datkins

Hopefully! Good luck with it, so far it seems like a solid reel since having figured that out.

This is funny, I was dealing with the exact same problem with my curado k. Mike suggested cleaning the AR bearing, and that fixed it right up!

All good, just curious. Thanks!

And on average how far do you end up skipping it?

Revisited the forum here after having not fished most of 2020. Decided recently to dedicate some time to learning to skip a jig, so these two videos were timely discoveries for me. One question that's popped in my head a lot while I've been practicing : How far away from you does your skip usually end up? I've heard/read that you try to have the first contact with the water about half the distance to the target, but how far away from you are you usually targeting with a skip?

That simple huh? I tried a rubber band, but maybe the elastic, or not enough tension on the band, prevented it from being effective.

One problem I did run in to while I was doing those wraps, is there a way to keep the rod from spinning backwards and causing the wrap to loosen? I feel like the tension front the thread is such that if I accidentally let go of the blank it spins away and undoes all the work.

Finally had some time to set something up. It's just a couple of upright supports and a thread carriage made of some scrap wood and felt I had. Still need to figure out a better system for the thread tension, but went ahead and knocked out my first couple of wraps ever. The blank is just a broken rod that someone gave me to practice with, and luckily there's a small tackle shop in town that had a few supplies so I was able to get some thread and epoxy to work with until I order the stuff I'll actually build my first rod with.

I'll probably build something, even if it is fairly rudimentary. I like the sense of accomplishments with building things from wood about as much as I'm assuming I'm going to like rod building. : ) Thanks for the link! Yeah, I'll probably go with something pretty simple, though I like the idea of a little thread station to help with tension and such.

Hey everyone. Been looking at getting started with rod building. I probably won't pull the trigger on an actual rod until around Christmas time (when it's easier to justify) but in the meantime I wanted to practice with the thread wrapping and epoxy parts. I was thinking about building a little wrapping station, I'm decently handy with woodworking and have some spare lumber I could use, but I was wondering if there were any plans out there that would be good to work from. Also, and advice on best materials to practice with? Wooden dowels seem like they'd work. But if it would be better to track down a broken rod or something to practice on then I could pro do that.

I don't know for sure if there's a correlation, but I can say anecdotally that I've caught more frogs that bass on frog lures, and that anywhere I've caught those frogs I usually got skunked by the fish.

I've heard good things about the h20 Reels, and my 2nd baitcast error which I wish had been my first was a shimano caenan. You could probably fine a new one some places for $50.

Siebert jigs, so good they catch fish even if you're not paying attention!

My strangest catch was also a frog, on a Tx rigged worm:

I'm in north Austin, Wells Branch area. I fish a lot at Mills Pond because it's right around the corner and is almost totally bank accessible depending on water level, but it's also not a great pond based of the number of people taking fish out of there and the lack of notable structure that I've found. I've thought about joining a club, just haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Ha, just posted my intro as well. I'm in Austin, just thought I'd say hello.

Thought I'd take a moment and introduce myself since I saw on another thread somewhere that it was generally encouraged before making new posts on other topics, not that I plan to do that at the moment. I've been in Austin 9 years, and grew up in Whitehouse, Tx. I've been bass fishing less than a year. I grew up live-bait fishing for crappie and catfish on a yellow snoopy pole that got broken by a huge snapping turtle when I was young. I was visiting my in-laws this past spring and we were fishing a cattle tank on their land catching perch and some bluegill and small crappie. Out of nowhere my father-in-law pulls out what was probably just a 1-2lb bass, but it was enormous compared to the other fish we were catching, and that's what started me down the rabbit hole. I bank fish ponds and creeks around here with varying amounts of luck. I'm sure it was a combination of my lack of skill and the sweltering summer heat that is only just now dissipating around here, but so far my best day out has only been 3 fish, all dinks. My personal best is just over 22", but I don't have a scale so no clue on the weight. I spend an obscene amount of time thinking about buying new gear, and then ultimately talking myself out of it. I mainly try to force myself to stick with a few techniques and get proficient with them. Most of my fish, including my best, have come on soft plastics, with a handful of crankbait, spinnerbait, buzzbait, and chatterbait fish mixed in. I like the idea of backseating for some of the local tournaments, just because I would love to fish with someone who could help me learn and get better, however I haven't been able to as of yet. That's about all I can think of at the moment. Thanks for letting me ramble! David

I couldn't resist the urge to go out again this morning. After about 2 hours, 1 fish jumping of, and about 10 "This is my last cast"s, Ifinally managed to reel in this good looking fish! I also stopped by a local tackle shop looking for some Fat Ikas. They didn't have any, but I did find another squid-like bait that I'm going to give a try. I'll let you know how it goes!

You guys were absolutely right, the 5" Senkos worked great! My 2nd cast of the morning I ended up with my line over a branch. As I was reeling it up I hooked a fish and it stayed on all the way up until it got to the branch, then jumped off, and my hook got caught so I lost that and one worm. The very next cast I had another fish on the line but it snapped my line or the hook came untied, not sure which. I moved down the bank to a couple of other spots, and finally caught what I think was about a 4lb. fish! Then I moved on to one more spot and caught a little 1-2lb. one. Overall, pretty stoked I decided to go out this morning, and I can't wait to keep honing my technique.

Thanks for the follow up guys. Stopped by Dick's today and picked up some Senkos, thought they're not the exact color. They're "Watermelon Magic." I could find any Fat Ikas though, so I'll probably give it a go in the next couple of days with just the Senkos and see what happens. Some follow up questions regarding retrieve technique: When you say "...move the Senko 6-12" with a slow horizontal sweep..." do you mean just move the tip of the rod sideways instead of up and down? And as far as leaving enough slack, do you reel any at all after you've made the sweep. or do you reel some in before you start the move? Sorry if these are basic questions. As I said, I've not caught any bass before, so I'm just trying to give myself the highest chance of success possible.

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, and hopefully I didn't miss this somewhere in my read through of the topic, but is there a way to adapt this for smaller fish? There's a creek nearby where I like, and there are definitely some bass in there. Nothing crazy, around 3# or so, but definitely in there because 1) you can see them swimming sometimes and 2) I've been fishing in this creek several times with a friend of mine whos managed to catch at least a couple every time we've gone. I've tried using exactly the same bait he was using, green pumpkin magic super fluke, and emulating his technique as best I could, twitch-twitch-pause from what I could tell, but I've not caught anything there. I've been several times on my own as well and used a ton of different lures and soft plastics, but only manages to catch a few blue gill and one enormous snapping turtle. Reading this thread is encouraging that I may yet still catch one of these bass, which coincidentally would be my first bass ever to catch, but I think that the baits you recommend may be too big for the size of the fish I've seen in this area. Any advice on how to scale this down or adapt it to fit that situation?