Cranks4fun

Berkley 10 inch Power worm (ribbon tail) in either red shad or Tequila Sunrise 5/0 EWG Gamakatsu, weights vary from day to day and depth needs. Zoom Finesse worm in motor oil/ chart. tail T-rigged on a Daiichi offset 1/0 worm hook (1/16 or 1/8 Oz) Various Senkos and Dingers 5" wacky rigged weightless. Tried the Zoom Baby brush hog this year and was a little disappointed. Going to chunk it out some more next year and try it Carolina rigged. I hear good things about it but It hasn't come through for yet. OOH YEAH! I almost forgot! We had an awesome year with Stanley Ribbit frogs. We rigged em on the heavy weight Owner 5/0 EWG hooks. Tried the double take hooks by Ribbit but had too many losses.

Some of those pricier UL rods & reels are extremely nice, no denying that, but I use a fleet of Shimano Saharas (1000fd, 500fd, 750fb) on various rods (BPS Extreme UL, Berkley UL Lightning, BPS Microlite) and they have been serving me well for over 4 years now. The Pflueger President UL has become a classic UL reel in the last decade. The reviews on them are about as good as they get. I also have two old vintage aluminum silver Daiwa 500c's (I love the old stuff too). I also have a old Shimano Sedona 500f that is still fun. I even have an ancient Shimano Mark UL (black & tiny & before infinite anti-reverse clutches). Lots of good choices somewhere between $50-$550. It is lots of fun! You don't have to spin a fortune for good UL tackle, but if you can and want to, go for it!

Yeah. That bait monkey has my number for sure. Surprisingly I only own one chatterbait but have never caught a bass with it. My fishing partner has caught a few on his but I remain unimpressed for now.

I am a crankbait, jerkbait, and worm guy. I like flukes and Kinami-style baits too, but I mostly fish cranks, jerkbaits, and T-rigged worms. However, I did have my best day ever on a spinnerbait yesterday. I have never fished spinnerbaits (safety pin type) much and had only caught about 10 bass on them in my whole life. The wind was howling yesterday at 20+ miles an hour and we were on a smaller, 10 acre body of water. My buddy and I were having a bad day at it. I'll bet I tried 20 baits (worms, cranks, jointed Rapalas, etc.) but the wind was really affecting our ability to grip some lips. I caught two bass on shallow Bandit cranks and then just kept hauling water and weeds. Worms were doing nothing for us. I suddenly remembered KVD talking about spinnerbaits shining on windy days. So, out of frustration and desperation, I went to a chartreuse Booyah Spinnerbait with 2 gold Colorado blades. Wow! I caught 13 bass on that thing! I ended the day with 15 bass and my friend only caught 4. We had no other spinnerbaits in the boat and when I offered him an old beetle spin as a consolation gift he turned up his nose. I have a renewed interest in spinnerbaits baits now. I am putting new skirts on my old ones and I am adding them to my most-used tackle boxes. I may even try some little in-line spinners again. I used to do well on them with bluegills years ago. I love learning new things on the water. I keep learning that bass sometimes demand a very specific presentation. I was lucky enough to guess what it was yesterday.

That foil color with a green back and stripes looks good enough to hang on the wall!

Nice-looking, Old-school Bagley's there, Team9nine! You have at least 2 colors I don't have. Good collection. I rarely use my old Divin' Killer B's anymore. I might need to take them out and get a few of them wet.

I got a chance to get out and fish the Bagley Sunny B 05 this past week. I only casted it about 10 times because we were in a rocky stream and I am uneasy fishing balsa baits around rocks. They break easily. However, I got a good look at the action, and while I cannot speak for any bass, I liked the way it looked in the clear water. I need to get it out on a reservoir to tap into the fall crankbait bite with it. I will report back after I do. BY THE WAY, I have been killing the smallmouths with a crawdad colored Cordell Big O! A cheap $1.97 (literally) bargain bin W****** bait with upgraded trebles (gammys). I own Lucky Crafts, SK cranks, Excaliburs, H2o's, Luck-E-Strikes, Fat Frees, Bombers, tons of Rapalas, etc., but this cheapo is nailing those bass. I went back and bought several different colors. I tried a shad color too, but the bite slowed so I went back to the brown one and wham! The game was back on.

I did wonder if there was fishing pressure that I was unaware of. i find these textbook dream sites and nothing. Maybe they are moving up into shallow water when I am still hammering the deep stuff. I will experiment some more. The challenge keeps me in the race. Thanks for the advice.

I am fairly new to smallmouth fishing in clear creeks/ rivers (SW Missouri Ozarks). I am actually new to smallmouth fishing altogether (2 1/2 years only). I am a relatively good largemouth fisherman and have fished lots of lakes and ponds in many states and caught lots of largemouth and some good-sized ones (8-9 lbs) too. Largemouth seem to be relatively easy quarry to me though there are challenging days (post frontal, muddy water, etc.). MY PROBLEM in these newer SM streams is figuring out the/a pattern. I go to a creek area and find riffles pouring into a deeper channel of water and boom! I load up on smallies right and left. I move 400 yards down stream and find almost identical conditions and nothing!!! Some days a stretch of creek will produce a few big brownies(16-17 inches is a big SM to me) and lots of little jumpers and then two weeks later the same creek with very similar conditions gives me only one or two small bass. I rarely have that issue in big lakes unless conditions change between trips. I appreciate and will definitely try some of the above advice, but I wonder if smallmouth move to different feeding areas often in clear rivers and streams????

Late on the topic, but I just bought a Berkley Wild THang in Vintage Craw, mentioned above by Bluebasser, on clearance at A****** for $3.68. Looks cool. Gonna try later this week with my new Bagley Sunny B's. I have lots of new cranks to break-in!

Thanks for the info on the deep Sunny b's, Smalljaw67. I Caught a real nice smallie on a green craw DT6 back in March. I will check the Rogers Arkansas A****** store to see if they have any deep runners left. I love the bluegill color scheme. The Rapala bluegill is good but just a little too green. This Bagley one looks just about right for the bluegills around here. Primetime, I probably have a fortune in older Bagley baits, but I am not ready to unload them yet. The only older ones I have used in the last 5 years is the "Bagley Small Fry bass". I caught a 5 pounder on that lure once. It's an awesome slow retrieve crank. Thanks again for the insights!

Darren, I see you fish Lee Hall Reservoir. I fished that lake many times and camped there in the Newport News park on occasion. I lived in Chesapeake and Suffolk Va from age 4 to 23. I moved back to Carrollton, VA, just outside of Smithfield, in 2000, when I was 37, and stayed for 10 years. My parents and siblings and one son are still in the Tidewater area. There are some great places to fish down there.

Both? I think different occasions require different jig fall rates. A bigger trailer on a smaller weight slows your jigs fall. Heavy weight and/ or a smaller trailer make for a fast fall rate. In my experience, Bass want it differently at different times.

They are midway between a balsa shad rap and a DT4 in thickness. They run about 3 foot I believe. There is a deep diver too but they were sold out of those. A YouTube video show the construction process and they look pretty sturdy with a through-wire design for hangers and eyelet. I will give a report after I fish them this week. They come with VMC Hooks too.

I am not sure if I am doing this correctly, but I am attempting to introduce myself as a new member. I am 54 years young, married, have 5 children (2 still at home), and I have lived in 8 states: California (birth-18 months), Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Most of my life has been spent in SE Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay area. I earned a Masters degree in Theology (1987) that I have used for my "career" choice, Baptist pastor and a hospital chaplain. I often take my church members out and compete against them fishing for bass and setting the rules for bragging rights before we launch. I lose more than I like to admit. My wife says that my fishing and hunting are not hobbies but addictions. She just says that because... well, because it's true, I guess. While I love fishing and collecting fishing tackle, I do not fish for a living (I would have starved long ago!). I have bass fished for over 40 years. I also love fishing for crappie, white bass, trout, catfish, BIG bluegill, etc. For that matter, I love all kinds of fishing including fishing for saltwater species. My other interests include deer and turkey hunting, collecting knives, gardening, watching the Minnesota Vikings play football, reading books and articles and online forums about theological controversies & fishing & and wildlife, and I also love eating at cheap Chinese buffets with my kids and friends!

These are the Bagley Sunny B crankbaits I bought.

Greetings! I am a new guy (1st day on here) from SW Missouri. We (friend and I) dumped a canoe in the swift water on small river in early March (water temp about 38 degrees). We lost everything initially, but our lives. We recovered the boat and chased our tackle (2 FULL boxes and 7 rod & reels, a cooler, and a dry bag) down to the shallows we eventually recovered most of our stuff except for 2 hoodies and a brand new (less than 24 hrs old) Pfleuger President combo, freshly spooled with $17 worth of InvizX Fluorocarbon. That loss, along with the cold water, ruined my day! I did not sleep well for 2 nights wondering where my President reel was drowning. I have lost two other rod & reel outfits (an Ambassadeur 5500c3/ Daiwa Rod and a Rapala UL Spinning outfit) years ago when I was living in SE Virginia, but this last loss was BRAND NEW!

I just purchased 3 of the shallow Bagley Sunny B's on clearance at A****** and I cannot find much information on them. I have lots of older Bagley's Baits from the '80's but I see very little information on these new baits from fishermen. They are new (hit the open retail market in 2015) and they are made in Serbia with a member of the Rapala family on board as an adviser and part owner of the resurrected company. My specific questions are: 1) are the durable? I read some complaints about the new larger Kill'R B's splitting on the finish. AND 2) Do these bad boys catch fish with any consistency?