ww2farmer

If you want really comfortable, long lasting trousers the way to go is a set of quality reproduction WW2 USGI cotton herringbone twill fatigue pants. They are loose in the crotch,butt, theighs to allow freedom of movment in the field. They are intentionally oversized to be worn OVER another pair of pants, but not baggy.........if that makes sense. And they are made to fit around your TRUE waist, not under your gut, or like the hip huggers that many jeans today are. Plus the HBT material is lighter, tougher and breaths better than denim. The 1941 Army, and USMC patterns have regular pockets like jeans, and the mid war "special" pattern, and 1944 pattern USMC pants have huge cargo pockets that a Plano 3600 box can fit in........if you need that kind of thing. I never cared for having much weight in those pockets other than a couple K-rations, or my empty garand en-bolcs that I picked up. A couple full clips of ammo or grenades in those pockets just makes it difficult to move around in. They will outlast any jeans made, but they ain't cheap. $50-$75 a pair for imported ones, and $100+ for ones made still made in the USA on original WW2 era textile equipment.

I use a Strike King KVD perfect plastics chunk most of the time. The don't flap like the Paca or Rage stuff, but have more of a subtle "flutter". They are my go to trailer for most of the year. About the only time I don't use them is in early spring, clear water, or very late in the season. Then I use a GYCB craw. When it does seem like they want something with a lot of action, I usually bypass the jig, and just fish a plain Paca craw on a texas rig.

Not being a wise guy..........but since your fond of Powell's, why don't you try the TW exclusive Powell square bill rod? If it were me, and Powell's were my rod of choice that would be the one to get and give a try out.

Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn Stx, Excaliber EEeratic shad are two that I tried and had good success with last year. With the RC Stx getting a slight nod for smallmouth, and the Excaliber seemed to be a better LM and pike bait. I will try the SK KVD's this coming season. I have always had the Spro Mcstick on my try list, but for some reason I have not yet. I was never a big fan of X-raps, I caught fish on them, but I got way too many duds right out of the package, baits that would sink like rocks, leak, float, etc....I did like the husky jerks though, and for many many years they were my go to suspending jerkbait.

Thats something I have yet to find myself as well. In my case my deep cranking rod (St Croix LTB 7'10" Magnum Cranker) is great for just that, deep cranking with the larger baits, like SK 5xds/6xds, Spro Little John DD's, etc... But is poor a choice for general purpose cranking as it just doesn't load or cast well with bait's less than 1/2 oz. So I recently picked up a 7' MH/Mod St Croix Mojo cranking rod for the times I am not throwing the bigger baits, but it is also rated to 1oz. With no time on the water with it yet I don't know if it's the answer as a "do-all" cranking rod.

For what?

I have the same livewell in my Tracker Pt170, and it does the same thing with the drain tube un-screwed. A little bit of water will run into the livewell back up from the drain, but never more than the level of the boat in the water. With the drain in, it stays dry unless Iturn the pump on. I have had this boat for 7 years now and it's done it from day one. The only time I get water in my bilge is when the drain plug is in and I am running the livewell constantly. I installed a 750GPM pump to replace the 500GPM it came with, and the 1" overflow tube can't keep up. So water will run out of the livewell lid and get in the bilge. I did have a few small cracks that were hard to see on the bottom of my hull once, the area around the cracks was dented in, so I must have hit something when I was fishing in the swamps. Those cracks let a little bit of water in each time I was out, not alot , but enough to get me to crawl under and look for something like that.I guess I at the end of the day I would have a gallon or two of water in the bilge. I took the boat to a local shop and they brazed the cracks closed a few years ago, and now I do not get any water in there, unless, like I said the livewell is running over, or I am out in the rain.

I am not too picky. Usually Wranglers, cheap and easy to find. They hold up fine as "normal every day " jeans. but for work it's either Carharts, or Riggs workwear, which is made by Wrangler. As a fat guy with skinny legs,narrow hips, and a big gut I have never found a pair of Levi's that fit me too well.

Same here. Years ago someone told me that if you left them leaning too long they will take that bend perminatly. IDK if they do or not, but when I started buying better rods I started using the racks just incase.

I wish Shimano would offer that double clutch on a newer LH reel. The Castaic sit's too high in the reel seat for my liking. And I can't or won't drop the kind of money they want for the Core that has it for a flipping reel..........besides they don't make that in LH anyways.

My crankbaits all get the Mustad KVD 1x strong, 2x short triple grips. Deep divers get replaced with the stock size on the rear, and one size up on the front. For example, a Stike King 6xd comes with #2's I go with a #2 on the rear, and a #1 on front. Squarebills and lipless baits I stick with the stock size. With topwaters and jerkbaits, I am not married to any hook. I try to replace them with a hook of similar wire gauge, and shank length to keep the bait balanced and doing what it's supposed to do. It changes from bait to bait, some times it will be a Mustad, or a Gamakatsu, or VMC, etc....

x2 LOL

I have always liked painted blades for LM too. One trick I like is to paint one side of the blade, and leave the other side unpainted, it seems to really help in clear water cutting down the ammount of flash, and I have seen it make a differance between not getting bit at all on a spinnerbait to having a good day on one.

I purposely didn't mention them. But your right...........

I am always funding my new stuff with sales of my old stuff. That helps a little, for one it keeps the accumulation of "stuff" that I don't use down, and if it's out of sight with her, it's out of mind. And, much like a little kid with an allowance, I keep a little of my paycheck every week off to the side and buy stuff with that, so what if I have to save for a two or three weeks for a new rod, reel, or longer for more expensive stuff.That way there are no bills to worry about paying, the kids are clothed and fed, and I don't have to take money out of our joint savings to buy toys. I am not big on buying "wants" on credit and prefer to keep the cards clean and paid down incase the washing machine, or what not craps the bed at the worst time. When I am not doing things that way, it's just little stuff here and there, like a couple crankbait, or bags of plastics, etc.. when we are at the mall and I run into Dicks, Gander Mtn, or Wal mart. She allows me to fish pretty much when ever I want, so the least I can do is not bankrupt us in the process.

Alberto...........lived many times, only died once. Wasn't the knots fault either, I tied a bad one the night before, and couple that with the fact I was using that rod for frogging the last time out, I forgot to back the drag off after I tied the fluoro leader to it = disaster. I picked the worst time to get stupid too.....of coarse it was during a tournament, where my partner and I took 2nd with 18.5lbs, we missed first by 1/2 a lb. The next day I went to the lake and in the same area, I caught a nice 4.75 lb fish....................with my hook stuck in it's face and 5 feet of fluoro tied to it. I knew it was my hook........well because I am the only one I know who uses them LOL, and the fish was caught give or take a boat length from where I broke it off during the tournament. After that there was no more jumping back and forth from plastics to frogging with that rod, and I test every knot I tie right away.

Some people prefer fast action rods to "snap" cranks out of grass without loading the rod. I am on the fence with this. My deep cranking rod is a Mod. action, yet I can snap and pull it free from weeds without any issues, maybe because I am using braid. I just bought a Mod action rod for traps, and sqaure bills, and plan to use it with braid as well, we'll see if that works for me next year or not. If not, I will go back to a fast.

If what your using works, why change? I don't know if a round ball head with a 90 degree eye is the best either, but I sure used to catch a ton of fish with one when swimming a grub...........in fact I don't know why I still don't do it. Letting a 3"-4" grub sink to the bottom on 1/4 oz ball head and slowly swimming it back used to produce for me in just about every type of condition, especially when it the water was still very cold, like early spring, and late fall.

St croix has a warranty?!?!?!..............That will be news to some. LOL

Shut up jerk.............I am trying to sell one LOL

Nice fish Felix77!!! I pretty much fall in with the group here , on what type of rods/reels I fish shaky heads on. My set up is St Croix Mojo 6'8" M/XF spinning rod, paired with a Shimano Sonora 2500 spooled up with 10lb braid with an 8 or 10lb fluorocarbon leader.

You have inspired me, I do keep a log as well, but it's more like a diary entry, I'll have to get into it and break it down, see what I come up with.

I think I have caught more smallmouth dropshotting than just about any other technique combined. For me, it's when/where/how I present the drop shot to them more so than what bait I have on it. In fact, I am pretty confident in saying that if your around them and giving it to them in a manner they want it, day in and day out, you will be hard pressed to beat a plain old simple 4" finesse worm of your choice. Back to the presentation thing, I have seen days where they want it zipping by with the sinker banging and dragging along the bottom, days where you have to drop it on there nose, days where you can't shake it too fast to get a bite, days you can't hold it too still to get a bite, days where the length from the hook to the bottom mattered and days where it didn't, and so on and so forth. Don't get locked into thinking you can only fish it one way, it's a very versitile technique, and if my life depended on catching a fish, would be the one thing I would do.

I too was looking for a new cranking rod a few weeks ago, something with a little more "range" than my St Croix LTB 7'10" "magnum cranker", which is a great rod for deep divers, but kind of overkill for everything else. I had my mind made up on the 7'4" Mojo M glass rod, but once I got to the store and got my hands on it, and the 7' MH/Mod graphite Mojo cranking rod, I went with the graphite. I have yet to fish with the rod, so we shall see if I made the right choice, but after cranking with graphite, I felt going to glass was not for me after all. And FWIW , at least as far as the magnum cranker is concerned I am glad I went with graphite on that too, has all the feel you could ever want in a cranking rod, with the parabolic action of a glass. I toyed with getting rid of it in a "downsize the rod collection" brain cramp, but am glad I did not.

I think for the first 5 years I owned my boat, no two years in a row did I have the same plastics storage and orginization system. I have done the worm binders, the in there original bags in ziplock bags, loose in plano boxes, and a couple others I can' t even remember. Finally the last 2-3 years I have settled on a system that works, and works well for me. I bought a couple of the deep, one compartment, plano 3700's. Each one is decicated to a "style" of baits. I have one for flipping baits/jig trailers, one for dropshot/small stuff, and one for senkos/flukes/worms. I keep several packs of my most used baits in each box and restock out of a huge rubbermaid tote full of all the stuff I use that I keep at home. When I use up a bag of whatever, the empty bag goes in my pants or coat pocket, so I know when I get home............oh yeah, better go get a couple bags of X out of the tote for next time. And I keep a list of what is in the tote on a clipboard next to the tote and mark off what I took out, so the next time I make a trip or order to a tackle store I replace it if I am running low. How ever you want to store your plastics is up to you, just giving you an idea of how I do it, incase it might help.