ww2farmer

I caught several 6+ lbers this year. A couple on a SK KVD 200 size suspending jerkbait, and a couple more on a swim jig. What was odd about the 2016 season for me...........is I usually catch my biggest fish in mid-to latr April, early to mid August, and late Sept.- mid October. This year it was early May, and mid July.

No..............it just means I have not used the spinning reels. I only have, and have used the current generation of casting reels (the black ones, not the earlier silver/grey ones)

Excellent reels.........at least the casting. They make up a good portion of my casting reel arsenal. I have several of them that are going into there 4th season of hard use, and have been bullet proof with nothing more than normal maint.

I always laugh when people who are new to my home lake, leave after struggling and claim..............."I don't know how anyone can catch fish in this structure-less weed filled fish bowl" There's no such thing as a structure-less fish bowl.............every lake has a bank/shoreline, the surface of the water, and a bottom, it's not my fault they don't understand this.

I like to keep that on the down low....................but yes a pit boss alone, fished as a swim bait, either with a belly weighted "rage rig" or with a sinker pegged to it's nose has caught me a LOT of fish the last few years. I fish them in a a lot of diff. ways. As a flipping bait, jig trailer, swimjig or chatterbait trailer, as a swimbait, I drop shot them, drag them around on biffle type wobble heads, fish them weightless on top like a frog, on shaky heads, and probably a couple other ways I can't remember.

As some one who fishes lakes with seemingly miles of endless milfoil patches what Catt said is the key. Bends in the grass line, hard spots on the bottom under the grass, points of grass, misc. junk in the grass, patches of grass very close to deep water, etc...these are all places I like to look for and start on before just blindly fishing. It all looks "fishy" but it all ain't That being said, when I pull into an area that I want to fish. I start outside the grass first on the deep edge, I go down the edge for a while, if I get bit, I keep working the edge. If I don't get bit on the outside edge, I go into the grass, if I get bit I fish in the grass. If I don't get bit in the thick of it, I go to the inside edge...............and if I get bit, I fish that for a while. And then there are the days, even in grass heavy lakes that they just ain't around it for some reason or another (usually bait related). On those days I like to fish shallow first, like under boat docks, around laydowns, or other shallow cover, as I am more comfortable in skinny water. If they ain't in the grass, or up shallow..............I head to isolated cover out side the grass, or major structural elements in deeper water.

Roger, I used to think so to, then they came out with their "Ike Approved" line of hooks, jig heads, etc.....they have really stepped their game up. I used to be a big Gamakatsu and Mustad guy, but now my two favorite brands of hooks are VMC and the Berkley Fusion's. I never liked Owner's , and thought Trokars were terrible.

They are good hooks..................the trick with them is TO NOT hook the wire weed guard under the barb of the hook. If you do it will not pop open right and cost you fish. If you flex the weed guard a little to "loosen" it up out of the package then place it ever so slightly below the hook point, it will stay weedless, but pop open and stick the fish when you get bit. You also DO NOT want to swing for the fences on the hook set with these types of hooks, it's more of a lift and pull set...........a little more aggressive than a circle hook set, about like a drop shot hook set when using a small hook and light line.............HTH. I would venture to say that a majority of people who hate these hooks, use bad technique on the hook set, or don't know any better with placement of the weedguard or both..........often no fault of their own though. VMC would do themselves a favor by putting a little instruction on the package with these.

Chatterbait

I like the VMC ones. 1/16th oz is a good "all purpose" size. If fishing deeper than say 8-10 feet or there is some wind, I bump up to 1/8th oz. These have light wire hooks, and are best used on M or ML spinning gear with 6-10lb line. If you want to beef up the offering and toss a flick shake/wacky jig on casting gear in and around heavier cover, I like the revenge flippin' wacker's heads. They are like a miny flipping jig designed for wacky rigging.

I fish SOOOOO MUCH from April-Nov. that I enjoy the break. I used to jones for spring round about now every year, but now I just sit back, relax, and wait for it to come..............it always does. I always thought ice fishing would help........."hey it's winter and I can still fish" but in all reality, aside from going when it's easy ........IE not too cold/windy, not a lot of snow on the ice, and the fish are biting good enough that I can get what I want for the freezer quick........... I really hate it LOL.

You can have him.

Yes I have seen it. And I enjoyed it. I am a bit of a Star Wars nerd............but I keep it to myself.

I like to throw buzz baits on a 7' MH, and jerkbaits and topwaters that are not frogs on a 6'6" M. If you wanted one rod to cover all of these.........something in the middle like the St. Croix 6'8" M/XF blanks in the price range of your choosing should fit the bill nicely.

I seem to remember a "Fan Vote" contest a while back in which Berkley ran asking fans what Havoc baits they would like to see infused with power bait. The Pit Boss stomped the other choices. I emailed them asking them if that meant the Pit Boss was going to be moved to the Power Bait line, as I love the Pit Boss...................I didn't save the response but it was basically......."No the Havoc Pit Boss is a huge success, the power bait version will just be an additional offering"

Frogs and any topwater for sure are #1 on the fun factor. #2...........for me at least is a silver buddy style blade bait...........lift.....fall............lift..............fall............go to lift again and there's something on. The bites on these baits 99% of the time take me by surprise as I am often letting it fall on completely slack line. Once in while you'll see the line "tick" but more times than not you won't. And it's always an adventure to see what's on the other end. Most of the time it's a good smallmouth, but I have caught plenty of good largemouth, pike, and walleye on them too.

Have these problem reels ever been under water, or does a lot of water get induced into them during the course of fishing? Here's another thing to consider....................DVT can back me up on this, as I pulled my hair out with a reel once and sent it to him to see what was up with it.......... It was a Shimano Citica 201E, after servicing it would be smooth for a day or two, then feel rough. I would service it again..........then it would feel rough. I sent it to DVT..... come to find out, Shimano..........FROM THE FACTORY installed RH gears in a LH reel, and while the reel worked when clean and full of grease, it got rough reel quick. We were both kind of shocked it worked with the wrong gears in it, but it did. Not saying this is your problem, but it's something to think about. I find it hard to believe that your gears would be worn out to the point of being junk. I have several cheapo Black Max reels that are going on 3-4 years old, that get used over 100 times a season, and they are fine. Brass gears are tough...........almost over kill in a bass fishing reel.

I have not used several of the very popular Rage tail products like the menage or bug.........for no good reason other than I haven't yet. On the other hand, several Rage tail products are mainstays in my bag of tricks, like the single tail grub, the toad, and the shad. I have not used any of the popular Koppers realistic looking stuff. Seems expensive to me, and I catch plenty of fish on less expensive more traditional looking baits. Keitech baits are very popular around here, but I have never bought or used any. Ned rigs have not found their way into my rotation yet. There's a ton of popular Rapala baits I have never used, but also I ton I have like the DT's, shad raps, and x-raps. They always caught plenty of fish, but I get way more "duds" out of the box with Rapala than almost any other bait brands combined, and they seem to fall apart quickly on me. Kind of puts me off on buying any more. I am not sure I have ever used a Bill Norman crankbait.............if I have it was along time ago, and I have no idea what it was. I have never used any of the higher priced hard baits from companies like Jackall, Megabass, etc.. I have never bought/used the Gene Larew brand biffle bugs or heads, I do fish wobble head jigs with creature/craw/beaver style baits, just not the Larew brand.

Dumb question...............but did you put them back together correctly? Were they feeling rough before you took them apart? I have serviced my reels myself for years, and even I sometimes put something back together wrong. Also, what kind of grease are you using? I found that some brands of reels, didn't like some brands of grease. Strange as that sounds, but it was an issue I had with some quantum and shimano reels a few years ago. Using the cheap Abu Garcia reel grease or Ardent reel butter sold at walmart, these reels always felt "rough" after a few outings. I switched to regular automotive wheel bearing grease and that solved the problem.

SK Red Eye Shad in Chili craw is my favorite in the early spring cold water (<50 degrees up to the mid 50 degree range) if the water has got some color to it. If it's clear the Japanese Shad color works well. A wild card color that seems to work very well at times for me is Albino Craw. Once the water temps around here get into the mid 50's the lipless baits get put away and out come the squarebills. I have no doubt that lipless cranks would still be very effective, but it's hard to argue with past results that tell me to make the switch round about this time.

SK KVD's do the bulk of my work. I use the 1.5 + 2.5 size a lot When I want to switch it up I have a bunch of Storm Arashi's in both silent and rattling, in both the 3 & 5 size, and they have always produced well for me. I have a few of the newish Berkley shallow runners, but haven't used them yet. For ultra shallow work I use the Mann's baby 1-, the KVD shallow runner, and the Arashi wake bait.

Excluding senko style baits per your request, my #1 worm over the years has been a 7" power worm. In a close 2nd place would be a 4"-5" finesse straight tailed finesse worm.

Santa brought happiness and joy to my kids..................I'm all set. My wife and I buy what ever we want for ourselves the other 11 months of the year. Christmas is for the kids around here. We get each other something small in the name of the kids, and that's good enough for me.

I fish jerkbait's exclusively with braid and a fluorocarbon leader. 10lb braid with a 8 or 10lb leader on spinning gear for smaller jerkbaits that are difficult to cast on bait casting set ups 20lb braid with a 10 or 12lb leader on casting gear. I find about a 2-3 foot leader to be perfect with suspending jerkbaits. Keeps the bait in a nose down suspension, any shorter though, and the floating nature of the braid over comes the sinking nature of the fluoro and the bait dosen't do what I want it to do. Straight braid sucks for jerkin', it will foul on the hooks and it floats. The braid/leader combo allows me to make super long casts, and get the bait down to where I want it quicker and it stays there longer. The limpness of the braid lets the bait "come alive", and the fluoro offers the right balance to keep it down, nose down, and offers me a small % of protection against bite offs from pike without killing the action of the bait like a steel leader would. Braid gets bit off if one of the jerks even thinks about biting it.

That's how I do it............but I rarely use anything other than Red Label as almost all of my reels have braid as main line.