Cgolf

Any word if they bring the old X cal squarebill back? That was an awesome bait, liked that better than the lipless they brought forward in the Booyah line. That would be a very pleasent surprise.

Funny seeing some talk about the lack of innovation on the icast thread and some of the comments here. Some will see innovative as a gimmick until it is proven. Not sure the plopper is the best example since that style of Musky lure has been around for quite a while:), but it is a new thing for bass guys. For me this thing looks like a good idea, and I would have to believe tha they tested the lure before they shipped it to ensure it does what they claim.

For products looking forward to the Fireline ultra 8, use the original on all my spinning reels. The 3" TRD Hogz looks interesting, perhaps a good Helgie imitation. Also want to pick up the baby menace, see lots of applications for that. As as for the innovation factor, there are still some possibilities out there, but now it is mostly tweaks to other baits. Heck even the Whopper plopper is a tweak on a Musky bait. The Prank popper/crank thing comes to mind, I may have to try one of those, kind of a cool idea.

Agreed, but @Glenn as far as I know is only there based on the Bass Resource site. What I am talking about is the folks there from other sites like this for the first time that aren't showing the proper etiquette. I was just tossing out throwing some words of advice to these folks could help them out, since they don't realize what they are doing is wrong. Complaining about them to iCast won't change their behaviors, but with time they too could be a good information resource like Glenn. Does a website = a publication nowadays?

Curious if you mentioned this to the ones closest to you? Helping educate some of the newbies on the do's and donts of covering the show might be appreciated by some. Heck they all gotta start somewhere and with proper mentoring they can become respectful journalists. Heck if it gets too bad it could impact even you by them banning all net based sites from the show, time will tell.

Picked up an Avid X MH and a Mojo swimbait B grade rods at the St. Croix factory store. Really like the avid. The Mojo is huge which will take some getting used too, but since it will handle 1-4 ounce lures I didn't expect it to be dainty. 174 and change out the door for both.

Firetiger cranks are an everywhere every water condition bait. That thing can look like a pumpkinseed to a perch. It is a good crank color to start with and adjust from there.

Then to make it even worse everyone knows about those lakes so the fish are super pressured forcing us to get more and different gear each season;)

As a general trend I would say that holds true, but I have done really well with Black and Black and blue Senkos on a system you can see bottom in 10 fow, so it is not hard and fast. On clear water I have found that sun penetration drives the colors I use more. When bright and flat, more natural smoke based plastics work better. While on choppy days or overcast days water reds and green pumpkins rule the day. Unfortunately there really isn't a simple answer, but if I had to choose 4 colors to use forever it would be water red, smoke purple, Ron's Craw (a kalins lunker grub color that works everywhere), and Black/blue flake.

No not to that extreme, I just try to respect the fish and get it back into the water in a reasonable amount of time. I know for a fact that I have caught some fish multiple times. My first 20" smallie was a fish that I had tangled with 7 years earlier (it has recognizable markings). The whole point of CPR is to be able to catch the fish again as the get larger.

Great post, and when I use my gripper, to protect myself from the hook and the fish from me touching it, I always hold the fish and gripper vertically by the lower lip. If the illustration above is correct I can't do any better. To the OP leave the fish gripper out of the conversation, the people jaw jacking them with a gripper would do the same without! A lot of bass pros also hold fish improperly and swing the fish onto the carpet setting a bad example for everyone.

Kalins Lunker grub, surely not the original, but for my money the best grub I have ever used. On the other thread, in reading comments about Senkos vs knockoffs, my take is they sound like different baits that will fall faster or slower with different movements. Which means the fish will tell you which one is better than day. I hate that style of fishing, so my confidence level would be low with both a knock off and the real thing;) I think many have loyalty/confidence in the original which makes it better for them. Wanted to throw out the most extreme exemple where the knock off in many eyes is better than a Senko. When Ned rigging a cut ZinkerZ bouyant nature can make it more productive than a Senko. While a Zinkerz is a knock off it fishes completely different than the original due to the properties of the plastic.

Just curious to all those knocking the imitation vs the real thing. My guess is that if the salt content and plastic formulation are slightly different, then you got yourself two different baits that will sink at a different rate and shimmy differently on the drop. My guess is because of that depending on conditions one will out produce the other, and it won't always be that one is always dominant. Kind of similar to changing your sinker weight with other plastics to change up the fall rate depending on the bass' mood. Sorry to to the OP for the continued hijacking of the thread, but the convo got me thinking.

Thanks guys I will definitely be giving them a toss soon. It is sometimes funny though how a color can look great in the store and then you later cringe and think did I really buy that lol.

Wanted to tie up some Ned flies and while this yarn looked great in the store, I am not sure it will be right for smallies. Thoughts? They just came out way brighter than I thought.

For just a straight plastic Northland used to have a slurpies tube and other styles that were a dead on perch imitation. You may find them in some bargain bins at some shops. Not sure why they didn't take off, I still have a few and they were really well made baits.

I toss a Santone swim jig in sun perch, with a green pumpkin trailer. Tied up some custom perch skirts for swim jigs , black and watermelon on top with white and orange on bottom that I will try this year. One thing to keep in mind is a lot of times the orange is very subdued in perch, especially the smaller sizes, so I try to not overdue it. Generally though I find that I end up with gill colors instead, water red or smoke purple.

How snag resistant are those heads? Most of my time is spent fishing a swift rocky stretch of river that eats jigs. So far the most snag resistant has actually been a slider spider head that pops free from rock snags much more often than other jig styles I have tried.

I sometimes agree with you, but 10 years of river data shows the Crawbug to be the runaway number one soft plastic. I fished the pit boss in the same manner and got bites, slow popping it off snags, but of course craws appear to be the number one natural forage on the river. Typical match the hatch situation. Why the Bandit 100 has caught almost as many fish as the Crawbug, goes to the opportunistic feeding. No perfect answer, but I do try to match the hatch more often than not

For the life of me I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about, I had been using the 4" bait and only got a Smallie or two with it on the river and barely got any hits. This year I picked up a couple packs of the 3" model and have started to get a bunch of hits and am landing some fish with it. Took me a bit to figure out, but I saw the same pattern with the a Yum Crawbug where the fish wanted the smaller bait. The bigger one would produce the occasional bite, but it was just a miss. The smaller bait caught both numbers and size. The pit boss on a slider head must imitate a craw, so I will stick to the smaller size on the river and try the bigger size on flat water for largemouth. Do you all treat them as a craw imitation?

Are you ever able to use all of your gear? I am only 43 and I am starting to slow down buying, because I have bags of stuff and cranks I never use now lol. I did learn the hard way though to not give a lot away, because now many years later I go to look for a certain bait only to realize I gave it away and it has been out of production for a while. This year I am trying to use a lot of old is new stuff.

Bass Pro shops has the floating versions in a few colors and I believe the have the ball in the lip as well.

Well I got some boat stuff. Tried some new size 27 batteries which didn't fit and had to return them and pick up a pair of 24s in a town that had a Gander that was closing. Got the batteries and fire extinguisher (mine was on its last year of service) at Menards. The ugly stick GX2 I am really excited about trying, not a great deal, but a fair deal. I may try the spincast reel for one trip out for kicks, then it will get my Daiwa Viento on it which should balance it out nicely. It's a 5' 6" medium action which was exactly what I was looking for. Curious to see if the GX2s are as solid and bulletproof as my other uglies. Want to comment on the Gander sale, it was at 20 percent off for tackle and one example I will give is the Rage Menace marked at 6, so would have been slightly cheaper than the TW and others normal prices. Really no good deals, so I was surprised to see a lot sold. Guess some thought that sale meant good prices. We did however get a great deal on some performance polos for work, so some things were priced to sell.

It's funny, that when I got my second plopper, the Musky shop on a Class A musky lake recommended the 130 at the time because for whatever reason muskies are chasing bass stuff now. Makes it easier for us, I can chase my three favorite fish with the same lures

Hoping I am at the end of the battery saga. The Exide 27s did not fit as they were just to tall and the posts were spaced different from my previous batteries. Some how I got one in and the second no go. Took four hours to get the right angle to get the first one out. The downsides of a narrow beamed 16 foot boat. Picked up a pair of 24s that still have a reserve capacity of 140 which is better than many 27s I was looking at. These better work or is quit lol. The onboard battery chargers don't care about the battery size do they? Couldn't imagine why they would. Thanks again