Hook2Jaw

The YUM Kill Shot. I still have a stockpile, they were my original dropshot confidence bait. The YUM Craw Chunk 3.75 has been removed from the line, that plastic in the Craw color on the back of a half ounce jig is responsible for my PB and so many giants. I don't know what I'll trailer my jigs with when I run out.

The rain was weird yesterday, it would absolutely pour for a few minutes and then slow to a light drizzle for a period. I don't have any conspiracy theories on the subject, I imagine it's just bands of rain moving quickly over an area.

I've got some trees down in the back but thankfully no damage to our home. No power and the toilet won't flush due to the amount of water we got, but myself, my wife, and our two children are okay. My brother is reporting that the entire Savannah, GA area is without power. I'm without power here in Dublin as well.

This is the case for me. Every time I've fished a craw that advertised "defensive" position or a worm that floats, there's been nothing special about it. My opinion is the fish prefer the more neutral position, as that, in my opinion, is the natural state of most aquatic life; horizontal.

I've tried the Rage Craw, and for the price, I was not blown away. My craws of choice are the YUM Craw Chunk 3.25 and a cut down Netbait Paca Slim for for finesse jigs. I use the full Netbait Paca Slim for Texas rigs. On full sized jigs, I prefer the YUM Craw Chunk 3.75. That trailer and jig has accounted for most of my big fish this year and I can't find that size anywhere online, I hope it's not discontinued.

Excellent point. I don't loosen my spool up any more than it already is, but tightening it and not letting it rip already sets you up for failure if you're preparing for it. Let 'er rip, tater chip. Ain't my expensive freshly painted dock anyway. I'm kidding, try not to damage people's things, folks, but you're there to catch fish. Catch fish.

Jigs, frogs, chatterbaits, flukes, shakyheads, wacky rigs, lightly weighted and weighted Texas rigs are all in the realm of things I can and do skip. Lake Sinclair in middle Georgia will force you to learn to do so; the predominant cover is docks. The secondary cover is pontoons within docks. I learned with a spinning rod, but my casting setups offer heavier line and allow me to get fish out of all the gnarly stuff that comes with the territory. A 7'3" rod is what my skipping motion favors and I believe if one wishes to skip well, one should figure out what rod works for them.

I do it straight out of the reel, and I'd advise against loading your rods up with 4-5# of pull. Seems like a good way to damage some of my my medium powered sticks. I just tie a bowline knot in the end of my line, hang it on the scale and pull until I get the desired drag setting. Yeah, it was insane. When everything went slack I was sure the fish had just broke 16# Sniper, but got my swimjig back with a chunk of meat on the 5/0.

I set my reels to about 45 percent of the line's breaking strength to the best of my ability through a fish scale. I can't trust myself to always tie the perfect knot, to always check the line for damage, to retie leader knots every single time I fish, etcetera. Sometimes that means I'm rocking a close to maximum drag on my setups that rock 16-20# line, at which point I'm not using anything less than a 4/0 heavy wire hook. It doesn't always work out, but the only time I can remember it not working out is having a fish rip free of a swimjig hook with pure power this past pre-spawn. That's just how I do it.

The setup is awesome, it was eye opening watching fish swim around on your graph. As for my day, I missed in the area of ten fish, lost two bowfin and two bass at the boat, and managed to land three bass, including a pretty decent 19". All my fish came off a half ounce Chatterbait Elite EVO trailered with a Spunk Shad or a Freeloader. Good fishing with you as always, @Koz

Soft Plastics GYBC 5" Senko Roboworm Straight Tail Worm Netbait 11" C-Mac Netbait T-Mac Netbait 4" Paca Slim YUM 3.75" Craw Chunk Missile Baits 4" D-Bomb Gambler Little EZ Z-Man Razor Shadz ZOOM Salty Super Fluke Hard Baits Berkley Drift Walker Z-Man ½ Chatterbait Elite EVO 6th Sense ½ Divine Swim Jig BOSS ½ Dock Knocker Jig Yo-Zuri 3DB Squarebill Jackall Rerange 110 Strike King KVD Deep 300 Strike King 3XD Strike King 5XD Strike King 6XD

1. ZOOM Trick Worm: Watermelon and Junebug. 2. Yamamoto Senko: Green Pumpkin and Junebug. 3. Missile D-Bomb: Super Craw and Lovebug 4. ZOOM Ol' Monster: Watermelon and Junebug. 5: YUM Craw Chunk: Crawdad and Black Blue Shadow. I could probably cut down to those 5 baits and feel comfortable anywhere.

That's an awesome fish, @Koz. There are many there of that size and bigger. It's probably the toughest place to fish in middle Georgia, but a big limit is very much possible. As for the open mouth, it can be difficult, but I completely understand the 1" deduction. Leeway has no place when judging fish, and I'll bet that GAKFL always cuts an inch if a mouth is more than a quarter open. I'm going to bet the pectoral fin on the opposite side of the fish was bent the wrong way. They'll often not close their mouth when that's the case. At any rate, we need to get together out there!

Spinning reels have a smoother drag system, dollar for dollar, than a casting reel, so this question makes me account for where I've got a big fish on the end of my line. Near cover, I'd prefer heavy braid or heavy fluorocarbon on a casting reel with the drag basically locked. I had a big fish pull off a 5/0 hook in that scenario this year. I also caught a 23" largemouth with that sort of setup two weekends ago, so it's always a gamble. In open water, I'm more than comfortable on 6# line and a tiny dropshot hook with spinning tackle. The smooth startup and consistent pressure of a spinning reels drag system gives me faith when there isn't something nearby for my line to saw against. I landed my personal best private property bass on 12# fluorocarbon on a MH rod with a half ounce jig with an Abu Garcia Pro Max. I'm certain plenty of luck went into landing that one. That fish was over ten pounds. My personal best public water fish was a 25" beast that came in at 9 pounds and change. That fish was landed with a Strike King 3XD and 10# fluorocarbon. I was scared to death. At the end of the day I'd be happy with either setup as long as it's appropriate to the scenario. I just plead with the powers that be when I hook a good one on small trebles.

Yeah, I've used my net to stop fishing from coming off the side before. It works very well. I haven't tried it on the PWR129 yet, but I'm sure there's a way. Normally I do just fine keeping fish on the board and it's been several years since I had a flop-off. The whole event was a major crash and burn for me.