T-Billy

Bite was tough again today. 10hrs of grindin produced 5 fish. The muskie bite has really died off. Been around lots, but getting bit is tough to do. Put down the rig after about an hour and a half today, and decided to go bass fishing. I promptly caught two little muskie pitching a sweet craw to shallow rock piles. Go figure. Managed two LM and a SM too. All off sandstone chunk rock. The second LM was a nice chunk, 3.54#.

I don't know exactly how many I have, but it's over fifty.

Nice!!! Congratulations!!!

It's been tough for him lately too. Hoping to change that tomorrow.

LOL. I enjoy doing this to my buddies. I work a rotating schedule, so I get a lot of weekdays off.

Three bites today. I'll take 'em gladly after two skunkings in a row. One front after another rolling through here this week, with another rolling in tomorrow. Has the bite all kinds of jacked up.

The night bite gets hot for me when the water hits right about 70. That's late May/early June here. Lots of post spawners feeding up on the shallow flats at that point. Chatterbait over the still submerged grass is a killer. If they're short striking it, I'll switch to a paddletail swimmer.

Lol. It's actually the Ark, Tharp Series, "One Eyed Jack". I am still using a few non Ark rods, but not many. The Gen1 SLX 7'-10" H MF is a great A-rig rod, and my BFS rods are Phenix Feathers.

I have a 6-8 M MF. It's my small swimmer, grub, small jerkbait/popper rod. Not super versatile, but it's very good at a few things. It does a great job of keeping those crazy smalljaws pinned with the small hooks on these baits.

8 cup pot of Stocking Mill Coffee's "Direct Action" every morning. Great blend. Full bodied, and rich tasting for a medium roast. Low acidity as well.

Sorry for your losses Glenn. Good to hear you're cured. Thanks for the heads up on the PSA . I get an annual physical, but my doc has never mentioned it. I'll be requesting one this year, and going forward. I appreciate ya brother.

It was in the 40's and not much wind. My little pee brain would bake under that hat today.

Ain't much of one, but I caught my first green bass of 23 today. Super pale, fresh up from the deep. Water's up to 45.

It was a grind today. Fished from 7-3 and only put this 34" and a little LM in the boat. Lost a nice 40" or so at boatside while trying to net it. Back after 'em tomorrow.

Cheating? No. Boring? Yep.

I've never done well with realistic craws either. Gimme a beaver of some sort, and a rage or speed craw and my bases are covered in that dept.

Man, I like the looks of your fishin hole.

Not exactly the hog roast they were expecting...... Wait... They're coming to your place...... Yep, that's exactly what they're expecting. ?

Lol. Hadn't seen you over there lately and thought you might like those. I'm only working a few days the first half of April. Hopefully there's a bunch more to come.

In the meantime you oughta pay a visit to the other species thread, ya slacker. ?

@A-Jay if you decide to try this setup, look on the big auction site for your sinkers. These are made with Do-it's mold and are a bit more compact than most I see because of the eye design. Compare this one with the sinker in the post above. These will lay nicely up under the "chin" of the bait.

Yeah, 100% the hooks were the reason to try this. I couldn't find any 1/8 oz jigheads with a hook bigger than 3/0, and none of my molds would give me what I wanted either. The sinkers in the pic are 3/16, because they're all I could find local. I just recieved some 1/8 in the mail today. They're gonna get powder coated red. 1/8 is my go to weight in 15' of water or less. Turns out, the keitechs have a lot more roll to go with that wide tail wag when using the sinker/flippin hook combo. Dunno how much difference that makes to the fish, but it's definitely there. The plastic keeper on the flippin hooks holds the swimmers VERY securely too. I'm gonna stick with this setup even on my lighter bass rigs.

Thanks A-Jay. Yeah, the bass are getting an early and late season reprieve. The rig has truly been a game changer for me. It was so successful last fall, I got busy in the T-Billy Skunkworks this winter and built some truly esox worthy rigs. All stainless construction including the swivels. .051 wires all mechanically locked and soldered together inside a piece of stainless tubing to form the head. The 48# hyperwire split rings are the weakest link. Jigheads have been replaced with a bell sinker and 5/0 flippin hook. Running 4.8 Keitechs. I now have a rig I can be confident in when leaning hard into those big girls. Edit to add: These rigs only cost me about $5 apiece to make, and I can build one in about 15 minutes.

I don't weigh them because I don't want to risk injuring them by hanging them from that gripper. That's a lot of weight to hang from such a small point. I'd guess that big girl at 40# +. OH State record is 50.5" 55.13#.