Joe_w1234

Does anyone know anything about Lake Calumet? I've got a HS event there this weekend, and looking at the map it seems kinda weird. I've been there before last year but had a tough time finding anything decent. I know it's clear water; not sure if smallies/largemouth are the move. We might spend time fishing industrial stuff and barge docks for smallmouth. Any tips/insight would be welcome, feel free to PM me as well! Thanks

Heard good things about those. I think I might grab one or two

Wow! What kind of crank is that in the first picture? Looks like Spro?

Hahahaha that's such a perfect response ?

This is me every trip ???

It's one of those things that doesn't seem like it should work, but it just does. It definitely catches small fish, but it also surprisingly seems to also get this big ones interested as well. Good luck!

Thanks, that helps a lot. Planning on taking great care of it just like my jerkbait special ??

Seems to be all he catches! I, on the other hand, can hardly catch a fish some days lol

Thanks everyone! Looks like the Brailist is the way to go. Hopefully I'll be able to snag one around Christmastime.

Sounds good. I got a little worried for a second. We're just dealing with normal jigs, probably around 1/2 ounce, flipping wood, riprap, vegetation, all that stuff. Plus 1/2 ounce spinnerbaits, a variety of texas rigs, and probably some other stuff like that. I realize I'm not giving you much to match to a specific technique-style rod. Thanks!

That's a fun looking color. Might give it a try

Edit: saw on TW reviews that these rods break easily?? Is that something to be concerned about?

Hey everyone. I'm looking at getting a new jig rod in the future, a decently all purpose rod for Jigs, Spinnerbaits, Keitechs, Texas Rigs, that kind of stuff. I've got a Megabass sponsorship and like their rods, (I have a Levante Diablo and an Orochi jerkbait special that I love) but I see the Orochi has at least 3 different models that stand out to me as jig rods. There's the Tour Versatile, the Perfect Pitch, the Braillist, and also the Extreme Mission Type F. Can someone help me differentiate between these? Thanks!

Wow. Those are absolute works of art!

With @JWall14 back home from college, we got out on the river for an afternoon. Not many pictures, but I did catch potentially my new PB! We didn’t have a scale, but from experience it probably would have gone around 3 or so pounds.

This is the first meme I've shown my mom that she actually laughed at. Congratulations

TW Shipment, all of it to go with the above jerkbait rod. I’m excited to try those Keitech jigs I’ve heard so much about. They only had the 1/4 oz size in stock, but it should work fine. I’ll use them in a tournament this weekend, hopefully they work well! The jerkbaits also look amazing, happy to have them

My Aldebaran found a home on a Megabass Orochi Jerkbait Special! Having a summer job got me spending lots of money lol ?

Hi everyone. I'm a 17 year old high school angler. I mostly fish for smallmouth in rivers, but also have started to fish some tournaments with a guy from school who has a boat. I used to be on this website all the time maybe 1.5-2 years ago. I guess I just stopped researching after that, although I never stopped fishing. Now I'm back, and ready to improve my game so we can go out and win some tourneys. Now, I'm focusing on getting better, especially since I'm pretty sure my tournament partner thinks I suck.

Me and @JWall14 made a JDM reel purchase, some of our first real high end gear. The rods will come next when they come in stock

Got it. So you think it wouldn’t work, or it would just fall off their face? Probably both lol

Thanks @Steveo-1969, @Further North, @jimmyjoe You’ve given me a lot to think about. I will look into getting a cheap net that I can use. Seems like that will make everything a lot easier and smoother. I have also heard of putting a rag over their face so they can’t see. Apparently they stop fighting and thrashing?

Man that guy seems to catch 5 pounders no matter what he uses. Have you seen his Lego Chewbacca Video?

I think this is where @Scott F was going as well, with my not wanting to spend money on wire cutters. I guess I'm just oblivious to why you need them. When would you want to cut the hook instead of just removing it with pliers? How would I kill the fish by catching it? I guess I just don't really understand this part. I get how fighting a giant 50 incher for such a long time that he's completely exhausted, then holding him out of the water for some minutes would kill it. But what about catching a 30 incher, unhooking it, and releasing it? I'm not trying to say I wouldn't kill a fish, or to deny anything you said, just trying to learn. I do have a net, it can at least help with landing a bigger one whose whole body wouldn't fit inside. A 35 incher I could fit most of his body in the net, then have his tail hanging out, at least until I get a grip on him. That way I'm not dragging him anywhere on land. What do you two think? Should I just get a smaller musky spinner to use? I'm not worried about getting them to eat, since they've never seen lures before, and 3 of them ate my brother's TUBE he was throwing. If they ate a tube, I'm sure they'll eat something actually made for them. Thanks everyone for replying, I appreciate all the help and advice.

Thanks a ton to everyone who replied already! The river isn't that big, so we're not expecting to run into many fish over 40 inches. And as @Scott F said, I'm not aiming for a giant, mainly just to catch some. I don't know the exact water temps, but I think it's mid-70s. We do have a smaller net that we were able to fit a 25 inches into without that much difficulty, but anything over 30 would be hard. I don't really want to drop a hundred bucks on getting a musky net that I'm barely going to use. So you think my last option is to just grab them by the back of the head/grab their jaw? Question about the jaw spreaders: might big spreaders break the jaw of a smaller fish? Do I seriously need wire cutters? They're kinda expensive and I think the fish are small enough that we won't need them. Thanks again to you both, I really appreciate it!