T-Billy

Look at Tharp and Hackney's hookup percentage vs Swindle. Get that slack out before you crack em.

Yup. Ya gotta follow through and keep em coming at ya. Load that rod up and winch on em.

? I fish a TRD Bug alot. I like going Turd Bugg'n.

I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself.

Sweep set with trebles and exposed single hooks. Hard with jigs. HARD when driving a flippin hook home. Not only to drive the hook home, but also to get the fish coming my way on the hookset. I'd much rather lose some dinks as they fly over the boat than lose the fish of a lifetime, because it wrapped me up deep in the junk, because I didn't crack it hard enough. I lived that nightmare once flippin with 20# flouro. There's a bare spot on my wall because of that poor decision. Never again. Heavy cover = Big rod, Big Braid, Big Hook, Big Hookset. This is a good example. The shoreline is 5'-8' back in there down this bank. You need to get your bait back into the middle of it to get many bites. Sticking a big one in the middle of that on mono, or worse yet flouro, with a half hearted hookset, is a good way to get your heart broke.

6'10" ML, 2000 Revros since it's already spooled with mono and will probably balance well with that rod. I fish a TRD Bug alot on a 1/8 football head #2 hook, 6# XT. I lose a lot less jumping fish with straight mono, and don't feel like I miss many bites. A light spinning combo has pretty good sensitivity even with mono, and fish generally hold that light little bait a long time. My ned setup is a Tharp MM Special. 6'10" MLXF with a 2000 Penn Battle III. It's a sweet setup for ned'n. Also works nicely for catching those tasty crappie.

4" Stupid Tube is one of my favorite baits for fishing structure for LM. Especially in cold water. Green Pumpkin is the only color required. I buy Big Bite's tubes in the bulk bags. I go through a bunch spring and fall.

Yer Killin me Catt!!! That's my kinda weather. Not a fan of your summer weather though.

It slowed down in my parts vs 2020, but still busier than pre covid.

I carry a hammer handle for breaking it. I gotta disagree with JJ on the knot strength. I use a Snell, or a Palomar, and knot strength is not an issue. Most braids are underrated and break well above their advertised strength. I fish Sufix 832. Hands down the best braid I've used. Not the thinnest or the smoothest, but it's smooth enough, has great abrasion resistance, and handles great. That Gore fiber lives up to the advertising. You could try braid to mono leader. You'll get better feel and the lack of stretch will give you better hooksets and more control over the fish, while still enabling you to break off easier when you need to. I sometimes use a leader when fishing deep snaggy stuff for this reason. I use a Crazy Alberto to connect the lines. With a little practice it's easy to tie, and I've never had one fail. The leader will either break at the Trilene knot, or somewhere between the knots. The only thing I do different is when I come back out with the tag, I wrap it around one side of the loop twice. It won't budge once cinched good, and I cut the tags as close to flush with the ends of the knot as possible. That makes it come through the guides smoother than leaving even a little tag, especially on the mono end.

I gotta go with a technique instead of a bait. Punching mats hasn't been very productive for me. I spent a lot of time on it this summer and it just doesn't seem to be the way to roll around here. I could catch a few, but it was never nearly as productive as fishing wood that's choked out with weeds. The biggest benefit I reaped from punching was making the switch from EWG's to straight shank flippin hooks. Having that point buried in the bait vs skin hooked is a game changer. It allows pitching into the nastiest of tangles with confidence. Equally important was the switch from 20# or 25# mono to 40# braid for all my flippin/pitchin duty. That made a HUGE difference in my ability to move the fish toward me on the hookset and keep control of them. There's virtually no place I won't pitch into at this point, and it's paid off big. These two changes allowed me to REALLY up my heavy cover game.

Light and balanced, good hardware, and the mod fast taper does a great job of keeping those acrobats pinned. They have this blank in several series at different price points. I throw small swimbaits, grubs, jerks, small cranks, tubes, and topwaters on it. I'm gonna pick up a second one. These Tharp series are a heck of a value IMO. I think they fish well above their price point. I'm up to six with more to come.

Super Duty G here too. Three of 'em. All on stout rods, spooled with braid, drags locked down. They handle all my heavy cover duty. Oldest is four years old. Sees action most every trip. Often is in my hand most of the day pitchin a T-Rig.. Still running smooth. My two 3yo Tournament MB's get their fair share of use too. Also holding up really well. I service them once a year, and fish 'em two or three days a week from March through November. Bearings get cleaned and lubed as needed. Rock solid reels.

To put a positive spin on it, you now have a Clarus 4' Mag Heavy, extra, extra, extra fast!!!

I always work the bait with my right hand. Grew up fishing spinning that way. Saw no reason to change when I started fishing baitcasters. My jerkbait rod is an ARK Tharp One Eyed Jack, with a Curado BFS 8 speed. This setup takes a lot of the work out of it. I don't throw'em much but having a proper rod and a fast reel has made it less unenjoyable for me.

I like a fairly moderate taper and braid for both of those baits. I vote ARK Tharp B-Hittay. 7'4" MH Mod Fast. FANTASTIC rods for the money. $129 retail but as mentioned Black Friday is just around the corner.

Another part of it is learning to apply what you've read or watched to YOUR waters. Take for example @Catt's comment about fishing the downwind side of mats during pre-spawn. We have no mats here until well after the spawn. The weeds are just getting started about spawning time. What we do have is lots of chunk rock, and bass like it better than wood in the spring. So... When those spring winds get blowing up on those shallow rocks, guess where the bass like to position? Right there in the eddy on the downwind side of the rocks. Exact same principle, applied to the available cover in the waters I fish.

Underhand roll casts keeping the bait low to the water. Stop it with your thumb a little before it would land on it's own. It will land much softer this way.

Absolutely worth it. I keep a plastic container in my boat to save used baits for recycling. I went through hundreds of Ultra Molds Sweet Craws this season. The ones I'm fishing now are 3rd gen remelts. Good as the first time they were made. I probably have less than a nickle apiece in those baits at this point. I like to heat a little bit of virgin plastisol and add the recycled baits to that, but it's not necessary. You can just heat the copped up old baits. I've been checking the local goodwill for a used food processor. The finer you cut them the faster they melt into the mix. One of those oughta make it a breeze to grind them up into fine pieces.

I tried some #1 and 1/0 EWG hooks last spring for fishing small baits on a T-Rig in grass. My hookup percentage was terrible and most of the fish I landed weren't hooked very well. Just not enough gap there. The solution I found was the little 1/0 VMC flippin hook. Excellent hookup ratio. They can be hard to find though.

RIP Furious Hog Snatcher. God bless ya brother. Prayers for all his family and loved ones. I was just watching his Bassmaster Greatest Hits video. Watching him yank 4 pounders from 20' back in the toules at Havasu in 2015 might be the coolest thing I've seen in bass fishing. Aaron was one of the all time greats. Fantastic fisherman, and just an AWESOME personality.

Yes sir. It's surpassed Piedmont as my favorite lake, and it's 20 min from me. Only saw three other boats all day yesterday. They were all trolling for musky. Congrats on the new boat. I got the green light to buy one after we find a house. No small feat in this market.

Don't forget split rings and swivels....... Have you looked at their skirt tabs lately? ?

I should have tried a squarebill. I thought about it, but the musky like to steal them from me on this lake. I saw quite a few bass cruising milfoil stubble in 2-4 feet of water. Couldn't interest them. That's where I really missed the ned rod. That little TRD Bug on a 1/8 jighead is far and away the best bait I've ever used to get those spooky critters to bite. I throw it out in front of them a ways and when they get within 6' or so I'll move it just enough to get them to see it. Often they'll swim over and pick it up. Wacky senko is #2 for this, but it's a distant second. That little bug is a powerfull tool, especially in cold water. Yesterday was the only trip it wasn't on the deck for the past two seasons, and it'll be the last time I make that mistake. It's saved a lot of skunkings since I started fishing it.