Cgolf

Based on the timing of your post I may be a bit late. When I first got my 16 ft deep V boat I had a roller trailer and it was a struggle for two people to launch and land the boat. We tried stronger and different keel rollers and nothing helped. Two seasons ago I traded in that trailer for a bunk trailer and can now launch and land the boat solo in a 1/4 of a time two of us could with the old trailer. Not saying there aren't good roller trailers out there, but the only people I have seen truly struggle had them.

I tied three jigs with EP fibers and a quick test in the sink showed that they puffed, but nowhere near as much as a silicone skirt. This could be a bonus giving it a more of a finesse look. I do have the video of the jig in the sink out on Instagram, but I don't think I can link it here like you can a you tube video.

I have some tubes like that and some of the Netbait worms I toss Water jelly, table rock red, and sun perch are layered worms and I do really well with them. I have never really thought about if I had a worm that was one of the colors of the layered worms how would it do. I think with the laminates you are trying to match some sort of prey with the two colors. It is an interesting thought. I am surprised that a few years back when northland came out with the slurpies tube they had a layered perch, Shad, and craw were the colors I bought and they worked great, but they were discontinued pretty quickly. Not sure if people didn't buy into the concept or if they wouldn't buy bass baits from a historically walleye company. If I think of it while I am on the water this summer I may experiment a bit with this, but not try to overthink it, because I would then carry way too many colors in the boat lol.

Also don't be afraid to throw color combos on water where you wouldn't think they would be effective normally. I found that Red Shad works really well at times in gin clear water which doesn't make sense because I can't think of any prey with that coloration. I just read my lake notes from 2007 and found that I was whacking them on a producto grape worm when I had no idea how to Bass fish and was just a beginner on clear water. Now that I know what I am doing I don't carry those worms anymore, that will change this year. I guess the moral to this story for me is all my offerings to the bait monkey are worth it, because as small jaw says there are days that a flake color change can mean the difference between getting skunked or filling the boat.

I think I have another lake where it wouldn't work some of the time. The lake is ridiculous, flat and sun, smoke and something colors get bit and green pump or water red zip. Heavy waves or overcast water red and green pump golden and smoke and something colors get zip. Color matters that much on this water. One thing I like to do sometimes is throw that yum wire thing for two baits with two different colors and see which one gets bit. Interestingly on that body of water I have never doubled up, they usually prefer one color over the other.

I threw it on the Wisconsin opener last year, I believe water temps in the mid to upper 50's and it got more bites and fish than a jerkbait did, for you guys with a longer season that may not be all that cold. Only thing I didn't like was it wasn't the most stable Crankbait and perhaps I needed to tune it. I didn't because it was really catching them and I didn't want to screw the action

If you make your own you can. I recently made a couple to try next weekend and I used some plastic walleye clevises that let you change out the blades without taking them apart.

I agree on Bandits on the river, it is a magic bait. I have been trying some upper mid priced SBs on the lakes and haven't seen great results yet, but will keep trying. I am sure you have tried them, but the old Xcalibur 200 SB just pushes a ton of water for such a small bait, great for #'s of active fish. Totally off topic but I think I remember you from the old RS forum.

Tried that bait for the first time last year when we had lows in the upper 30's in early July and cleaned up with it, was very impressed with it. First year I ever wore a winter coat fishing in July, the weather was atrocious. Some SK baits are really good too, but not all work for me. I would say 90% of my cranks are Rapala (including all that they bought), Bandit, SK, and Norman. I may just not be good enough yet to tell the difference between an LC and say a Bandit lol

I guess this is why I have so many Bandits and Normans. Those baits have been around as long as I have been Bass fishing and they continue to produce year in and year out for me. No reason to buy a 15 buck squarebill when a 5 buck one is a winner.

I have both the plano guide series and cabelas bags and am really happy with them. The one must I have for me in a boat bag is the hard bottom for those days when the carpet is soaked. I learned after previously having to dry out gear or having to set my bag on a rain jacket to keep the bottom dry after leaving the boat docked overnight. If you don't ever leave your boat docked overnight I guess this would be less of an issue.

Following the directions, I inspected them, but did not replace them. This fall when I have a full tune up and have them check the tilt, since the motor always drops to full down after a short period of time, I will pick up some extras. Changing them out now I would lose all the gear lube I put in.

My all around jig right now is a Santone swim jig which has a flat bottom that allows it to stand up some too. It has come through millfoil and some really nasty weeds clean. This year I am starting to branch out some and try other brands and styles.

Just looked those up and will be trying a few too. When you said used by lots of pros, I expected a price to match, I was very pleasantly surprised by the price.

I do a mixture of both flake and no flake, I just look at the color options before I order or craft a skirt and try to visualize what would match what I am trying to mimic the best. I haven't mixed tinsel type material in yet but may in the future. What may be more interesting is trying some EP fibres or some holo fusion from my fly tying stash, it may give the jig some more bulk. Attached are a few of my creations. The swim jigs are to match a spinnerbait that has worked well for me and perch. The other jigs are to match minnows, carp, perch, and the bucktail jigs were just fun. The obviously not bass jigs are examples of the materials I pull and may use in the future.

Quick question, would it hurt anything to put some silicone window caulking material around the edges where these screws go in? Now that I change the gear lube myself, the OCD part of me is worried about the screws coming loose. I would think the silicone would be easy to remove. Or I could silcone a clear piece of plastic material and use the silcone outside of where the screws go in to keep the silicone out of the threads. Probably worrying too much, but sometimes better safe than sorry.

Float and fly like then? Bet that would work on a lake too. I have taken a liking to the short shank hook fireball jigs over the mushroom head. Some will argue, but I think it is more about the weight an not necessarily the jig head style. Curious who makes those jig heads you have there? The wire weed guards don't work in our slop weeds. I guess I am just different in how I fish tubes, I have never used an internal jig head, I always use a slider or slider like jigs with them, so for me the baits fall pretty much the same. I own the internal heads, just have never used them.

Liquid Mayhem gel scent for me and yes this stuff makes a difference. I did a real world test on panfish and dropped a crappie slider over the side and watched the fish swim up to it inspect the bait and move away. Added some of the scent and watched the panfish attack the bait. That same week I got crushed by cold fronts and all fish were caught when the scent was on the bait, if it had worn off zero fish. The scent I had used for many years previous to LM was Atlas Mike's gel scent which did well for me but didn't stay on the baits as long as LM.

That may be true, but I have been tossing the Ned on the river with a 1/16 head because it bounces of the rocks like other baits, but snags less because of the bouyant plastic. Also on lakes I like to fish reed beds, that generally have very little weeds around them and it works well there too. I also happen to toss a slider rigged tube in the same areas. It is a toss up at this point which is better, but I do know both work in those situations. One of my home lakes is one of those featureless lakes, but generally it gets over run with weeds early in the season making the Ned an inefficient choice for that lake. I would have to toss it on the weed edge, which could get very tedious.

I use them in the same places for the most part. On the river casting over rock fields or on lakes chucking in reeds. The only place I haven't thrown the Ned is in weeds. I do have a couple set up on slider heads I want to try this year, but I have no faith in the single wire weed guard jigs coming through heavy weeds.

I would start with the basics, some Grubs 3-5" (Kalins or Zoom are cheap, Kalins are the best imo) and some tubes which are also cheap. Toss in some jigheads and you could probably be back bass fishing for under 20 bucks. If fishing a lot of weeds I really like the slider heads which BPS may carry for both the tubes and grubs. I have also had good luck with the 4" BPS squirmin grub. My grub and tube box is the only box that I will never leave home without, because they still probably catch the most bass for me. Yum crawbugs have been dynamite for me too on river systems. Hope you get back to fishing this year, I couldn't imagine a year without it now, it is my mental break from this crazy thing we call life.

I probably fish sliders and small plastics and jigs and small plastics most of the time when I river fish, and I used to do the same on the lake until I discovered swim jigs last year. Even when I fish cranks I fish bandits and the relatively new SK shallow square bill that is pretty subtle and fish crush it on the pause. I end up finesse fishing a lot because that is what the fish dictate, it is pretty rare that I hit anything but the kitchen sink bite.

I bought a pair of cabelas gloves last year and a pair of buff gloves this year. All I can say is that they work, last year I went with the gloves, the face buff and a sun shirt and I did not get burned on my week long trip for the first time ever where I spent at least 12 hours a day on the water. Only downside is the hook catches on them once in a while, but the upside is no sunburn. Upside wins!

Did Keitech never have or have their patent lapse with all the similar baits out their? You would think that they would have protected the design if they could. Or is the patent easy to skirt, say if you use different material or change a very small detail. Not poking at anybody, just curious as to how that works. It seems the soft plastic game is largely a everyone coming out with their version of the same thing.

About the only piece that I can add is on a clear water northern wisconsin lake, when I tried to use up the walleye crawlers and leeches on a jig I caught very few bass in areas I was catching bass on artificial bait. By no means scientific, but it really surprised me because I thought the live bait would have done better. This has occurred multiple times to me, it was not a one off experience.