Airman4754

I was a KVD disciple as a kid so I threw a spinnerbait 99% of the time until I started drop shotting a few years back. Now I kind of do everything, stupid bait monkey. The cheapest thing you can do is buy the cheapo ones that aren't even in a package and swap out the swivels. The blades, head, skirt, hook, and wire are fine. A bulk pack of great swivels are dirt cheap and you use one per bait. I use the red Gammy trailer hooks. It's that KVD bleeding bait thing. It's probably marketing, but what can it hurt? I say all this next because I've learned it from zillions of hours fishing these things. Trim your skirt to no longer than 1/2" past the bottom of the hook bend. The skirt gives life like movement , it being longer won't be an advantage and will give motion farther away from the hook. Use a very conspicuous trailer. I use a Mr Twister four leg, chart w/ metal flake trailer on all of them regardless of color. Give the fish a flailing and vibrant aim point. It you have a dull trailer or no trailer what is the sexiest part of that bait? The blades and they will bite the blades way more than you think if you don't give them a reason not to. A spinnerbait was the original A-rig. Those guys in states that only allow three hooks put their sexiest swim baits on the three hooks and two boring ones on the screw heads so they won't get bit. Coincidence? The reason for a split tail or quad tail grub is so you can use a trailer hook without messing up the grib's natural action. People say a trailer hook doesn't matter, but I promise you it does. If the bass comes from behind and inhales your grub then sure, the trailer hook is worthless. If the bass comes up and hits the bait from the side to stun it (they do this to bait fish schools all the time) they turn perpendicular to the bait and make a swipe at it. This is when the trailer hook catches fish you didn't even know hit. Those times when it just went dead and then started turning again weren't always grass. If they hit your grub from the side they also get a mouth full of hook or a rare short strike. I always laugh when people say if you are hooking fish on a trailer hook you are doing something wrong. Really? You are legally hooking fish wrong? Those are the same guys running out to buy better bullets for their rifles so they can make that deer even more dead than it already was. You might get one out of twenty fish with the trailer hook, but it could be your PB. Mine was. I fished mostly really clean water and fish them near the surface so I watch most strikes and see how they react to things. I use three colors. White covers d**n near everything, chartreuse for dirty water, and black for night or low light. My night ones I paint the blades black and use a black trailer. The last piece of advice is NEVER set the hook. Just reel and once the rod if fully loaded pull back against the fish. That will keep you from missing one of those trailer hook bites.

Agreed. I have an army of Shad Raps. I have ones my dad and grandpa left me that are as old as I can remember. If its summer or winter and you don't have a Shad Rap on the deck you're wrong as far as I'm concerned. Rip fishing one is super effective pre and post spawn by my goodness will it wear you out.

A guy I grew up fishing with has caught just about every fish I have ever missed on a PB&J grub on a ball head. It never mattered what I was throwing or how long I had the fish on. Right where it got off he would drop that grub on its head. I never think to do it, but man is he effective with that.

I thought it was interesting that between all the local fisherman, the two bait shop owners, and the guide we went out with all recommended plug style baits and not one was ever a Rapala. Judging by the packaging Rapala is solely made to hook Americans.

I got four crank like baits that have a top hook and a single wire hook guard like on a Johnson spoon. It just seemed like too good of an idea not to try. I can't remember if they were Rapala or not.

80lb Suffix 832, Bobber stop, tungsten, punch skirt, snelled punch hook, and anything made by Gambler. A frog or flipping rod works, but I really prefer a heavy with a moderate or moderate/fast action.

I went to Finland this year for a few weeks and I was really excited because I thought they would have a bunch of crank baits that we don't have here in the states and the packaging would be in Finnish, etc. Nope, same d**n lures we have in the states, same packaging, and about 40% more expensive. I was really bumbed out, but I got some cool Abu Garcia lures.

Make sure you rewind the VHS tape before you take it back to the video store that doesn't exist.

I have to learn how to fish where there really is no deep water, current, and it's super hot most of the time.Going deeper has always been my fall back crutch. My goal this year is to get a few reliable seasonal patterns to build off of for next year.

I've had all kinds of birds take my anchovies off my line salmon fishing, so that's not too weird. I accidentally hooked a pelican in mid-air casting a 14ft surf rod. That was interesting. I've seen a few Ospreys dive to their death. They would go down for a planter in a shallow area. Our reservoirs had a really dark green grass that would totally cover the bottom on flats. They would free fall down at what would have to be close to terminal velocity into a couple feet of water. The oddest thing I've seen was we were back in the river section of a local mountain reservoir and they had clear cut that year all the way down to the water, but it was summer and it was low so there was about a 20ft cut bank. It's the middle of summer and dead calm. We hear something crashing though the forest and these four deer come running out of the tree line. Three go up and across the unit, the fourth one goes down and just flies off that cut bank into the water at full speed. I've seen deer swim a bunch of times, but this thing looked like a stunt man going into the water.

So I would assume you dont watch the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA sports, or anything sports related really? The NFL commercial reel is beer, car, beer, pizza, erectile dysfunction, hard liquor, insurance, chips. Like every business professor will tell you, if something is overly marketed you don't need it. So, you get alcohol, insurance, food that has zero nutrition, a more expensive vehicle, etc. Erectile dysfunction commercials kill me for two reasons; no man has ever had a performance problem sober with a model, and no one has a bathtub on their porch, let alone two. If we drank in moderation, ate nutritious foods, strived to stay attractive for our significant other, and lived within our means we would be western Europe. This past election told us (sort of) that we want to go the opposite direction.

Rage Space Monkey, can't remember which color. 1/4oz jig rig in about 18" of water. Smallie was on a Keitech Custom Leech in Ice Fish.

I have the St Croix Rage jerkbait rod which would now just be the Mojo Bass model with the same SCIII blank. For the price it performs really well.

Rage Space Monkey, can't remember which color. 1/4oz jig rig in about 18" of water.

If you run a 3" Pit Boss or a 2.8" Keitech Crazy Flapper vertically on a drop shot it is incredibly productive. By vertically I mean the bait 90 degrees up from the normal flat, crawdad type rigging that it will be used for 99% of the time, so it looks more like a fish.

Trick Worm.

Lipless crank.

Mechanically yes, bearings and drag washers no. That's why I said buy used. You get a better looking reel with better internals for what would be the same price or slightly more. The $100+ difference retail isn't worth it. You aren't going to wear one of these out either way. If you drop $25 on even higher end bearings and drag washers on the Cardiff then you're way ahead of the curve, but most fisherman don't want to do that or don't know how.

Let me first recommend a Calcutta if you're going to be throwing the big stuff often and want a round reel. You can pick them up all day used on eBay for a very fair price. They literally last forever.

If you do this and it hasn't shipped yet just call them and add whatever you want to your existing order and it will be lumped in with the free shipping. They also cover return shipping on everything, no questions asked. There really is no comparison to them.

Yeah, my 21x has one on the rear passenger side also. I honestly didn't even know what it was until my son was screwing around with the boat in the driveway and pulled it out. I haven't ever fallen in but I have fallen down on the front deck a few times accidentally stepping into the recesses trolling motor pedal spot.

Sort of? In general I have very little patience, but it depends what it is. Hunting for instance I have zero patience. I won't sit in a stand for a second. It's go go go no matter what. I conpletely taught myself how to play guitar and that took well over 1,000 hours and most of them were awful. As for fishing if I know I am good water I will be patient. I'm not particularly patient with a specific bait or technique. If you know they are there and they aren't biting what you are throwing then patience is worthless in that situation. They will bite. Find what will make them bite. I am patient while I am finding what that is though. There is a very thin line between patient and stubborn.

I use 20lb PP Super Slick 8 w/ a 10lb P-Line fluoro leader, usually no less than 10'. If the water is gin clear I go with 6lb Inviz-x. The one exception is my shaky head setup I run 8lb CXX leader. It's going to rubbing on bottom all day and that stuff has the abrasion resistance of weed eater cord.

I have a dedicated setup for hair jigs and flutter spoons and it's very similar. 7'6" MH/F Phenix Recon 2, Lews Heavy Duty 7.1:1, and 14lb Shooter fluoro. It's the only setup I have that runs straight fluoro. For me, I like a rod with a short handle section for these techniques so I can pick up more line when I get bit.

I had like 36 and got it down to 24, which includes my two big swimbait rigs, rat rod, glide rod, and A-rig setup.