ww2farmer

Just one from recent memory. A buddy and I fished a tournament last sunday, we took second with 18.5 lbs, winners had 19. Smallest fish in our bag was 2-11, I had a good one of unkown size run me into some heavy cover and break me off drop shotting. The next afternoon I went out after work, fished in the same vicinity where the break off happened, and caught the fish that broke me off.............a 4-9, with my hook still in it's face from the day before. Add that fish to our bag that day......we win.........oh well.

I am a big St Croix fan, and own 3 LTB's, and eventually, when $$$ allows, all my other St Croix's will be traded in for LTB's and I will not buy anything else new now either thats not a LTB. The 7' M/F LTB "Teaser" and 7' MH/F LTB "Sweeper Spinnerbait", and the 7'10" H/Mod "Magnum Cranker" are the three casting rods I own, I also owned and foolishly sold the 7'6" MH/Mod fast "pitching" and 6'6" M/F "jerkbait" rods......I wish I had them back. They are very light, very sensitive, and well made. If your looking for "General Purpose" rods from St Croix, go with Medium Power, I thing the 6'8" M/XF spinning, and the 7'1" M/F casting would be a great set of "do-all" rods.

Kind of, all the rods in my boat at the end of last year were St Croix's, and all my reels were all Shimano's, and from now on, those two brands are all I am buying. BUT last winter I bought some cheap Berkley Lightning Rod Shocks, to use as pond hopping, keep in the back of the Jeep, and/or loaner rods, and mounted my remaining Quantum reels on them, and I ended up liking the dang things so much they have made it to, and have stayed in the boat all year.

Spro. I was on a SK KVD frog kick for a while, and they catch fish just as good as the Spro's, but there durability is horrible.

IMHO you want a rod with some tip, it helps launch the bait back under stuff. I have used many rods for skipping docks/overhanging trees, etc... from $200 St Croix Avid's, to $30 Berkley Lightning Rods. The rod I am using now is very well suited to this technique, it has some tip that loads really well with baits like Senkos, tubes, etc, but has enough power to move fish out and away from the dock. It's a cheap rod by some peoples standards here, and I am using it totaly by accident. I broke my Kistler dock skipping rod last year, and have not got around to replacing it yet with any thing, This winter I bought a set of 3 Berkley Lightning Rod Shocks (2 casting, one spinning) as truck/pond fishing/loaner rods, but I am using them all the time, and the 6'6" M spinning rod has found a home in my boat as my dock skipping rod. It's looks out of place on my boat deck mixed in with the Avids, and Legend Tournaments, but I am about catching fish, not how much my rods cost.

I replaced Zoom super flukes a couple years ago with SK Caffine shads, and the caffine shads have since been kicked to the curb by GYCB D-shad, and thats that. I like them..............alot. Durability?? Well it's GYCB.......so no,they Zoom baits win that battle, but the Yamamoto is better than the SK. They catch the crap out of the fish around here. LMB, SMB, Pike, and of coarse as with all Yamamoto baits, giant, bait tearing, Rock bass. They walk the dog under the water far easier than both the fluke and caffine shad, they are easier to cast than flukes due to the heavy salt content, they stay down with out any added weight on the hook, they also will come up and flop around on the surface just fine too, if that's what you want. They wiggle on the fall like a senko, they don't seem to twist my line all to heck like a fluke, and they come in the colors I want in a soft jerkbait............bubble gum, green pumpkin and watermelon/red. Plus they are the only one of the three I mentioned, that once the nose rips out, and you bite a 1/2 " off still do what they are supposed to do.

It also depends on who made the rod. My 7' med. power/fast action rod is a St Croix LTB, it is about the same power as my buddys Loomis MBR 843 IMX, which Loomis calls a MH powered rod, and is more powerfull than the 6'9" MH/fast Kistler "All Purpose special" I once owned. I use mine for many things, lipless cranks, topwater, spinnerbaits, jigs, worms, square bills, pitching to light/moderate cover, hard and soft jerkbaits, weightless soft plastics, c-rigging, "bubba-shotting", medium running cranks, buzzbaits, and probably more. Most versitile rod I own.

I tow a 17' Aluminum with a 2001 Jeep Cherokee 4.0 straight six, automatic transmisson.......and the same boat with my old Jeep Cherokee, a 97 with a 5 speed. Neither even know it's back there, but the 2000 with the automatic sure likes to guzzle gas when it's towing. I wouldn't be afraid of a small glass boat, but any thing bigger than a 17 footer with more than a 150 would be pushing it.

I eat way WAY to much crap, on the go all the time at work, it's pizza or subs, and I eat too much, too late at night when I get home from fishing. I am the only person I know who loses weight the less busy I get, not that I ever slim down, but from April to November when I am on the go all the time I just don't eat right. Than god I drink little to no soda or beer, or I would be 400lbs for sure.

I was getting gas in the boat just the other day, when the guy the next pump over, probably just being nice, ask's " Heading to the lake?" me, being the DB I am, said " No, I tow this around all the time just in-case I drive into a flood ." He cuckled, and probably realized what an a-hole I am and drove off.

I carry the dang things around with me because I have caught lots of fish, and good ones too, on them. But it seems like they are an afterthought, and I only use them once every five years or so. Someone always seem to kick my butt on them at least once a year during a tournament too. Your post reminded me I still have a bunch, I might even toss one again some day LOL.

Here on earth...........bass eat bluegills, many lure companys make bluegill pattern baits because of that. Fisherman like to buy things that look "real"..........bass don't care, and bite brite orange frogs just as well as bluegill colored ones.

I have plenty. Like the other poster said, they are a Gander Mtn. exclusive. They catch fish, but are not my favorite color, that is................none of your business LOL.

Fantastic fish. If they got that big around here, I might not bass fish quite so much.

No, I fish for bass from the time the mother nature takes the cover off the lake in March or April, till she puts it back on in December. Then I walk on it, and fish for bluegills till next spring.

I think ALL the older Citica's before the D series were 5.1:1

Most of my rods are St Croix's. I have 2 Mojo's, 2 Avids, and 3 Legend Tournaments. They are more powerfull then other rods I have owned with the same power. For example my 7' MH/Fast Avid Casting rod is more powerfull than the Kistler 7' H/fast "Jig and Toad" rod I had. And the 7'11" H/Mod. fast Mojo "Flipping" stick I have is WAY more powerfull than my old flipping rod, a 7'6" XH/Fast Fenwick HMX. I don't own any of those lenghts/powers/actions of the rods you mentioned, only you can decide if they will fit your style. I am just giving you a comparison of St Croix's ratings to other companys ratings.

I am a big fan of Mega Strike. Does it work? I think so. Not so much to attract bites, but to mask any offensive odors that might repell bites, and to get fish that do bite to hold the bait longer......that really helps on those days when they are biting lite, and you don't feel the text book "thump" or your line dosen't move off in another direction. I can't tell you how many times in just the last 2-3 weeks I have not "felt" anything. Just take the slack out of my line and it feels "heavy", I am fully convinced those fish might not have made it to the boat had I not been using Mega Strike.

Some of my best finishes in tournaments have been when we have caught them good for a short spurt............followed by hours of grinding, and junk fishing for bites. Actually, thats pretty much how it is most of the time, tournament or not. Rare is the day when they are on fire from the time I drop the TM till I put the boat back on the trailer, it only happens a couple times a year, thats why I remember those days so well. The days where I go out and catch a few fish in the morning, followed by painfully slow lulls, either untill I change what I am doing, or the fish turn back on, are all a blur.

A weightless Jackall Cover Craw, or Reaction Inovations Sweet Beaver rigged backwards will fall away from you as well. Other options to consider as well as the GYCB Fat Ika.

Exactly what the previous poster said. But I have seen a color change switch slappers and followers to hook ups, but that usually is a once or twice a year deal. Most of the time when the frog bite is on, any color will do. I carry two colors, a translucent Green pumpkin color (Spro or SK KVD, both work well for me) for clear, semi open water, and something with a yellow belly, I don't care what color the back is,as long as it's green or brown, both work fine, thats a good general purpose use, use in any type of water, frog color. IDK what it is about black or white for me, every one else likes those colors, but I can't buy a bite on them.

Good lord man....................I know guys are addicted to buying tackle, like myself, so I can't crap on you for that. BUT!!!!! If you add up all the money you have spent on JUNK since you have been here, you could, I am guessing, have a couple decent rod/reel combos, and a modest selection of quality baits. I don't get it, are you trying to amass the worlds largest collection of garbage fishing tackle and equipment? It's not like there are 100's of 1000's of posts on here or anything, recomending good, sound, quality, yet budget friendly gear, yet on a seemingly semi daily basis, you go and buy some kind of old, or poor quality, or discontiuned stuff cause it was cheap. In all seriousness..............what exactly are you trying to accomplish?

Jackall I-motion baits and technique. Also want to try their Clone Gills on the dropshot, a little pricy for 3 baits, but they look good. I got some Spro Little Johns deep divers coming on a current TW order, can't wait to try them.

The best tactic I have found for catching pike is to tie on your most expensive bass lure, or a lure you are crushing bass on and are down to your last one untill a TW order can be made. Make sure you use no steel leader. You won't be able to keep them away. Oh...they also like big heavy tungsten sinkers, the bigger and more expensive the better. I think an $8 1 oz. of tungsten flipping weight, and a $2 Trokar hook is like crack to pike.

You said it has an abundance of hydrilla. Look there. Start by fishing the edge's, both inside (shallow) and the outside (deep) weedlines. If that hauls water get busy fishing right in the thick of it. Move around fishing all depths in the weeds untill you catch a few, then focus on that depth in the grass to see if your on to something.