ww2farmer

What ever line you feel comfortable with. It's not a light line technique IMHO. Personaly I use braid, usually 30, sometimes 20, sometimes 50. Before I used braid, I used 15lb Trilene Big Game mono, 20 if I had to keep them real shallow.

When he tries to horse a fish over the side of the boat with 8lb fluoro, even though I have the net in hand,and have always been a decent net man. Especialy when that fish bumps us down to 2nd place ...............HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOL.

I am a cheap skate when it comes to spinning reels. President....had one, was fine, nothing special, I found it a tad heavy. I see they redid them, but other than a thicker bail wire and a rubber knob insted of wood, they look the same to me. Symetre?? LOL OUT of my price range. Orra?if your talking about the SX...I have never seen one in person, but Wal Mart has a buch of the S's and I like them, one might find it's way home soon. Too bad Daiwa raised the price on the Exceler, it was my favorite "cheap" reel.

Well I have to try the other craws to see what all the "rage" around here is about LMAO

I know I guy that's pretty good out there, give me the guide fee, I'll tell him I want to fish Erie on such and such a weekend and I'll meet him at the ramp, you show up in my place, I'll call him and vouch for you on the spot. LOL. J. Francho can vouch for this "guide" as well.....hahahahaha

I have caught them doing just about every thing, but the things I catch the most on and rely on to catch them are flat out boaring. Drop shotting.........snooze, dragging a tube..........wake me up when we get there........................shaky heads or flick shake.......check my pulse........bed fishing..................well, ok, that ones kind of fun. But my all time favorite way to catch them is flipping heavy weeds...............yes!!! Every year a catch a bunch doing it, and you know it when it's a smallie, it's like grabbing a cat by the tail.

I will say this about those baits, that guy is a fricken genius. All those life like finishes, and super attention to detail are sure to catch the heck out of one thing....................fisherman. For every bass caught on some super, have to look twice to see if it's alive bait, 10 will be caught on a "I am not quite sure what it is really supposed to look like" crank bait color, or some odd shaped plastic like a sweet beaver, or the super life like bait we all love.....the spinnerbait LOL. But if it makes you feel better, go for it. When I spend $15 on a hard bait it will be on some Lucky craft that looks like a blue gill, or is it a crawfish.......... guess it depends on who you ask LMAO.

I am not giving you a smart remark. I gave you my opinion, which you asked for. I can only comment on the equipment I own and what I use it for, I don't have what I would call a "general purpose" cranking set up. If you truly want that, some one else will have to help you. Now if your talking tossing deep divers.............I can tell you what I use and why, if you don't like what I say, there is a search function here, type "crankbait rod " in and then read all you ever wanted to know and more.

I crank with braid. All types of cranking. Deep cranking I use 20lb, gets the baits to there max depth, you can feel everything, for ripping lipless cranks out of weeds or squarebilling heavy cover I use 30lb, thats WWE style fishing for me, I want that fish out of that grass and cover, and my baits all have heavy gauge wire treble hooks. The rod has more to do with keeping fish pegged than the line, I use a moderate action cranking rod for the deep baits, and fast action rods with traps and squarebills.

What kind of jig heads?

Well if you want to fish baits that hit 15'-20' deep with a 7' M power rod..........I won't talk you out of it, best I can say is have fun, you will soon realize your mistake. Not that it can't be done, but you can also pound a nail in with a pipe wrench, it's just not the tool for the job.

They way the weather has been around here, most lakes are ice free now, and my home lake will be very soon. I will be out there as the last chunk of ice is melting. Has been that way for several years now, and based on trial and error over that time the rods on my deck the first day will have the following tied on: Football jig Drop Shot Tube Lipless crank bait The water is usually pretty stained immediatly after ice out, and cold...high 30's at best. Personally I leave the jerkbaits in the box till the water warms up to the mid 40's AND clears up.

A few years ago, before Rage craws even came out, I bought and fished Chigger craws, Yum craw Pappys, and Paca Craws, to see what one I liked best. 6 years later, I only use Paca craws. I was not real impressed with the either of the other two. Thats being said...I have never liked Paca craws as a jig trailer, they are hollow and don't stay on a jig hook real well for me, so you may want to consider that. It's not a big deal for me, as I use a chunk craw type trailer almost all the time, and just fish Paca's t-rigged. I did buy some rage craws this winter, because they have a solid body, to use as a jig trailer when I want some thing that moves some water.

No

Help us, help you. What length rod do you want? Is this more of an all purpose cranking set up, or do you want to do specific things with it? I don't rip lipless baits out of grass with the same set up I deep crank with.

I am a St Croix fan, BUT........I would take the BPS Cranking stick out of that groups hands down, any day. I owned a 7' M Cranking stick a few years ago and it was just perfect for baits like Bandit 200's or 300's, SK series 3's, Wiggle warts, DT 4's and 6's, Lipless cranks that you were not ripping from grass...I wish I still had it. It's an OK rod with things like DT 10's and DD14's too, but completely over matched on DD22's, and the DT 16's I tried with it. I didn't like it for square bills. I like a shorter more powerfull rod, for tight heavy cover work, and a longer faster action rod for, the same kind of rod I use for ripping traps out of grass actually, for walking a square bill trough and over submerged grass. A 7:1 reel will be fine, you can always slow down. the only thing I use a 5:1 reel on is big deep cranks, and thats more for power and not speed. I find it easier to slow down a fast reel, than speed up a slow one.

It does float, I used to use it in 8 and 10 lb test on my drop shot and finesse rods. Never had any issues with it, but I don't have any issues with Vanish either.....go figure.

Same ..............except I will also T-rig them with a tungsten weight pegged to the nose, and use a big EWG hook. That, and tube jig heads give me sure hook ups.

Just got mine yesterday, probably better go down to the bank soon and make sure they are going to be able to handle all the cash I deposit after I just show up at every local tournament I can and toss this around for a bit, haul in 30lb bags, and clean up, cause from what I hear, it's just that easy...............ROTFLMAO.

As would I, but at $12.99 for 5 of them, I won't be any time soon. I am not Bee I cee Tee H about the cost of lures guy, but those truly are out of my budgeted range for plastics.

When I lived in Florida, gold with black back and orange belly worked very well in the dark stained waters I fished around Tampa.

I can tell you what not to get LOL. My Tracker PT170tx is fine for me and one other person on the back deck, two adults on the front deck is too cramped for me, an adult and small kid is ok, but still pretty tight. I once had 3 people fish out of it, me up front, my dad in the center, and a buddy of his on the back deck.......worked fine, but we had to pay attention or we would bang rods together and/or beat my old man in the face with our rods...so I don't imagine he enjoyed it too much.

St Croix Legend Extreme 7' Medium power/fast action, with a Shimano Core 51MG..............untill I win the lottery I have to settle for my poor mans version of this combo, my Legend Tournament 7' M power/fast act. and Curado 51E

6xd for me. Why? IDK...................probably because I caught fish on them, and they are available. If I carried all the baits under the sun and tried to figure out why and or how a DD22, or a Dt 16, or a FFS....or insert deep diving bait here ____________ would catch an extra fish or two, when the others didn't, I would be broke, and more importantly be mentaly paralized by trying to figure it out. When they are not biting a big bodied deep crank like the 6xd, I have found that switching to another bait of the same type is pointless, but if it makes you feel better, and smarter than the rest of us, than go for it. . Your better off changing presentations (if you know there are fish in that location) than changing to differant brand of the same style bait.

I use a 3/8 and 1/4 a lot more than I use 1/2 and bigger. A 1/4 oz bait with down sized blades, a trimmed back skirt and a 1/4 oz lead sinker pinched on the hook shank to keep the bait from rolling or blowing out of the water reeled at warp speed has fooled many clear water shallow spring time bass for me.