Now when I do a 200-300 dollar gift card order, it will be very visible to me! My solution is to get product up to the gift cards and pay the tax in credit, probably not an option for all though. Just a bummer that too many people abused the system by not reporting purchases and forced the change.

I have fished the Ned a lot and unknowingly midwest finesse for many years on the river, sub 4" baits on a light ball head jig, with great hookup rates. I use fireline, sometimes with a flouro leader on mostly a medium action ugly stick, but have also had the same success with a medium/fast tipped stick too. The one thing I do though is always fish the bait on a fairly tight line and set the hook any time I feel a bump. I refuse to fish baits on slack line, or letting a fish take a bait for a bit before I set the hook, because of potential deep hooking chances. Also on the river line watching is tough with all the different currents, and if you don't set the hook right away the fish is gone. Almost all of my fish, lake and river and hooked in the top of the mouth which seems to be the toughest part of the mouth, which I think helps my landing percentage.

I hear you, Dicks used to be pretty good, but I had a hard time spending my 10 bucks in rewards money last week. Sadly I mostly shop online now. It is sad that with all the lakes around us, that the shops suck and don't carry tackle that would suit those waters. You live near Dick Smith's livebait? Haven't been there yet, but their social media posts make it look ok. We did visit the quad cities over memorial day and found an awesome little shop, but Rock Island IL is a long drive for us.

That thing looks awesome. Price point aside it looks like the offspring of a Heddon Torpedo and a Whopper Plopper. A unique lure in a now crowded category, that many probably won't know about because Academy isn't a well known store, at least up here in WI. Seeing the screws on the prop, maybe replacements are available in the future if it gets busted?

I will keep chucking my ploppers that I got on sale, and being a topwater, I tend not to lose many and fish them on a light leader to protect from pike and Musky. The H2O bait looks pretty interesting, because it has a plopper style head with a much different style of tail, that reminds me of a yo zuri topwater. Next order to Academy I will probably pick up a few. Wish they had the size and weight listed. As far as Berkeley goes someone gifted me 2 sizes of the Choppo I will try and see how it performs. I was just disappointed that their topwater line looked to be mostly copies of other baits at a cheaper price point. In the past they have tried to be innovative and come out with unique new lures. Never thought of them as a follower, maybe this is their future. I personally try to not support these lures unless the price difference is really big. Thanks to sales it hasn’t been so far.

I will put my frustration aside and deal with it by buying product to the gift card price and put the taxes on my CC. It is just so frustrating that people take advantage of it and screw it up for the rest of us. We always do our taxes so we get a decent return, so adding our internet purchases to our taxes had an invisible impact to us.

I grew up in Geneva, nice area, and did spend a lot of time racing RC cars down in Illinois. I do love N WI, but that might not be till the retirement years. I talked with my wife and she does list all our online purchases on our taxes. This just limits what I can purchase with the gift cards I get at Christmas is my only complaint.

I thought the deal was if they had a brick and mortar store in WI you got charged sales tax. TW has always been tax free. If they aren’t now then I will take my online shopping elsewhere. WI is really turning into a state not to be lol.

I always wondered this too while using it, but a few things changed m6 mind. First shoulder shrug moment was during a tough bite, if the scent wore off no bites. The two that sealed it for me was dropping a crappie slider with no scent and deadsticking in a school of panfish and watching the, sniff it and bump it, but not try to eat it. I put the scent on and deadsticked it again and the panfish aggressively attacked the bait and hooked themselves. I really wish I had video of this, opened my eyes for sure. Second was out with my father in law and I caught 5 bass in a hour and he never got a hit. I finally convinced him to add scent to the bait, and in 3-5 casts he had a hit and landed a bass within 5 minutes. While not scientific evidence this definitely changed my thinking about scents. I personally recommend gel scents (never had any luck with liquid scents), I use Liquid Mayhem, but others like Atlas Mikes, Megastrike are out there too.

It’s a bit interesting. I fish the Menace on a slider head, could see that bait glide a bit more than the Menace. Depends on price and color selection for me. Never been a huge fan of that brand. As for the Rage patent, wonder if it applies to swimbait tails too? That may be a stretch though. He must do ok with that patent.

Saw this bait on Instagram and curious what others think? Did they have to pay to use the Rage patent like Googan baits did or are the flappers different enough to work around the patent? Those questions aside it does look interesting with the slightly wider body than the Menace, kind of like a skinny stucture bug without the side flappers.

I picked up a few tubes of scented a baby creek chub lure. Haven’t noticed @whitwolf around in a while, but curious about the Rebel lures I found today. Says 80s on the package and they have a graphite line tie. The creek chub and Rebels I got for 7 at an estate sale.

Gonna switch back to a lurker on the site for awhile but figured I should share this score thanks to the sale thread DSG and Lurenet’s specials page. All this for 84 plus or minus some change. Apparently I am all in on the Ploppers 75, they better work good lol.

Being a researcher and a fisherman on a budget that allows some nice things once in awhile, but I can’t miss on a 150 dollar rod or reel for example, the not being able to talk about certain things and the praise for sponsor products honestly has gotten to me at times. I get blocking it on on the main boards, just wish PMs weren’t blocked. I respect a lot of people’s opinions on here, and if I had a way for some to give me a green light on a site being legit (PM?) that would be awesome. As for the sponsor stuff, Siebert Morel jigs are my favorite Ned heads now and the rage menace, bought on sale, is reaching go to bait status for me. Just can’t afford to take a flyer on a Kast King reel:)

Might be interesting to see if any people that were kicked off the site try to make a comeback.

The weird thing is I see different behavior on another forum that uses a similar format, could be the same base forum? Also this is even different from this site in the recent past, who knows, was just throwing it out there to the mods in case a setting got flipped behind the scenes.