ww2farmer

I catch one or two a year on accident, sometimes in the mouth, sometimes on other parts of the body. Let me tell you a 35-40lb carp, hooked in the tail with a red eye shad is quite the tussle. I enjoy it, and have gotten most of them in successfully, but I am glad it's only a couple times a year.

I have no opinion on the other rods, as I have never used them, but STAY AWAY from this rod as a flipping stick. It's not lights, nor balances well with any less than a 10oz. reel, after an hour of flipping with such a combo you'll want to stomp on kittens and punch old people. I like St Croixs just fine, but...........not this rod.

Anyone can catch them when they are biting, to do well in tournaments you have to be able to catch some when they are not. Learn how to fish adverse conditions.

Not really a close call or anything, more of just ..."huh...cool story bro" kind of thing. But I was on the south end of my local lake, which is a long skinny lake the runs north and south and is about 3-4 mile long. It was late/summer early fall, a time when my allergies are acting up. I had forgotten to take my prescription meds that AM, so on the way to the lake I stopped by the drug store and grabbed some OTC allergy stuff.....I didn't pay much attention, and did NOT get the non-drowsy stuff. After about 20 mins of fishing I was pretty sleepy, so I laid down in the boat.....only to wake up several hours later just about ready to crash into the shore on the north end of the lake...............lesson learned...don't take a nap in the boat without anchoring.

Hurry up and melt ice.....food.....hurry up and melt ice....food....hurry up and melt ice...food......hurry up and melt ice...food.....hurry up and melt ice....................you get the idea. It's pretty much the same every day, except after the ice melts it's ...when is work going to be over...

Depends on who you ask. I pretty much think I am Einstein, Edison, and Henry Ford rolled into one..................my wife on the other hand wants me to get help for all my mental disabilities.

Were still locked up....so zero for me..............but before long I will have a silly lead on just about everyone here.

Whats wrong with the Rapala? Even when I was on my anti-Rapala kick, I still used there knives. My hand powered one has cleaned more fish over the last five years than I can count, and after a couple swipes every few fish on the sharpener still cuts like new. My electric knife is only a year or two old, but it sure is nice. Since I bought that I usually fillet with the electric, and de-bone, and skin with the manual.

NO....you know what works.............. nothing, except paying attention and slowing down a little bit in known deer infested areas.....but sometimes you still get one.There is a couple mile stretch of road I have driven every day to work for 20 years that has to be the deer hit capital of the world. I have hit 2 in those 20 years and consider myself lucky. Just last week, I drove down that rode in one of our tractors that sit up way higher than your average car/truck/suv, so I could see down in the ditches, over the bushes, and etc...that you can't see from a car, and counted a new record of 36 dead deer in about a 3 mile stretch of that road.....and that was just the ones that I could still tell were deer. The old record was 21. Plus there were a dozen more on the north and south sides of the "hot zone".

Neither....I like the hybrid of the two that VMC makes called the Rugby Head. Stands up great like a football, has an offset EWG hook to rig baits weedless...I hate the giant barbs, pegs, or screw locks on other shaky heads, and they come through wood/dock's AND grass better for me than both a round or regular football.

Couldn't have said it better myself, except to add a translucent color when they seem to by just boiling but not taking a solid color in clear water. I have seen it help turn the slappers into biters. It didn't seem to matter what the color was, just as long as it was translucent.

Best is subjective, guys are going to be partial to stuff they have had great results with, but that doesn't mean another craw is not just as good. I like Paca Craws in all the regular and baby sizes for the times when I...(or more importantly the bass) want something with some action, I like the Zoom lil-critter craws for a subtle finesse craw, and I like the Havoc slop craw for punching and heavy cover work.

This....and they like swim jigs, and squarebills too You don't say LMAO.

To be honest.............I look for other fish. Those bass, while not impossible to catch, are not easy either. Once in a while everything lines up just right where those fish chase and pounce, but usually my bait don't even hit the water yet and they spook. What I have found that sometimes works for them...............stay back where you can't see them anymore, and SKIP your lure across the top of the water at them, it seems to spook them way way less, even though it makes more of a racket....go figure.

I also noticed you have a St Croix LTB 7' M/F.....if that is the casting rod AKA "Teaser" and not he spinning version, that's about as "do-all" of a rod there is. I used mine for shallow, mid depth, and lipless cranks FOR YEARS and it was great.

Needed ??? NO.......especially for shallow cranking, in fact, sometimes, depending on the cover, a cranking rod is counter productive. That being said, IMHO there are only two techniques in bass fishing where specialized gear is a must....Punching, and Deep cranking. Everything else can be done with M or MH powered, fast action rods.

These are the cranking rods I either own now....OR have owned in the past, I'll give you my thoughts on each and let you take it FWIW: 7'10" Heavy power/mod. action Legend Tournament "Magnum Cranker". Good rod for bombing big crankbaits like SK 6xd's, lots of back bone for ripping baits out of grass, and pretty light for a darn near 8' rod............but it also almost $300. What I didn't like about it, is that I tend to fish baits on the lower end of it's rating more than it's mid to upper range. It was a little too stout IMHO to load up and cast SK5xd's very well, which is what I use about 80% off the time for my deep cranking...........Also it has about ZERO uses other than deep cranking. I did not like it for shallow or lipless baits, and space is limited in my boat so having one rod for one bait was not getting it done for me. But if you want a rod to throw 6xd's, DT20's, and other 1oz.ish size baits this rod is almost perfect for it. 7'9" MH Kistler Argon "cranking" rod....I never got to use this rod enough to form an opinion, it broke on like the third fish I ever caught with it, and Kistler did NOT have any in stock to replace it with, nor were they too concerned with helping me out warranty wise sooooo......moving on. 7'6" MH Abu Veritas Winch: Not as whippy as some cranking rods, it fishes the 5xd's better than the big St Croix, and handles 6xd's OK...has more versatility than the St Croix, I also toss bigger square bills (2.5 etc) , and 3/4oz. lipless cranks with it, nice and light, and balances well. This is the rod I currently have, and time will tell if I like it for the long haul. 7' MH/Mod St Croix Mojo "crankbait".....this was a great rod for square bills, mid depth (wiggle warts, bandit 200's, etc....) and 1/2 oz lipless baits..........AS LONG AS you were not around grass, which is where I do most of my cranking. Even with braid, it loaded up too much IMHO to get a clean "pop" out of the grass, but other than that it was great. 7' M BPS Cranking stick....even though it was labeled as a Medium power it popped baits out of grass better than the Mojo, and it handled everything the Mojo tossed just as well and was a few bucks cheaper to boot.......for some dumb reason I got rid of this rod on a whim and kick myself for doing it. 7' M Abu Veritas Winch....like the BPS Cranking stick, even though it's a Medium power, it pops the baits out of grass better than the Mojo, plus it's lighter and balanced better. This is a rod I currently have, and I fish 1.0 and 1.5 size squarebills on it, 1/4 and 1/2 oz. lipless baits, mid depth baits (wiggle warts,etc..) and I have even tossed some top water with it, which I didn't do with the Mojo because it loaded to much instead of worked the bait. I like this rod, but honestly, I should have just kept the BPS cranking stick and been done with it.

Same here. I find some rods labeled as "frog" rods to be quite terrible for frogging. "cough...St.Croix...cough"

There are a couple younger guys who help me run the tournaments on our home lake that I have "helped" .....mostly with legit tips, and stuff, and they are good, they have done well . BUT some of my tips were ...............lets just say, misleading. And I have seen them chasing those tips........I feel bad, but my luck is it will lead them on to something, and they will whip my butt with it.

Everyone sit down, I am about to blow the lid off this place...........my secret bait: A 5" green pumpkin stick worm Your welcome.

I imagine the natural weedy lakes of Minn. fish pretty similar to the natural weedy lakes of WNY...they all have little quirks but it's still pretty similar. Soooooo............do what I do and you'll be all set. What do I do? A little bit of everything....but mostly top secret stuff

Your price range is a good thing to post. A $70 BPS cranking stick is a darn good cranking rod.....but there are $400 cranking rods out there if you want to spend that much. Asking what is "best" without stating your budget is just asking to have a landslide of confusion start.

This is a good idea..................

Silver lake 120+ times a year since it's in my back yard, Conesus as much as I can when I have the time, and Honeyoe once in a while. It's still going to be 10 days before we have ice free water down here. After that a anyone is welcome anytime.

I have the 7' MH Veritas, and it's my spinnerbait/swimjig/frog rod. It's a great rod for all those things, plus it a good jig and t-rig rod too. Pretty versitile stick.