Hook2Jaw

I'm a big fan of the fish catching ability of the Strike King 3XD, but it casts like an absolute potato chip. It wobbles and goofs off en route to 15' short of your target, at least for me. It calls for a pretty light cranking rod. I used to fish it on a Daiwa Tatula XT 7' Medium Light Regular. I now fish it on a 13 Fishing Omen Black 3 7'1" Medium Cranking. Both of them load very well down the length of the blank and get me good distance with that bait, which I believe to be critical with the 3XD. The XT MLR isn't made anymore, so my suggestion is a 13 Fishing offering in a Medium power from their cranking line. You will not be disappointed. Alternatively, I've had my eyes on the Ark Invoker Tour cranking rods, and from playing with a buddy's jerkbait rod I don't think you'd be disappointed there, either. I believe Ark is going to slot in where 13 formerly offered me a nice blank for less money since 13 has been bought out by Rapala and seems to be sliding out of the lure game and offering less sticks than they used to. The stick from Ark I'm particularly interested in is the 7'11" Medium Medium Fast Invoker Tour, rated ⅛-1 ounce. That's probably a bit long for those other baits, but I see that stick and start thinking Wiggle Wart, 3XD, RkCrawler, and Head Hunter Fire Tail Craw.

I agree completely. We had a front move in, and for three days the weather was heavily overcast with a slight wind. I took yesterday off to go take advantage of that weather. When I pulled out with the kayak in tow this morning, the skies had opened up and the wind had picked up to a steady ten miles per hour. Fall transition coupled with post frontal conditions lead to me being 007 today. Zero fish, zero bites, seven hours.

I've owned two Hobies, one Old Town, and now I own two Crescents; one with an xi3 and the other as a throw and go. While others here have mentioned the Hobie is good in grass, I found that a propeller would go through grass that thin with the same ability. Where the Hobie excelled was grass that wasn't topped out. Once it reached anything approaching thick, the fin and propellers got jammed up and paddling became more efficient. A Hobie is a great kayak, don't get me wrong on that -- but Old Town offers a comparable boat that is typically a grand less. I'm not spending an extra k for a name ever again and the amount of money it costs for any part that goes on a Hobie is double or more for the parts that will go on an Old Town with a propeller. Mast for a fin? 30 bucks. Fin? 30 bucks. Shear pin? You can make these with a hook and some cutters. A propeller is six dollars. I'd get an Old Town Sportsman 120 PDL, if I were you.

I fished a weightless worm for about two solid years, and that was all I threw. I'd tie on a Senko when they wouldn't bite a YUM Dinger. At some point I got tired of fishing them and hardly tie on a weightless plastic of any kind now.

Sometimes I toss my jigs out at a stump, rock, laydown, open water, or vegetation, but with two kids I mostly just toss them underhanded at a coffee cup on the floor in the living room.

That's worrisome. I hope the price remains unaffected and the quality stays the same or becomes better. I have my doubts both of those hopes will happen. The Kamikaze Swimon, Fighting Frog, and Cane Thumpers are some of my favorite baits.

This little sucker excites me at 9.99. I've got a few Jackhammers, but maybe this will be a viable replacement. I'm also happy to have these for ten bucks as well.

I've put several 20 pound bags together in half a dozen casts with a jerkbait, and wait anxiously for winter every year to hope to repeat it. So the jerkbait is definitely number one for me. Number two would be a shakyhead, I own two setups for that now. One casting, one spinning. Caught a nice 21" momma on one Friday night at about 1 AM.

You can get a 13 Fishing Omen Black 6'10 or 7'1" MF for 99 bones right now. I fish my jerkbaits on that rod in a 6'7" length and it's great for it. I fish 2/0 and under hooked baits, be that jigs, light Texas rigs, or shakyheads on the 7'1". The rod is awesome as MSRP and better on sale. If you're left-handed, TW also has the 13 Fishing Inception at 70 bucks. If not, you can probably find a right handed model somewhere for around that price. It's an incredible reel, and sends baits just as far as my 250 dollar Tatula Elites. It dusts my brother's Shimano SLX's and my Tatula 100s. Oh, and as far as being short enough to actually use on a kayak? I've been kayak fishing for years and I've found that additional length actually benefits your casting distance because unlike a boater or bank angler standing, you cannot get your full body into a cast while seated. The whole kayak and short rods thing is the biggest load of mumbo-jumbo I've ever heard.

I'm the exact opposite of this. I'll bring six sticks on the kayak, power fish for an hour and hope I can find them eating a moving bait, and then start dragging little worms around.

The 3.5" Big Bite Baits Kamikaze Swimon is my Minimax trailer of choice, and it caught me a couple nice ones last summer. I've got a good bit of faith in it. I've been experimenting with trying to dress it with Fluke Jr's, but haven't found any success, so it's Kamikaze Swimons for me. Haven't been throwing a jig enough over the past years to offer a suggestion, but I did land a 3 last weekend skipping docks with a finesse jig tipped with a Netbait Paca Chunk Jr. Sweet little craw. I expect it to do well, as the Paca Slim has been an absolute dynamite bait for me.

Ain't caught any on a MB V110. But I've smoked them on the Yo-Zuri 3DB 110, KVD 300 Deep, and Jackall Rerange.

The Daiwa DX Type-H Glass Reaction Casting Rod has been chucking my chatterbaits since back when I didn't have faith in a chatterbait, and it still does today. I also throw spinnerbaits on them and while I haven't built up much confidence in swimjigs, it's even caught a fish or five on those for me as well. Awesome rod. I recommend it.

I've got a few jerkbaits I've come to enjoy at this point, but I've only fished them for the past two years. There are more experienced anglers than me giving their opinions, but the following baits crush it for me in my water. 1. Strike King KVD 300 Deep: this bait has caught the lions share of my jerkbait fish. It is really, really good. My favorite color is Ghost Minnow. I've had my best days on it when fish were schooling under shad that were themselves schooled near a heat source, for me it's a concrete dam. 2. Yo-Zuri 3DB 110: this bait sacked up about 17-20 pounds for me this winter on about 6 or 7 casts during one particular trip. It's my cheap Rerange, it doesn't cast as well, but it's very similar in every other way. I fish it off the ends of laydowns and near other shallow targets. Pro Blue is my favorite. 3. Jackall Rerange 110: this bait got me into jerkbaiting. Like the 3DB above, it suspends well and slashes wide. It sounds like a .22 unloading as you load it up, and when you unload the rod it zings over them mountains. Incredible bait for covering a lot of water. HL Hasu is my favorite color.

I've paddled, pedaled, motored, and I now do a combination of motoring and paddling kayaks. I've fished from Hobies, Old Towns, Nucanoes, Vibe, and Feelfrees, and I'm running two Crescent kayaks right now. If you don't want to spend a lot of money, you're going to be paddling. Nothing makes for a worse experience than a kayak that doesn't paddle well, and Crescent does that better than anyone in the business. I stand pretty comfortably in the Crescent CK1, and it paddles like a dream. I stand easily in the Crescent Crew, and it also paddles very well. My recommendation is a Crescent CK1, LT2, or Shoalie.

I've stuck quite a few in the jaw bone with #1 dropshot hooks, and landed most that were in open water. A spinning reel with a good drag helps, as well as sharp hooks. I'm not sure on the physics of it, but go stick something sharp into something hard; you're going to have a heck of a time removing it. It's much easier to pull something sharp out of something soft. That's just small hook finesse fishing, though, and for other techniques such as crankbaits and jerkbaits you end up relying on sharp hooks paired with the correct rod as well as less effective casting reel drag. I imagine there are posters here who rely on freespooling as well as back reeling. At the end of the day, just use a sharp hook and the correct gear and you'll up your chances of landing fish with whatever hook you're setting.

I haven't touched them in years.

The best I've done on a bait created with realism in mind is several 5+ pounders fishing the YUM Crawbug on a Ned jig in the Kedhe style, actually swimming it along. I've never caught a fish on that bait fished slowly.

I've fished PowerPro, Kastking, 832 and Berkley X9 has been my favorite.

Figuring out retrieve speeds, color, when, where, why. So far what I've been doing and what I've been throwing hasn't been as productive as my other go-to methods, and they seem to be a great bait that should get bit with much more regularity than what has been happening for me.

I plan to throw the War Eagle Screamin' Eagle, the War Eagle Mike McClelland Finesse Spinnerbait, and the million lipless cranks I have that I never get bit on. I'd also like to figure out paddletail swimbaits.

This isn't that tough, as I only use about 5 of the silly amount of soft plastic baits I carry around. 1. ZOOM Trick Worm. I can fish it wacky and weightless Texas should I need to, but this puppy slays on a light Texas rig or shakyhead. I'm sure I could cut it down a hair and fish it on a dropshot as well. It'll also cut down to Ned rig size. 2. Netbait Paca Slim. This little craw imitator has put a lot of fish in the boat for me pitching it and dragging it. I haven't tried it on the back of a jig yet, but I'm sure it will get the job done. 3. ZOOM Salty Super Fluke. I'd like to throw the Z-Man Razor Shad here, but I can trailer my chatterbaits with the fluke or fish it weightless. It's also been on for the only spinnerbait fish I've caught this year. 4. ZOOM Ol' Monster. This is the double triple OG of summertime dragging. It isn't all that versatile, but I enjoy big worm fishing enough to slot this one in. 5. YUM Pulse. I plan to finally figure out how to get bites on a swimbait, and this one is cheap and has got me bites before, in fresh and salt.

Berkley X9 for me, the stuff is spectacular. It is very cool that Seaguar includes leader material with the Tactx.

How did this thread become what's BFS and what's not? I came here to read about a line. Anyway, I've had a smoker king mackerel run out a whole bunch of Kastking Superpower Braid waaaay back when, but I haven't tried their lines since. When dude gets done gatekeeping what constitutes BFS, someone let us know how that 8 carrier KK performs.

I'm pretty sure you can score a Garmin Echomap UHD 93SV for right at 700 right now. It's touch screen, you can map views to buttons, and the 1120khz is nothing to scoff at. The DI is absolutely impressive, and Garmin has always had great 2D sonar as well. The preloaded Garmin maps have been great. From the Hummindbird side you could grab a Humminbird Helix 7 MSI G3 for under 700, and the MSI is better than the Garmin's with a GT54 instead of a GT56. A good bit better. The sonar and DI are lacking in comparison. If you're not mounting in a transducer recess, I'd use a Yakattack Switchblade. I run the Garmin unit I mentioned above on a RAM transducer arm and it's pretty middling as far as quality goes. My thoughts are as follows, you'll see a few more fish on SI with the bird and better detail from things you'll still see on SI with the Garmin unit, but I graph by looking for cover, which the Garmin will show without issue, and then go back over that marked cover with DI. For my purposes, the Garmin is great.