Tom Rust

I’m making the switch to braid (15 lb) and kinda shocked by the price! What’s a decent line for the money-I don’t need to fish the best but certainly want a fair price for what I get performance wise.

AJ, having just plowed through this fantastic tutorial, I have to say you are an amazing teacher! And your writing style reminds me of some of the greats of all time. I’m not sure what you did in the coast guard,(maybe ran the whole service?) but you missed your calling as a college professor teaching hundreds of eager students…soaking it all up. You, sir, are the modern day Buck Perry of smallie fishing! And I meant that with all sincerity. It’s time for me to start again on page one of this thread and see all the tips I missed the first time through. Thanks again for all the time and knowledge you have passed along!

First some humor: never squeeze your toothpaste in the dark-it might be hemorrhoid cream! And never open “snacks in the dark-it might be your dog’s treat bag! Fishing mantra-“The fish will be there tomorrow, but you might not be” so go anytime you can!!! And…there’s always unexpected surprises at the boat ramp- just accept they’re gonna happen and either laugh about it or accept them with grace!! 😳

Many of you probably have gone down this road ahead of me, but this came as something of a surprise today: Farmpond with 52 degrees and using a Stunna jerk with “traditional” jerk-jerk-pause cadence. Nothing forc30 minutes even though water was super clear. Then I decided to just do a slow wind on my reel after the lure was halfway back to shore, like a crankbait retrieve and….Bam! 3 nice bass on 3 consecutive casts, and 2 more after a couple empty retrieves in between. So in 10 minutes just totally re-wrote how to work a jerk. First half of retrieval jerk-jerk-pause to pique their interest then making it look like the minnow is recovering and slowly swimming off, and they couldn’t handle that scenario. Anyone else do it like that????

Not sure what you mean. I can go back with a complaint about the JM and they will swap out??????

{for redundancy sake, can be restated” Do you believe a $99 Nasci is as good and durable as the JM’s at $99/$129????}. I’m probably overthinking but would guess BP sellS way more JM’s so have lower production costs per reel than the Nasci, so price point of $129 MAYBE represents more features or quality than the shimano, or do you think BASSPro just slapped a higher retail Pice on a comparable to Nasci product than Shimano did with the Nasci??????

So stated another way, do you think the shimano at everyday price (before the rebate) is as good a reel as either JM REELS at $10 or $30 off sale price (plus the rebate)

Asking my fellow brothers and sisters to get me off the fence and into the checkout lane at BassPro before their Spring sale ends. I have the $150 rod, but need the reel. I know it will be a 2500/3000 size, but the choices and sale prices are as follows: A. Shimano Nasci for $99 minus the $20 trade-in Rebate. B. Johnny Morris signature $99 on sale for $89 minus the rebate. Nets out at $69. Or C. The higher end J Morris signature reel (shiny red snd silver) usually $129 on sale for $99 less rebate nets at $79 so the Nasci is $20 off, the regular JM IS $30 off, and the f”fancier” JM IS $50 off. What’s your pick and why?? I’m heading em there Tuesday around dinner time while my wife is out with girlfriends (. Just a coincidence I’m going then 😉😳😳😳lol)

Totally agree. When we purchase overpriced baits we are essentially saying we are ok with what the lure marketing departments are setting their prices at. And, I also see an eight dollar lipless as just one cast away from being another lost ten-spot

I’ve said this before but I truly believe the lure companies think the majority of us like to fish money tournaments (not me-never once in my life) and as such, will spend ANY amount to place in the money. In other words, the ends justify the means. I do believe hardcore tourney guys WILL spend any amount to cash a check. Thus, it IS affecting our lure budgets because the retails are based on the supposition that “money is no object “. Pretty true when you look at boat and tow-vehicle prices, not to mention electronics!

So I’ll paraphrase cast-by-fly’s response as follows: if it’s old and not that flashy, it has to sell cheap, whereas new and flashy-HAS to be a better fish-catcher and therefore automatically must be worth 2-3 times as much. Did I get that right or am I way off base??? Which reminds me of Buck Perry’s comments 50 years ago about lure finishes that old; chipped all off paint sometimes worked even better than the shiny flashier brand-new finishes. He also claimed he could whittle a small stick from a tree and attach hooks and it would do as well as a Rapala floater. Just sayin’

The bomber model A cranks are still retailing for $3.99 (everyday price) and almost all the other brands range up to as much as 10 to 12 dollars. I catch plenty of fish on the bombers so i see no need to spend all that extra cash on the others'. Is the price disparity related to the endorsement costs of having the pros hyping the expensive ones, or is it "corporate greed", or something else? i accept that with jerkbaits, there seems to be more precision engineering that goes into them, getting the weight transfer systems perfected, neutral buyoancy figured out, slow sinking or rising, etc. but having said that, there's Suspending rogues that retail for $8 dollars, compared to SK and Berkeley at $15, then megabass in a whole different realm at 24.99. I know the megabass guys swear they're worth it because it catches so many more fish, but theSmithwick rogues get a TON of love at $7.99. I'm really dismayed at how crazy expensive most of the hard baits are these days! What do you all think about this??

Right or wrong I use a size 1 spin shot by VMC Nose-hooked also

maybe it would help all of us if someone made a video underwater of what the fish's view is for what we call muddy water. in other words, show the dirty water from above looking down as we humans see it, and then show with an underwater camera how it looks down there. does anyone have a link to something like that??

Tn, were you standing in that current?- looks really fast!

Ladies and Gents, I’ve watched a ton of videos recommending the best lures for muddy water, and thankfully the best 4 or 5 choices pretty much were in agreement. That was: Spinnerbaits, square bill cranks, bladed jigs, jigs with a rattle and buzzbaits.I’m sure you have your favorite alternative to this list, but I need ENCOURAGEMENT to even go when my lakes or ponds are dirty. Give some story or examples from your own experiences that can convince me to get out when that’s the only water choice I have. I need a push, please. And thanks ahead of time! I might add, the videos I watched just had a guy in a boat “teaching”, but never showed a fish being caught from the muddy water in the video, thus reinforcing my belief that it’s almost impossible to catch them when it’s muddy!

Crypt, I’m confused about what purpose the cap serves-just protects the head of the worm or does it aid in floating it off the bottom? I’m thinking a little shot of insulation foam then drill the hole, and the cap will raise the soft plastic off the bottom.

scaleface, that might be a better material than my using rubbery tube-i'll have to give it a try. heavyduty, id love to learn how you make rubber skirts for jigs or spinnerbaits-where does the little elastic 'ring' come from and how do you line up all the rubber strands?

something you do or make that helps avoid buying at the store for your fishing enjoyment. my simple hack is using a round hole punch and some rubbery tubing to make hook keepers for stinger hooks, or especially keeping my hook secure when nose- hooking a fluke with a "hitch hiker" screw ring. Whats yours?

Thanks Ol Crickety for reinforcing my point. In Montana I’ve experienced it on stream after stream. Pounded fish are just way harder to catch a second, third or fourth time (for them, not me!! Lol)

No offense TnRiver, but most of us ain’t as talented as you are with a ‘stick. I still maintain that tournaments make fishing tougher for us average Joe’s. I’ve proven it on trout streams about gosh becoming conditioned to dry flies. Whereas the first easy to get to Meadow only produces a few takes of my flies, when I hike to the second or third meadow ( another 45 minutes up the trail) the amount of rises and takes of my flies usually about triples. Seen it happen way more than a few times

Another thought-last spring on my favorite smallie stream, I saw a guy with a flyrod having a blast catching really nice fish on a clouser minnow, tied very sparsely. I was struggling with my soft plastics to just catch a few. So I went home to my tying desk and in short order had a half-dozen of “my” clouser pattern in white and chartreuse with red dumbbell eyes and went back the next day. I got there after some chores at about the hour that the fish had quit biting on the day before. Not real hopeful but he wasn’t there so I waded out and on the third cast caught a 14’’ which in that stream is way above average. Wound up with 6 and the last was almost 19 inches which hardly ever gets caught by ANYone in that river. Very simple materials (deer hair and some crystal flash) but they smoked it! So who really needs the latest and greatest new lures to hit the market-the fish, or US??? Just wondering’

I’m hoping the guys spouting off about “just rely on the FFS technology “ and “Fire up the transducers “ were a little tongue-in-cheek. Otherwise, I’m reminded of the hubris the designers of HMSTitantic were displaying. They built their “unsinkable “ ship and it sailed into an iceberg…..

I battle bouts of depression every 5 years or so. I know I’m depressed when even thinking about fishing and all the attention to detail that it involves becomes a chore so overwhelming that I don’t even want to fool with my rods and baits, much less going to a pond or lake. I know I’ve come out of that dark hole when all those “technical” aspects become fascinating again. With all that being said, however, I do believe that tournament fishing on EVERY level, has made it way harder for us guys who just fish to get away from it all to enjoy ourselves. Solitude is great, but unfortunately in my case, catching a few bass of ANY size, in my mind, is tied to my “self-worth” as a fisherman who takes all of his study and past experiences into account as getting “better” at my chosen avocation. In my part of Northern Kentucky, any lake over 500 acres just does not exist, at least without a 5 hour drive in any direction of the compass! With the success people are having with FFS, it doesn’t matter that they immediately release their catch after weighing it for the contest they are in-it’s those fish are that much harder to fool a second time. In addition, look at the price af almost ANY NON-plastic bait-it’s darn near impossible to find a hard bait under 7 or 8 bucks, with many jerkbaits around $15-25! I realize a tourney angler justifies these prices by rationalizing their next exorbitant purchase is the one that leads to ending up cashing a payout check so it justify their purchase. Meanwhile guys like me who just wanna have fun have to pay those crazy prices too. So in summary, temporary lulls where all aspects of my hobbies become dull, followed by euphoric returns with greater passion than before, albeit with a Nostalgic wish for less fishing pressure, that,amplified by technology that makes the fish way more vulnerable to guys who can afford, and know how, to take advantage of said technology

Yesterday I twice had bass pull my Roboworm out of the rubber o-ring when I tried to set the hook. I use #6 wood screws in the head of the worm. That got me wondering, is that going to kill that fish? What are your thoughts??