Cgolf

Over the last few years I have found mysef fishing lipless cranks more and more. From up shallow to the deep weed line for smallies and walleyes. They seem to deflect as well as a square bill and are effective through pretty much the whole season. Deep Weedlines: Used to throw DD22s, deep little Ns, Rap Dts, and cranking raps. Haven’t thrown them in 2 years. up shallow: throw minnow baits and square bills a lot less and just change brands of lipless instaed of styles of baits. Docks, reeds, etc: almost exclusively lipless now, but this makes sense since a lipless can be allowed to drop into the strike zone of fish relating to cover vs a billed bait that needs a few feet to get to depth. Not or sure if I am relying on lipless too much, but they seem to do it all. The guy that owns the cabins we rent up north swears by lipless for walleye at night and doesn’t even use live bait anymore. For me a lipless reminds me a a tube baits versatility. I still pack and use other baits, just not as much.

I have a list for TW for Black Friday that my parents use as my Christmas gift. Helps me maximize the gift and putting the list together brings out the long lost kid i me and kind of makes the Christmas thing fun. Now just hope that Abu and Daiwa reels show the discount in the cart, like the lucky craft baits did last year.

Honestly keep the lures, you may find a time and place for them in the future. I gave away some baits once, only years later wishing I had kept them for situations that came up where those baits would have worked. The double willow vs Colorado blades are 2 tools for different conditions, and both have a time and place. Heck during post frontal conditions I throw a 3/16 SK spinner bait with the standard Colorado blade, but replace the standard willow with a #7 willow to slow it down and give off more flash. I also try to have my confidence bait being the one tied on at the time. That keeps me trying new baits and presentations every year to expand the conditions I can catch fish under. Jerkbaits are one I struggle with, but I am slowly getting better hoping that next year it will be a strength.

I got sick of trying to figure out what plastics were in what box so I spent a rainy afternoon when the wife was out and wrote down the brand style and colors of all the baits in each box and numbered them as I went. I then put them in a table ordering by brand style and color. Then I was able to condense baits that were in multiple boxes into just one box. Now it’s easy to find a Berkley 4” Ripple shad I’m uncle Rico and a Kalins Ron’s craw grub. Look at my list and I go to the right box the first time instead of the 10th time. This saves me a large amount of time. Same would work for bagged plastics across multiple boxes too. Now I need to figure out if I do this with my other tackle.

I do use a couple of ugly sticks too. They are great for shore fishing on the river and it lives in my truck all summer.

Found these at a Scheels today for 7 a piece. Anyone know anything about the real vibe? Never seen or heard of it.

Back when mono was king I love XT solar, even had good success in gin clear waters. From what I saw 832 is only available in blue or green. Take that back they have yellow too and lime.

How do you like the Abus? Just got a left handed gen 3 S (acadamy sent me wrong reel and was out of rights, but they gave me a fair deal) and an STX HS Gen 3. Love my Abu round Musky reels, hope these are as good.

I am with you, I have three quantum accurists that are my workhorse reels and have been for about 15 years and will still be in the mix next year. Will be really bummed when they give out. Wish I had bought more, but I was new to baitcasters then and probably only had three casting rods at the time.

Mainly from another forum years ago that seemed everyone used Shimano and pushed them as the best. Of course ignoring the binding issue on the spinning reels;) I was also low budget then and took a beating for my ugly stick Shakespeare excursion setups;) So that turned me off to the brand, even though I am sure it is really good quality.

When I did my Black Friday reel thread I definitely saw that some that had brand preferences. I know I have some on my reluctant to buy list too. Will be interesting to see others favorites:) Spinning Reels 3 brands Pflueger Presidents Daiwa - even though I always have order extra bail springs Shakespeare - I have 2 excursions and a Cattera that have lots of years of river fishing abuse with zero issues. Spinning Rods St. Croix Baitcasters Lews orange crush is awesome, 30 mark rose Walmart clearance reel not great Quantum, but my reels are 10 plus years old, no knowledge of current Daiwa Laguna and Viento solid magforce with twitch stick tons of issues casting rods St. Croix Cabelas Pridigies As you can tell I am a lower end guy (cheap lol) and not brand loyal. Brands I would prefer to stay away from Shimano Pinnacle I have two Abus about to be wrapped for Christmas so another brand to try.

Probably, and since I use a leader for jigs visibility should not be much of a concern. Thought I would try something different to see if it would be easier to watch my line with this stuff. The last year or so my eyes got old, no reading glasses yet, but not too far off.

I have used and liked 832 in the past and since I will have 3 new baitcasters in a couple of months, was curious if the Coastal Camo color would be good for bass fishing. I fish both green water and water you can see your lure bottom in 10 to 13 feet. Color looks cool but my gut says stick with the standard green.

Sounds good, will keep my list to Lews, Daiwa, or Abu, with Shimano having a slight shot. Already have a gen 3 Revo S and STX in the mail, so will see what I decide. It’s a bummer the Revos are Christmas gifts, because I would love to try them before I make my decision. Too many options and brands I have never used, and all I know is my Lews Crush baitcaster is the best casting reel I have ever used, and Daiwa have been hit or miss with me (half the reels had service issues). Never used an Abu or Shimano.

Saw on twitter some guys liked them and the price point is ok. Any thoughts on the castability and quality of the reels?

Bandit 100, for my fisheries no other crank has even half the fish of a bandit. Bills on the bandits have held up well fishing over rocks on a river. Also like the Rapala scatter crank, similar action I would think to the S crank, don’t own one, at a much better price. As for strike king baits I have tried numerous series 1 baits and only caught one fish. Same with the KVD 1.5 and 2.5 SBs. The only KVD SB that consistently caught fish for me was the 1.0.

Up here I generally throw tubes for largemouth and they love them. The beauty of a tube is a light colored tube can be fished up in the water column to imitate prey fish and darker colors can be fished on bottom to imitate craws. For me they are the most versatile soft plastic made. They should catch fish anywhere.

Not sure if they can be found anymore but falcon had an incredible lipless box. Only downer is it was a bit of an odd size and when Plano bought them out they discontinued the box.

Just the few bass comment. WI bass are not as picky, steady diet of tubes, grubs, and ugly otters. If I have to finesse them it is the old Netbait slimshake or zoom swamp crawler. Have never owned a handpoured bait. To be fair i do unrig most of the baits in those boxes at the end of the season, but still have my river bag rigged and ready to go especially if we have a warm winter and the river is open (shore fishing), and some other plastics stashed in a box ready to hit the river if I can sneak out. Only baits rigged from last year are a couple of the swimjigs and swimbaits. When I un rig them I do save the plastic and rerig it the next year. I should really not be so careful with my plastics, they take up too much space in storage. I also like to try new brands and styles every year.

That is so untrue it is not even funny. I tend to use baits I can catch 5 fish easily on, and 10 or more on many. I also have very few rust issues now that I use higher quality hooks instead of the standard slider head. That box has baits from just this year, but I do have some in planos that have been rigged longer. Hooks are sharp, baits catch fish just fine. I generally fish plastics on bottom so very rarely will a bait get torn by fish. Always respected your posts, not sure why you chose to attack my bass catching abilities based on how I store my baits. Since I use the slider heads I use a snap, for a reason, which also allows me to switch out baits quickly too without having to take off a plastic. If a hook point is thrashed the hook is replaced. On the first page had a menace that got me 23 fish in around 2 hours and went through 3 packs in a week with each bait averaging 8-10 fish! Nough said!

Well I just talked my wife into getting me a 3rd gen Abu S and Abu STX for 150 on sale from academy. Now I will pick up a third from TW, but could try a left hand retrieve reel like the Lews Mach 1. Don’t want to spend too much on that experiment. I do fish spinning reels a lot so left hand retrieve shouldn’t be too bad:)

Thanks, just picked up an S and STX for 150

Not sure I get what you mean. I am looking at the 4.25” Erie darter and a 4” curl tail worm in particular, plus a couple others since we are ordering. What is maddening to me is their website and having to open every one it seems to find the size you want.

Was looking at their hand pour molds, better selection and cheaper than the limited do it options. Also since this would just be for recycling baits, this makes more sense than going all in and getting the injection molds. Just not sure what the difference between a silicone mold and a composite mold is.

Anyone know anything about lurecraft? Looking at the website I just can’t get a feel if it is somewhere I would want to order from.