galyonj

It's worth a shot, and I have only good things to say about their customer service. Last summer I broke two rods (my precious TP1B MH/F and one of their cheapo Laser Lite rods), and they replaced both of them no questions asked. I will say that it was a real chore getting ahold of them, but this was when COVID was new and everybody was scrambling. Maybe they're easier to get on the phone nowadays. They were out of both of them, so, like you, I got a free upgrade to a Custom Series for the TP1. Worst they can say is no, @BrianAllan87. Give them a call.

I think I'm broken, cause I can't catch a cold with a spinnerbait or a chatterbait.

I've never met a dog that didn't have the capacity to be a brat. Comes with the territory. lol

They are the bane of sticks and small plastic toys everywhere (and also my shoes, but that's my fault for leaving them out with a puppy in the house). Absolute carnage. Roxy was beautiful. I bet she was the best girl. ❤️

Vicious pitbulls recharging their murder batteries. I feel attacked. Also is it possible to tie something down without then giving the strap a good yank?

It depends. Not having any more information beyond the lures you were using, it sounds like your craw was under the fish, and your swimbait was right where it needed to be. Were you fishing them differently? Location matters. Not just in GPS coordinates, but in terms of where the fish are in the water column.

If I'm honest, I didn't know a single thing about it until She Who Must Be Obeyed mentioned a couple weeks back that she'd read something about how Tennessee used to be a big producer in the domestic pearl market, and then she said that "having a mussel farm" sounded "fun." Lord help me.

The Tennessee River used to be home to a bustling domestic pearl (and mother-of-pearl) industry from those mussels, too. I think that's all dried up nowadays for a lot of reasons.

Absolutely this. Small adjustments can make a big difference. Go back to when you weren't getting the distance you want, but weren't getting backlashes. Then ease the magnets off one or two clicks at a time. Before, because my thumb's either in contact with the spool or right there at it ready to be. Learning how to feather the spool with your thumb is gonna pay huge dividends. Better accuracy, quieter entrances in the water, less time picking out backlashes, fewer lures flying into orbit when you break off because your backlash locked the spool up after a hail mary cast, all that good stuff. Lay a trash can lid down -- you can go smaller as your confidence grows -- in your back yard, then tie a jig on, and just pitch to that target. Great way to practice developing a feel for your magnet and spool tension settings and building muscle memory for feathering the spool. The goal is to have that jig land very softly on the target. Maybe some of the OGs here will have other, better practice suggestions for developing that feel and muscle memory.

I have to imagine that, outside of the standby colors that everybody wants all the time, they rotate colors in and out of production on the regular. The UV Craw page doesn't show a watermelon-red/tomato colorway, but I don't have any idea if the colors listed on the specific lure pages are representative of everything in production for that lure. However, there's also a page on the website showing regular production/special colors/retired colors. Might help you find what you're looking for.

Menace or the baby menace for sure. Because I have no self-control, I have an order coming next week that has some baby GOATs in it to pair with 3/16th ounce finesse jigs. Pretty much the same thing, and I think they'll be a banger in the right situation.

Now that you mention it, I do seem to have pioneered the act of breaking off while doing something stupid, then seeing that broken off lure float past, and catching it on another lure to get it back. We're not gonna discuss the fact that I'd save myself a lot of effort if I just made better decisions.

I get the sense, from reading your posts, that you're suffering from the same malady as myself and, honestly, a lot of other people -- there are just so many options. And, while that's not a bad problem to have, it's still a problem if you let it be. I'm gonna let you in on a secret: There are two colors that will work in every single body of fresh water that contains bass. Black w/blue flake (or Junebug, if you swing that way) Green Pumpkin If you never buy another color of jig aside from those two, you're gonna be okay. I get really fancy with swim jigs. For swim jigs, I'll add two more color options: White w/chartreuse (to emulate crappie or baitfish like shad) Green pumpkin w/orange and chartreuse (to emulate bluegill) Those four five jig colors will cover just about every situation in which you'll want to have a jig tied on. But what, I hear you asking, about trailers? There are so many! Trailers can be just as easy, and in the same colors (black w/blue flake, junebug, green pumpkin, white, chartreuse). Strike King 4" Rage Craw (or equivalent) for when the fish want a lot of movement Strike 4" Menace (or equivalent from another brand) for when the fish want a little more compact presentation, but still want nice movement Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver (or equivalent) for when the fish are lethargic or are especially spooky Strike King 3.75" Rage Swimmer (or an equivalent paddletail swimbait) for swimming a jig Zoom 4" Fat Albert (or an equivalent curly-tail grub) for just about any situation When you're ready, go on over to Siebert Outdoors and order you some jigs. You can get soft plastics for trailers, too. Do yourself a favor and quit fretting the details. This is supposed to be fun.

Hey you stole my answer. I don't do a lot of flipping because that's just how it works out, but when I do there's almost always a jig on the business end. Even then, I don't use anything special for a trailer. It'll either be a rage craw, a rage menace, or a sweet beaver. And then it's gonna be GP or junebug plastic on a GP or junebug jig.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, good hooks don't generally need sharpening out of the pack, but with use and misadventure the cutting edges on even the best hooks will need touched up from time to time.

I fixed it though!

For sure. That's just the cost of doing business. I lost a jig and a rattletrap today. Put my cranking stick down, switched to a wacky-rigged ocho and a swim jig, and then I caught a fish. Like the universe smiled on me for going with the flow.

Snuck out at lunch. We've...had some weather lately. Today was clear and pretty, but the wind was gusting and the water clarity was hilariously bad. Even for here on Fort Loudoun, where the water clarity is usually crappy at best. This little guy walloped a swim jig, though. And that was cool! Then my vape fell off the rock I was sitting on, into the drink. And that was not cool at all.

Depends on what the fish want and what the bottom composition allows for. Lots of different ways to do it. If getting hung up in that chunk rock is that big a concern, there are a bunch of ways to stay finesse and not let a jighead settle on the bottom.

Nope. Cost of doing business, bro. The thought of busting up thousands of dollars worth of equipment to save something I could replace for less than $20 offends me. It hurts my cheapskate heart.

Postspawn and into the summer, I like to switch to a sour gummy worm.

She'll be chasing that dragon for the rest of her life on the water.

Almost. Lucky for us there are a lot of them to go around.

Alternators, essentially, combine the rotating magnets from the flywheel, the poles from the stator, and the regulator/rectifier assembly into one self-contained unit, and then the whole thing is run off a pulley. Otherwise it's really the same thing.

I've kinda had a blast doing this. We joke that it's like a King of the Hill episode.