Cgolf

There are some cool molds on there, assume they aren’t from in the US based on the fact that they look like copies of some of the site sponsors baits. I will have to scroll through and see if they have hand pour molds. I am not ready to get an injection setup yet. I did see a 4.85” freedom fry on the do it site, I could use for Ned baits cutting them in half.

Where do you get your molds from? Do it has a couple I am interested in, but to start open pour would be cheaper and Do its selection of open pour isn’t great. I want to limit the cash I spend to recycle baits, don’t want to start up another hobby;)

Depends on the type of hook and amount of salt in the bait. Generally the rust isn’t on the hook point so I still fish them, long as it is only a little surface rust, and don’t feel I miss any fish because of it. A lot of my sliders are the pro slider with the upgraded hook which don’t seem to rust, same with swim jigs. I have never seen a seen a hook fail because it was a little rusty. I fish for fun and not money so I can afford to take a chance too.

I have noticed that green pumpkin really varies between manufacturers. I have good luck with green pumpkins with more green in them like Zman green pumpkin goby. The brands that have the pumpkin color dominant don’t work at all for me. Generally though I make sure to have water red in the boat in multiple styles of baits, that seems to be the go to color here regardless of water clarity.

I have had the opposite results fishing for smallies on a river system. Crawbugs only have produced for me with both pinchers on them. Could be with the 2.5” bait I use the hook comes out of the end of the head so I may be hooking up when the smallies are picking it up to try and tear a pincher off. I have been using loctite gel ca glue on my Ned rig baits for the last couple of years without any issues.

Does the brand matter or just whatever you are using at the time? Only downside is you won’t be able to match the salt content batch to batch. Wonder if Elaztech can be remolded?

To clarify my thriftyness a bit, I will use a beat up bait like the menace picture I posted until I feel the damage is enough to change the action of the bait. At that point I change the bait to a new one. I have never used mend it to repair a bait. I guess i gravitate to plastics that catch multiple fish under tough conditions. Since I only get out for a few hours each time I see rerigging a new bait often as casts lost. So I guess I am really trying to maximize my time on the water. I also agree that over time the cost of a crank is a bargain compared to plastics. We don’t think twice of dropping 5 or 6 bucks on a bag of plastics, but to spend 8 to 12 on a crank can be a struggle some times.

I am chasing the big girls too, but usually fish plastics only if they are lethargic picking them up off the bottom. If they are in a chasing mood I will switch to a lipless or some other crank to be more efficient. Also fish a lot of tubes, Kalyn’s 5” grubs and rage menaces that hold up well to multiple fish. This menace got me 23 largemouth in a few hours, finally had to retire it. Almost ran out of this color on vacation, only had one pack and the bass loved it.

For BPS the only reason I ordered recently was to get one of the fancy new Plano soft plastic speedbags that everyone else was out of. I have always really liked their tender tubes, having a few colors in the boat never hurts. Really haven't seen them have good deals in a while and they used to get 90 percent of my business too. Now it is pretty much TW or bust for me. I do miss getting the BPS master catalog though. Even with the internet, it was fun going through that catalog.

When I recently put a spreadsheet together of my soft plastics I realized I had more than I thought. I also would say I fish a lot, but don’t go through a lot of plastics. I do rig my plastics on a slider heads or swim jigs and I have bins of rigged plastics that I have used off and on with some being rigged up for over 3 years. I also don’t texapose the hook, because I haven’t seen it make a huge difference in the amount of weeds I pull up on the bait. Part of me says I should pitch plastics sooner so that I actually go through some. The other part of me says to not waste perfectly good baits. Is it odd that I can get baits to last so long? I could even get 4-6 fish out of a swim Senko. Editing to to add a photo of my boat boxes of plastics

Yeh I know, but trying to do my research now so I am prepared:) I don’t normally spend this much on a reel and there are a lot of good options. Reading a a lot of the replies I am guessing I really can’t go wrong whichever I choose, and there of course is some brand loyalties:)

The Revo ALX looks pretty nice, last I looked that hadn’t been on sale. For the reels that are on sale, I just have to hope they are still available when I order. As one of my previous posts states, I seem to just have something against Shimano. May go back to when I was on the original riversmallies forum.

This is kind of what this thread is about. The only reels I personally have in that price range are a Lews and a Daiwa. The Lews casts a mile without back lashing, even casted lipless at night for walleyes with no issues. If Shimano is good I am all ears, always thought their products were overpriced, an like I said in a previous post I had read on here recently that Shimanos are harder to service long term. No clue if that is true or not. This also gos back to my mountain biking days and the cost of their stupid derailleurs. So I guess I really just don’t look at Shimano. Just looked at the Curados, curious about the bearing counts. I know they can inflate the numbers by putting them in the reel handles, so how many bearings does a baitcaster really need? The Curado 70 has 5 + 1 vs the Revo ALX which has 8 + 1. Just looking for another reel that will last me 10 to 15 years like my 3 Quantum Accurists have:)

In the price points I mentioned what are your thoughts? I will say I have read on these boards that Shimanos aren’t as serviceable any more, something to do with parts availability, and that Lews is coming on as a strong brand, not sure how true that is, probanly depends on who you ask;) All I will say about Daiwa is the fact that I know they have great customer service for reels is a strike against them and does make me think about dropping a lot of coin on one of their reels.

I definitely keep an eye on the sale thread, but with my kid in college my personal cash flow isn’t what it used to be, but family is being generous with a gift card to TW that allows me to pick up a reel along with al, the tackle I need for next year. So that is why I am limited to TW, first world problems lol. I did get a crazy deal on the crush at Dick’s, basically got the combo for 140. Wish I could find a close out like I did on the Daiwa Viento where I got it for 80.

20% off and the last two years some brands of tackle have had an additional percentage off.

I am getting one mid level reel on the TW BF sale, but don’t no which is best. Picked up a Lews Crush this year and hands down best reel I own. Have had mixed luck with Daiwa, their 50 to 80 dollar reels have had more issues than other brands at that price point, but do like my Viento. Options so far are Lews Tournament Pro G speed spool ACB at 169.97, Lews Mach 1 speed spool at 99.97, Daiwa Tatula 100 at 159.99, Abu Revo SX Gen 4 at 159.99, or Abu Revo S Gen 4 at 129.99. Also if there there are options I am missing that TW carries, limited to TW purchase because I get to order my Christmas gift on Black Friday:)

Thank you for this code! Kid checking us out had no clue the gift card deal was out there. The bonus was the prices were competitive enough with TW that I will go back and they carried a wide variety of brands too. Colors were limited, but I will take the brand variety over lots of colors. At the end Gander Mountains tackle selection sucked and the prices were ridiculous. Gander Outdoors reminds me of the Gander Mountain store I frequented a lot way back when:) This is a win for me.

I guess I differ from most. I have a bunch of Zman baits I will eventually use, but have found I like baits like the roboworn Ned worm and other heavily salted stick baits better. The roboworm Ned worm worked really well for me this summer on a seibert Morel head. Is it the most durable bait, no, but it caught some nice fish. I have also found that re rigging the tail bit where it ripped, pinching of the part torn up by the hook, catches fish too, extending the life of the bait. As far as the heavily salted baits, like an AC Wart Hawg, they have done really well for me. Might be because the tail stays parallel to the bottom while swimming instead of the tail trying to float up like it would with a Zinkerz. Like the OP storage on deck is a big issue too, I keep a Rubbermaid shoe box to hold rigged plastic baits on deck so I dont step on them and to dry when I cut them off. Not anti Zman, just found things that work just as well and are more convenient for me, knowing and accepting I will go through more baits.

Might be worth a shot. I know the face on the lure looks like something you would work like a popper, but the river current forced me to retrieve it straight in where I noticed the muted sound. Not sure if a topwater bite is different from other crank bites, but I would think the top notch would be good change up for less active fish.

Last call, has anyone used it? May not make it out again this year to tr6 it myself due to high water.

I got this thing last Christmas and finally tossed it today. On a straight in retrieve on my local river I was impressed with the sound. Essentially it seemed to have a more subtle plop than the plopper. How is everyone fishing it and how much success are you having with it? Trying to decide if I pick up another.

The bandit 100 has been a workhorse for me over the years, but the now discontinued square bill was a bust. Seeing that the rackit is getting some run from them I was going to pick up a couple for Christmas. Looking at the pictures of the bait though it looks like they may be bringing back the square bill I didn’t like, so maybe I could save myself some money. Is the new really just a rerelease of a discontinued bait, but with pradcos marketing power?

I agree with you when fishing off color waters like rivers and most lakes. On the river I fish I have over 10 years worth of data on colors and baits that caught smallies. While many colors caught em it seems that black with red or blue flake, green pumpkin Texas red (yum crawbug color), and watermelon and some flake account for the most fish. Overall though the fish aren’t that picky. Bait style on the river, well maybe. Crawbug and craw imitators lead the way with stickbaits Ned rigged in a ways back in second followed by grubs and tubes. Where I disagree in confidence is in semi clear water where you can see a lure on bottom on a calm day in 10 to 15 feet of water. On this lake I am supremely confident in water red, smoke red, smoke purple, and bluegill (smoke with blue and gold flake). What took me a few years to figure out was why at different times either a smoke and some color bait got bit while the water red couldn’t draw a strike. The reverse also happened. Ultimately it was a match the hatch thing with how the prey looked in varying light conditions. This year drove home the point of trying colors even when the bite is good, because the hard candy produced much better than motor red and KVD Magic. As I said in a previous post I wasn’t thrilled about the color , zero confidence, because it looked different in person than all the images on line, but quickly gained confidence in it when they were jumping on it. The bummer for me with this being a vacation lake I always have to carry a wide variety of colors because it can change day to day or even during the day. Drives my wife crazy because my tackle takes over the cabin;)

For me this applies especially on clear water. Motor red, water red, KVD Magic and bluegill menace grubs were catching them, but man Hard candy menace was crushing them and it wasn’t close. To answer the op I am hosed because I river fish, clear water lake, and a green water lake with bad visibility. I have my color selections set now for these situations and for the murky water and river it is a fairly small selection. In answering Roadwarriors post though my clear water selection is pretty big because I change often because color can make a huge difference in numbers. It wasn’t a confidence thing either, because I thought hard candy was bad looking still I started catching them, then it was the best looking color ever, at least this year;)