ww2farmer

Sabers fan. Been a while since I have had anything to get excited about.............not as long as the Bills, but long enough. I was all for the "suck on purpose" and rebuild phase in the post Ruff/Reiger era, but my interest is fading fast. Maybe some day before I croak, both teams will be good at the same time.

I use that exact DD rear sight, and boring old fixed front sight base/gas block on my 20" rifle that only has irons and no optics. It's a nice sight, buy it....................however...........I have tried running a red dot at both absolute, and lower 1/3 co-witness with this sight, and it works fine too.....BUT, that set up is just not for me, it's "too busy" of a sight picture, and I still prefer the Magpul MBUS fold down rear sights when running optics. I can't speak to the matching DD fixed front sight, as I don't have it.

Strike King series 5 is just about right for 8-12 feet, the 5xd digs and grinds a little too much in less than 10', so I keep a few series 5's around for this. When they are not really keen on the size of the series 5, I switch it up to a 3xd and that works well too.

Yup....my home lake and it's mostly mud bottom is loaded with them.

I'm partial to Minn Kota as I run a 24v 70lb thrust variable speed Maxxum on my aluminum boat and it's terrific, way more TM than that boat needs, but that's what I want for fishing in wind, and heavy slop. That being said, my only comparison to Motor Guide, is the 12v, 45lb thrust 5 speed motor that came on my boat. It was fine, just not suited for my needs. It's not really an apples to apples comparison.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^ I also like chigger craws, and Rage single tail grubs. The Rage grubs are a more "predictable" constant action, so that might not be what your looking for. But the chigger craw is pretty erratic.

In my home lake, finding smallmouth beds is easy..............they are everywhere in 2'-12' feet of water. They make nice huge beds, that stand out like sore thumbs in clear water, and almost with out exception are next to something on the bottom, like a boulder, car tire, stump, rail road tie, etc......And as our smallmouth population has boomed over the last decade, they are now starting to spawn in areas that in years past you just didn't see them too often. Largemouth beds are a little more difficult to spot for me here, as they are not as good of "housekeepers" as smallmouth, and their beds often don't look like anything special on the bottom. They are also not as picky of where they bed. They do tend to stay shallower than smallmouth, but don't have a preference for being next to a hard piece of cover. I have found them in just random spots on soft bottom flats. Smallmouth, while not "colony" bedders like bluegills, tend to not be so concerned with other smallies bedding close by, largemouth however seem to want plenty of space between them and the next largemouth bed. We have a nice little progression of bedding here (not counting random late spawners which happen with both LMB, and SMB every year) usually about two big waves of smallmouth and crappies, with random largemouth, and hoards of rock bass showing up at the tail end of the second smallmouth wave. Then a big wave of largemouth, intermixed with random smallmouth. Then about the time smallmouth completely pull off, little lazy pumpkinseed sunfish make use of all the old smallmouth and largemouth beds that are not being used by random late spawning bass. Then the bluegill colonies show up, and bass still on beds are few and far between.

When I fished St Croix rods, I always felt the biggest jump in "feel" and performance was between the SCII and SCIII rods. The jump from SCIII to SCIV was not as noticable, I have never owned an SCV. To me the "sweet spot" is the SCIII, combining price and performance, and if/when I get another St Croix, from past exp., I will just go with rods with the SCIII blank. The new Mojo's with the SCIII blank are on my short list of rods to buy, as I liked the SCII blanked Mojo rods, and figure these new ones could/should be bit better. The new Mojo's are everything I wanted the discontinued Rage line of rods to be....which I had a few of, and was not a fan of a few of the things they did with that series. They lost me as a customer for Legend Tournament Bass rods a few years ago when they went away from the gen 2 LTB's to the current offering as I hate the reel seats they now put on these rods. Besides that, I had a 1/2 dozen gen 1 and gen 2 LTB's, and never saw, (other than looks) or felt they were better performing than less expensive Avid's I had.

As much as I hate to say it.................the senko (and it's 10,000 clones) This one bait has turned more fisherman who couldn't catch a cold in winter, standing outside with wet hair and no clothes on, into KVD over night just by opening a pack, sticking it on a hook, and casting it to a spot that "looks" good. If senko style baits were banned from tournament use around here, 3/4's of every field would come in skunked. The amount of people who only fish senkos around here is comical........but you know what? They do OK most days with them. I say this semi tung-in-cheek, as I am a fan, and user of stick baits.......as a tool, not as the end all be all.

One of my favorite things to do on really windy days, especially if it's a north or south wind on the finger lakes, as they run north and south and when the wind blows from those directions it's like fishing in current, is to sit down, toss out the c-rig , drop shot, or a football jig behind the boat. I let the wind blow me down the weedline or over offshore stuff while just letting my presentation drag on the bottom, and make small corrections with my trolling motor to stay pointed in the direction I want to be going. I call this the "modified Erie drag" as I learned it from the master of dragging, my buddy Noel.....wnybassman here on bass resource. Lots of big fish, both green and brown have been caught doing this, and a good amount of money won during tournaments while everyone else stacks up in spots to get out of the wind. More than once I have heard the comment at weigh-ins after those windy days "did you see that idiot in the aluminum boat out there trying to fish in the wind"

IMHO.............. St Croix 6'8" M/XF Mojo if you target largemouth more than smallmouth, where a little cover comes into play, and plan to use 8-12 lb line. Or...... St Croix 6'10" ML/XF Mojo if you target smallmouth more than largemouth in a more open water/light cover situation, and if you plan to use 6-10lb line. In the perfect world..........get both and you'll have 99.9% of all spinning rod techniques covered. If I had to pick just one, it would be the 6'8" M/XF. It can do everything the other one can do OK, and is slightly more powerful for when you need it to be.

Unless it was brand new with full mfg warranty.............I would never buy one without a test ride/drive. Same goes for a used car.

I was being a little sarcastic.................but it's funny, the things I have done for years, like that, or power shotting, flick shaking etc....that many years after the fact become a "thing"

I quit using and buying GYCB senkos quite a few years ago now and switched to Yum dingers. I still catch as many, and as big of fish as I ever did, and regularly beat people in tournaments who say "senkos work better" with my yum dingers. What makes yum dingers the perfect stick bait IMHO is there lack of salt.......just the opposite of GYCB, yet they still have the "wiggle". The lack of salt lets me fish them uber slow weightless, to adding weight to get the rate of fall I (and the fish want). I did an experiment a couple years ago on fall rates between 5" Yum Dingers and Senkos. A weightless Senko falls faster and with more "wiggle" than a weightless Yum dinger. A Dinger with a 1/16th oz wacky jig falls at the same rate, and with just as a pronounced "wiggle" as a weightless senko A dinger with an 1/8th oz wacky jig falls slightly faster than a senko w/a 1/16th oz wacky jig, wiggle was the same. My conclusions...............since I fish with wacky jigs 99% of the time, I go with dingers to save money, and have as little more room to play with rate of fall. Other stick baits I have tried that are great: SK Ocho's SK Zero's Havoc Flat Dawgs Havoc Money Makers Big Bite Baits Cane Sticks Z-man Zinkers These are baits I don't care for: BPS Stick-O's Gander Mtn brand Cabela's brand Big Bite Baits Trick Stick Wave Worms Tiki Stick SK Shimmy sticks Berkley Gulp Sinking minnow I invented that.... LOL

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ except for the reel. TW has metal framed Daiwa Excelers on sale now for $49.99. I use the 7:1 Exceler on the MH LR Shock with 50lb power pro and booyah pad crashers as my "all purpose" frog set up.

I don't find that to be the case, at least down here on Conesus, and Silver..............the limited window of use under 12' that is. In fact just the opposite, the deep diving stuff has a more limited window. Bass in both these lakes are in 10' of water or less way more than they are deep........at least largemouth. To the OP's question, I keep it simple. ..............,Sub surface, Shallow, Mid, Deep, extra deep, and lipless. I am not so concerned over small running depth differences in each category. This is basically how I "rank them" , sub surface are wake and/or baits that dive very little ,shallow cranks are less than 5', mid's are 5-10', deep's are 10+, extra deeps are 15'+. and lipless are, well, lipless, LOL.

Your not the sharpest tool in the shed................ I will send you a PM

Hit me up if you run into any snags...I have done many safeact compliant builds the last few years.

You must not be tying the alberto knot right. I have never broke it, and use it all the time.

For heads I like the VMC rugby heads. For baits I like the Berkley Havoc Bottom hopper worms, the yum sharpshooter worms, yum craw bugs, the small Havoc pit boss, and chigger craws.

I don't have anything I refuse to use. I do however refuse to give my business to several companies because I am not a fan of their antics, but that's between me and those companies, and I don't think they care much that I don't buy from them.

Granted, I fish team events...........but the biggest bag we ever weighed in, 22lbs....the one in my avatar pic., the little guy caught two of our weigh in fish on buzzbaits, while I caught the other three on jigs. I don't care what the guy in the back is doing, as long as he's catching fish if I'm not. OR......... this is just as important in a team event......NOT CATCHING FISH to show me what's not working that day.

The hook is heavy wire hook on the Revenge...be mindful of that. I don't care for them on spinning gear personally, as they need a little power to be driven home. And just the opposite....I bend hooks when using the VMC's on heavier casting gear, that's why I use them as a 1-2 punch, but also because I have not found one single "do-all" wacky jig that can be fished with out issue on both types of equipment.

Nope...I leave the weedguard alone. I fish these on MH casting gear with 30lb braid and 15 or 17lb leaders and they are fantastic. When I switch to spinning gear and lighter line I use the VMC ones which have lighter wire hooks and thin single strand wire weed guards. I used to use the Buckeye Flick-it's but the VMC are just as good for less money.

Take it from me, I switched to the Revenge Flipping Whackers from the weighted Falcon K-wacky hooks.............It was a good move, and I'll never go back to the K-wacky (unless revenge stops making the whackers)