Hook2Jaw

What's in that picture @J Francho posted, guys? I'm Ray Charles in here. As someone who just got his drop shot specific setup, I need to start picking your brain more. I don't have much clear water access, but fooling them with a drop shot appeals to me.

Rage...Ned. ? I'm excited for Jordan Lee's new series of plastics. I've been waiting patiently for them, but I never put 2 and 2 together and figured they would release them at ICAST. They being Berkley. Them being the Champ Craw and Champ Minnow. The swimbait doesn't excite me much, it'll have to be cheap and effective because I've already got that covered. As someone who hates the Ned but understands it's usefulness, I hope YUM drops a Ned offering.

You better subscribe.

@Derek1, it's a Daiwa DXSB 8' HF. It's a little tip heavy, but that kinda helps me to rest the butt against my forearm or under my armpit while fishing. I haven't thrown it all day yet, but I plan to do a write up for it here when I do.

In the clear ponds I fish, my first order of business is absolutely rip reeling a suspending jerkbait. If that doesn't catch fish I'll Texas rig a YUM Dinger, and that will. I slow the jerkbait down in winter, but this time of year I'm a bank or kayak bound power fishing machine. In stained ponds, creeping or burning a paddletail swimbait on a weighted EWG is my first offering. I allow the fish to tell me what they want. If that doesn't catch them, a YUM Dinger to cover will. I throw quite a few plastics and hard lures, but I currently prefer powering the jerkbait around or the steady cadence of a 3.5-4.5" swimbait.

I'm sorry, but fishing weightless plastics with tension, albeit small or large, introduced into the presentation seems to go against the best part of the technique; the slow, tantalizing fall of a quivering bait. Giving lift and an amount of pull to your bait is going to pull it towards you, and away from the bass holding to cover you've casted or pitched your bait to. Your target is lazy, and that's the entire reason he's sucking in your Senko, YUM Dinger, Strike King Zero, or Zoom Fluke. She doesn't want to pull off her stump. Will she? Often. I try to not leave that to chance, though, which is why I let it fall right on top of my targets that hopefully house my target. If you're using weightless Texas rigs to cover water, what I typed does not apply. If you're target casting to get the skunk off after a front, though, it's my humble opinion that you're shooting yourself in the foot. Fish that thing on slack line for the most natural fall with bright braid to identify the strike. Waiting to feel them is also probably gonna up your chance of gut hooking these fish most of us want to conserve.

@Choporoz, I've almost convinced myself to go with a propeller drive instead of a Hobie for my next boat for that reason. Boat control. I'm in a behemoth of a kayak, so leverage isn't really an issue. I also stake out when I'm pecking away at a laydown if the wind or current is up.

@Choporoz, why do you think your effectiveness with a jig goes down in a kayak? I know you've been at this a lot longer than me but I absolutely love pitching jigs from my kayak.

I'll second the Berkley stick and the Trion. I used to fish the tar out of those reels until I started using my spinners in the salt.

I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, but bright braid really helps me detect the bite. I try to keep about 7' of light fluoro FGd to the end of it. More often than not, you will see the braid react to the bite. It's almost like bobber fishing.

You can just quiver it in place after the bottom treble catches on a pad. Game. Changer.

Baitcaster, broomstick, bream. This is my most expensive combo, and I know the price pales in comparison to a lot of the reels and rods you guys own, but I'm very proud of it.

Power fishing an H2O Xpress Ultimate Jerk Shad.

I like my Daiwa DXSB 8' HF, it's rated for 2-8oz baits but it comfortably throws 1-4oz. If you go with that stick, I would step up one power. I believe that will handle your bait range just fine. I started off my swimbait setup with a Daiwa Millionaire Classic UTD, but I'm switching to a Daiwa Lexa-WN 300. After throwing my buddies Daiwa Lexa-HD 300 all day, I've become a fan of that reel line. You can get the stick for 110ish and that reel for about 130 on Amazon.

@J Francho, I think I'm about to give the Southeast KBF Trail a go next year.

Come on this way, @J Francho, and we'll find a 120 pound tarpon to tow that Compass. Do you fish KBF?

lol, leave your drive down in the big rollers off Tybee Island here while fishing for Spanish Mackerel and let me know how that added stability works out.

the screws on the prop scare me. I personally doubt they'll start selling replacement props and it looks like a great failure point. I plan to grab one of these guys this weekend and fish it, and I'm gonna put a dab of locktite on the screws to make sure they don't back off and try not to throw the thing into seawalls. I wish it was just a single, molded tail section like the R2S and Berkley offerings with two props. Still, it's only 7 bucks and when Academy does their sales on their H2O line I bet they'll be listed at 4 bucks.

I think it just happens sometimes, I had a wolf pack of bass attacking my jerk bait the other day and couldn't get a hook in them. Shortly thereafter I started catching them back to back to back, and the day before that had a small double on it. All my hard baits have VMC hooks because they come stock with them, or, in the case of my Red Eye Shads, I switched to them. I like lighter wire and set my jerkbait rod to 2# of drag with my scale. 10# fluoro. My soft baits all get BPS XPS hooks, and I use them with soft plastics in the inshore salt as well. I don't miss many fish with them and when they're hooked, 19 times out of 20, they're in the boat. I do keep a diamond stone in my pocket and often brush my hooks down until they pass the nail test. My suggestion is to keep a sharpener handy, use it, and realize that sometimes, **** just happens.

I just posted a nice bass caught on a cheap bait for folks like me, on the fence about it, or folks who didn't know about it. Of course it's not going to sound like a WP, not even the Choppo does that, but I could see myself tying this on when the fish are more aggressive or in dingier water to help them find the bait.

Awesome thread, guys! I cannot wait to take everything I've learned here and apply it.

The Choppo is a good bait. The only thing I own from R2S is S-Waver 168s, and they're probably the only thing I'll ever own from R2S when the Berkley Choppo already crushes fish for me.

I guess someone decided to take the sub 10 dollar hit and has been throwing the H2O Xpress Double Plopper from Academy. Saw this on Facebook this morning, he also had a picture of the scale reporting 10 pounds, 8 ounces. I may have to add a couple of these to the topwater box. The man said he catches them all the time on that bait, and that he throws it more than his Whopper Ploppers.

If the casting distance difference is gonna be negligible, I'm gonna save thirty bucks and grab the CT. The smaller reel will work better for my baby hands. I was mostly just wondering if the 100mm handle will make a difference when it comes to deep plugging all day long.

With one of my goals this year being learning to fish lakes and starting from the most glaring difference between lakes and my comfort zone, ponds and rivers, being the offshore bite, I've decided that with the summer heat quickly rising and my first lake trip with the kayak being about a month away, I want to finally purchase a deep cranking setup. I'll be sticking the reel on a 13 F-a-t-e C-h-r-o-m-e 7'9" cranking stick and hoping I like the rod. I like that normal series of rod, so that makes sense to me. My question is, am I going to see a noticeable difference with my casting distance between the Tatula 150 and Tatula CT? I'll be spooling one of the two with 12# fluoro and tossing Berkley Dredger 17.5s to 25.5s, for those who want more specifics.