fin

You mean they didn't replace the ones you sent in with their original color?

Good to know. I'll throw it some more then when conditions get better here, which could be any day now. I guess once I hook one I'll be able to see how far that body will bend back. I noticed the video on Lunkerhunt's site shows one hooked in the gills, or close to it.

Ne'er.

Try finding a short MH spinning rod. I was looking for a MH worm rod a while back to replace a Cherrywood that broke. I prefer a shorter rod for bank fishing. I didn’t expect that to be hard to find, but for example, Tackle Warehouse has nothing in 6’. At 6’-6” they have 9 choices. But go up to 7’ and they have 31 choices. If you go shopping around, it’s hard to find a MH spinning rod in stock, period. Stores stock what most people buy. I get that, but it would be nice to have someplace to turn. I eventually bought a 7' M.

I found one of their 1/4 oz frogs a few days ago, and I noticed that even when you squeeze the frog flat by the hooks, there doesn’t seem to be enough room between the hook and the body for any fish lip. I don’t see how a fish could get hooked on this thing. They could bite deep enough to get past the barb maybe, but not down to the curve of the hook. You’d have to kind of pull back on the tail of the frog and then squeeze down really hard to get it flat enough for that. I guess it might be possible, but it doesn’t seem likely. I’m just curious if anyone has actually landed a decent sized fish with the smaller frog. I’ve had a couple of their 1/2 oz frogs, and they got bites immediately and hookups were as good as any frog. They worked great until the legs got pulled off (which was pretty quick).

Can you really know that for sure though? You could be totally missing them and never know. It might just be that you're getting more bites overall, which makes sense. Logically you're getting a little more sensitivity from the t-rig, and the fact that you're hooking them deep in the roof of the mouth could be a sign that they have it before you are feeling it. Still, free-rigging is better overall as long as you're not gut-hooking them.

I've learned that it's sometimes best not to puzzle over things too much in fishing. There are things that seem impossible to understand/explain that make a huge difference. Sometimes you never figure it out, and really, who cares if you keep catching fish? It sounds like you're getting more weightless fall (slower fall) than with the t-rig, and that's what accounts for the success. The difference is in the amount the weights slide on the line. It seems like a Carolina rig or pegged weight like 12" from the bait would work as well, but maybe not.

I don’t get the free-rig. What is supposed to separate the bait from the weight? I can see how they would separate on the initial fall, especially in deep water, but once you pull on the line and the bait bumps into the weight, from what I've seen, they stay pretty close together. In moving water, like a creek or river, I can see this working. The force of the water stream could separate the bait from the weight. I can imagine if you had a super-buoyant bait, the buoyancy of the bait could pull them apart, but once you add the weight of a hook, most baits aren’t much more than neutral buoyancy. If the bait and weight don’t separate, I don’t see the advantage over a Carolina rig. At least with the Carolina rig, you know your bait is separated from the weight. What am I missing here? Obviously it is working very well for you. ?

It's worth $2. Used to be able to get Academy lipless for like $2.50, which were way better than the OzT but they cost a little more now, I think.

I've found that same color Googan jerk before.

You lost me there, but verbal descriptions alone of how to tie knots have always been difficult for me to follow.

If you’ve ever gone to cinch the knot on a San Diego Jam Knot and it doesn’t cinch smoothly, I’ve found that adding a simple step prevents that from happening: Before you pass the end between the lines as shown in the picture, release your hold from the first loop, and instead just hold the main line. If there is any twist at this point, the line is now free to untwist itself. Then carry on with the knot as you would normally. This will produce a smooth-cinching knot every time. I’ve found that when these knots don’t cinch smoothly, they are more likely to fail under heavy load. I’ve been using this knot for a few years and finally just figured this out. I’ve never seen it mentioned in instructions. I’ve been doing this for a couple weeks, and it seems to work very well. I’m using 10# mono, I don’t know how well it would work with heavier line. It might unravel when you release your hold from the loop.

I’ve bought a few stick baits when they were on clearance for like 75% off, but I don’t think I’ve ever caught anything on them, maybe one or two. I’ve never dedicated much effort to them and I doubt I ever will. I just don’t care for them.

Got my order and everything was the color I wanted! I was so expecting it to be wrong. Their system is still messed up, just not messed up so bad I had to return the order.

I’d like to believe that kind of manufacture still exists - that things are being manufactured with the intention of being passed on to the next generation, that parts are being made for the long term, that designs are standardized so parts are interchangeable, but I really don’t think what the future looks like. I’m not sure that’s even what the present looks like. It’s more like, ‘if it breaks, buy a new one’. I guess there will always be collectors, to some extent. With the way technology in fishing has changed so rapidly, it’s hard for me to see why someone would want outdated technology, like things that were once state-of-the-art that now seem way too heavy. Maybe it’s because I’m not buying stuff in that price range, so I just can’t see it.

The Daiwa video I watched recommended putting the grease on your finger and thumb, not the washer, and then like you said, massaging the washer between them. Not very difficult, but okay, thanks for the reply, to each his own, I was just curious.

Having never used Cal's or grease made for drag, I can't say how normal grease compares, but I'm not sure we can really know that Cal's isn't just a normal grease, we just have to take their word for it, right? Regular grease doesn't seem to stay greasy/smooth very long, or at least it seems that way to me. I might just not be putting enough on it. Clean-up is pretty simple in my experience - just a little mineral spirits. Any reason you use oil instead of grease?

I got my shipping confirmation from Academy, and it shows two items that are supposed to be black, according to the picture and the item description, but the confirmation lists one item as Mardi Gras (watermelon green) and the other as Pumpkin Chartreuse. Customer service can’t do anything until I receive the package a week from now, and then all they can do is give me a refund for those items after return. The CSR was really nice and did all she could do to try and help and escalated the issue, but I imagine nothing will change. I’ll still get free shipping and 20% off the other items, so I’m not crying. I just don’t think I would ever place another Zoom order online with them. I don’t know any way to assure what color you are ordering from them. The real name of the color doesn’t show up in their system until it has shipped. Crazy.

I was curious how that Longbill Spot swam, so I dug up a video. Spoiler: swims like a floating lipless, sort of.

It took me a long time to learn the importance of cleaning and greasing the drag washers. The thing that always kept me from doing it was never having the 'special grease' I thought I needed. Then one day I heard you can actually use any grease, and once I saw the difference it made, it was like a light coming on. I'd still like to have some grease that's made for that purpose, but I never think about it when I'm ordering stuff. I used to back off the drag, but I was always forgetting, and forgetting to reset it before fishing and losing fish because of it. I think it would take a long time for a felt washer to become so compact and hardened that it didn't function. Like years. Tank?

Love Academy, hate their website. They rename Zoom colors, and the pictures aren’t great, so it’s really hard to tell what you’re getting sometimes. They call this one “green medium 06”. It took me forever to figure out why I couldn’t scroll to the bottom of the list of colors. There’s no scrollbar, and if your cursor isn’t in exactly the right place, it won’t scroll. I was going to get a spool of PowerPro 10# Hi-viz yellow, and I saw a picture of it, clicked on it, added it to my cart, and then saw it said 15# in my cart. They don’t have 10#. They’re not out, they just don’t have it period. I still ordered enough Zoom stuff to get free shipping. ?

Definitely a Stanley Ribbit. I think that one has a pearl-colored bottom? I used to have good luck with those back when my lake still had some lilypads. It's not easy to get them rigged just right so that the hook stays in place, and being able to get a good hookset at the same time. That plastic is tough, which is good for durability, but it makes setting the hook harder when it's already tricky with topwater. That hook is not terribly oversized, it could work. That looks like maybe a 6/0. I guess they hooked it in the chin and then in the back. I think I used to use a 4/0 or 5/0, depending on the brand of hook. I used to go through the crotch, but that hook looks too long for that.

Looks like Walmart to me. They have spinnerbaits they sell for $1 (I think they're still a dollar) that have that same type of rubber skirt and that same color combination. I'm no expert on buzzbaits, but I assume it would swim like a normal buzzbait, only the body would be pointed down at an angle. I would just bend it back into the correct shape. The hooks on almost all the Whopper Ploppers I've ever found were in good shape. Nice trap. That toad is good too, on a keel-weighted hook. On that hook there, it would flip over.

Yeah, just drill a small hole and then refill with hot glue, or epoxy to make it permanent. Problem is, my spook jr sounds like a one-knock, which would require a pretty big hole. You'd need to rig some kind of plug, like a wood dowel, for the hole. My spook is silent, and my puppies are silent.

I'm thinking much more, just to get rid of it. You've already replaced it, anything above that is a bonus. I know if I was in your situation, just having it sitting around would bug me until I did something with it. I doubt anyone would buy it, but maybe someone who repairs rods, or someone like @MickD might. It was like $150 new? I'm thinking like $25-50. It would have to be really low. I still wouldn't buy it at $25, myself, but if I had the rod, I wouldn't be able to just throw it away either ?