ww2farmer

Seaguar Red Label is a good "budget" fluorocarbon. I use it for leaders, and have never had a reel fully spooled with it. I am not a fan of fluoro as a main line, but when I have used it, I have tried Trilene 100%, Vanish, Seaguar Inviz-X and Seaguar Abraz-X...............the Seaguar lines were far better than the Berkley lines.

It's terrible. I have tried it in 10lb on my bass spinning rods, 4lb test on my ice rods, and open water UL panfish set up, it has the durability of wet toilet paper.

I run it with the Stanley 5/0 back weighted double hook. They last, on average, about 3 fish. Some a little longer, some as little as one and done. I found them to last longer with the double hook than a single hook. The Zoom Horny Toads I used to use beat the Ribbit in the durability department, but I catch more fish, and have better hook up % with the Ribbit. Another soft plastic frog that I forgot to mention that I really liked was the Sizmic Toad.............but, they are so light they are difficult to cast.

I use a "regular" Booyah pad crasher about 90% of the time, the other 10% is split between three other frogs, the popping pad crasher, the "small" pad crasher, and a Stanley Ribbit.

I fished horny toads for years as my "alternate" frog............I prefer hollow body frogs first, but often would switch to the horny toad when I felt the need to cover water a little quicker. A few years ago I tried the Stanley Ribbit Frogs.................at the end of the day I threw all my horny toads in the trash.

I don't use a different rod for flipping/punching grass or flipping and pitching wood/docks/laydowns/etc.... My "do-all" flipping rod is a custom built rod on a 7'3" H power, fast action MHX blank from the their "Mag Bass" line. I have it paired with a 7.3:1 Daiwa Exceler reel, spooled up with 50lb braid. I use a 15,17, or 20 lb fluorocarbon leader when fishing ultra clear water and/or docks + wood, and I tie direct to the braid when punching heavy grass. This rod has enough power to muscle XL fish (5+6lbs) out of the heaviest cover we have around here, yet has enough "tip" that I can pitch 5/16oz finesse flipping jigs into tight spots. It's one of the few flipping rods I have owned that "feels right" with the smallest weights I use on it (the previously mentioned 5/16oz jigs + 1/4 oz. T-rigs) all the way up to 1+ oz jigs and t-rigs for punching.

ZERO I have not fished a spinner bait more than a handful of times over the past 3-4 years. The swim jig and chatterbait have replaced it. I always carried a few of my old favorites around the last few years...........a 3/8 oz chart./white with tandem #4 gold willow leaf blades, and a 1/4 oz. Bluegill colored "finesse" spinnerbait with tandem #3 gold willow leaf blades, but I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the number of times I used them since I started using swim jigs, and chatterbaits. So a few weeks ago I said "to heck" with them, sold my remaining spinnerbaits off, and will head into next year with ZERO spinnerbaits.

I'm going with.............it's a cold water thing..............I see it every year here in early spring from ice out until the water gets into the 50's, then it vanishes. It seems like it comes back in late fall too.

I don't "look" for "kicker" fish after I have caught 5. I fish for 5 bites all day. I start every tournament with these 4 things on my front deck. Frog Jig T-rigged craw/creature bait, or big worm 5" Yum dinger on a heavy wire "flipping" wacky jig head If conditions are right for it, I will have a couple of moving baits out as well like a swimjig, squarebill, or chatterbait. I only start drop shotting, shaky heading, flick shaking, etc...if I have determined that it's a grind and bites are hard to come by that day.

Booyah Pad Crasher in Bullfrog My homemade 1/2 oz flip/swim jig with a green pumpkin skirt with a few strands of orange and chart. 5" Green Pumpkin Yum Dinger 4" Green Pumpkin Havoc Pit Poss, I can flip it by itself, or use it as a jig trailer SK KVD 1.5 Square Bill in Chart. Sexy Shad

Frog, then a frog, and then a frog again, and when that isn't working, I throw a frog. Yes even in open water. I can't remember the last time I used a treble hooked spook type or pop-r style lure..........In fact I sold all my spooks/poppers.

I have done this many many times, especially when the spinshot style drop shot hooks first came out a few years ago............ the funny thing is..................it tells me nothing. I have had days when they wouldn't bite either bait, where they would bite both seemingly at random, and days when the prefer one to the other. I just have a tube (in the last few years a biffle head with a small creature/craw bait has all but replaced the tube for me) and a drop shot rigged up on different rods, and rarely if every combine them anymore.

Between the two, I will fish a squarebill in wood almost 100% of the time. It comes through much better, and produces, no need to toss a lipless into a laydown and risk losing it. I use lipless baits often.............just not in wood. Maybe if I had standing timber/stumps/etc......it would be an option, but 99% of the "wood" I fish is laydowns, often willow, and/or locust trees, with an occasional hard wood.

I do my shallow and lipless cranking with a 7' MH/fast action rod on braid (with a fluoro leader if I am around hard cover). I can't stand moderate cranking rods, especially around grass.

A wacky rigged finesse worm has saved the day many a time..............when they won't even touch a senko.

One of my favorite baits for drop shotting in clear water is the Yum Warning shot. I like Watermelon candy on sunny days, and green pumpkin on cloudy days. I nose hook them on a VMC #2 spin shot hook.

What I would do on my home lakes during the early prespawn, might or might not work for you. All bodies of water are different. But since you asked, and I have nothing but free time on my hands, I'll play along. Largemouth fishing: Let's see, low 50 degree water temps on the main lake would put us some where in late April-early May around here. First thing I would do is go to shallow wind protected spawning pockets/bays. Those areas "should" be warmer than the main lake............if they are not because of cold fronts/rain and or wind pushing cold water into them............get out and come back later. If they are warmer, start fishing. I'll make a lap around the area with a reaction bait, if it's clear water with grass as the main type of cover that would be a 1/4oz swim jig, if it's dirty water, a chatterbait, and if it's hard cover like wood/rock, a squarebill. If they are biting a moving presentation, I fish until they stop, then I target cover with soft plastics and jigs.............if I don't get much action on the reaction baits the first time around, I slow down and fish jigs/plastics. If that hauls water. I leave the area...........I know my lakes well enough to not bother checking more of the same type of water, because if they are not in, or co-operating in area #1, rarely, if ever are they in similar areas either. I don't give up on these spots and will come back later in the day. In the meantime I go back out on the main lake and start poking around out there.

I like the SK KVD's and the Storm Twitch Stick

I used to keep my plastics in their original bags and got sick of digging around looking for a bag of what I wanted. I went to keeping them, out of the bags, in plano boxes a few years ago, and am happy. No more bags to dig through, no more empty bags laying all over the boat, and no more opening a pack of new baits to find everything all bent up or mangled. Keeping them neatly in the boxes lets them lay flat and straight, and if I do happen to open a pack and find a few bent up ones, I can lay them flat in the box, and leave the box on the back deck of the boat out of the way on a hot sunny day. It softens them up and they "straighten out". Having a visual look at what's in each box also tells me what I am running low on, and I can restock them from extra packs that I have back at the house. If the bite is really hot on one bait, I usually have a random empty bag that I can grab a handfull of the hot baits out of the box, and keep in my pocket so I don't have to keep getting into the boxes every time I need a new bait.

A 3" yellow mister twister grub, on a ball jig head, and the first fish I ever caught on it was a hammer handle northern pike, that at the time seemed like a shark to me when I was about 9-10 years old circa 1985-86. The first lure I ever caught a bass on was a Rapala floating minnow. IIRC, I was so excited about catching that first pike, I bought the Rapala and caught a bass on it a few weeks later.

Sums it up for me, I use straight braid when the water is dirty, and add a leader when it's clear, or I need extra abrasion resistance.

I don't spend a ton of money on spinning reels.............hard for me to get excited about it when the $60 Pflueger President has done anything I have ever asked or wanted out of a spinning reel.

I think I have caught a bass on every lure I have ever used...........but I do have a small list of lures I have zero confidence in, zero interest in fishing again, and will not be in my rotation anytime soon. Those are: Brush hog type creature baits, I don't care who makes it, I don't like any of them. Buzz baits...........I would just rather throw a soft plastic buzzing frog. A-Rig XXL Cranks like the 10xd/etc.

I use mainly Berkley, both the Havoc and powerbait lines, and Yum. I have yet to find one company that makes everything I would want /need.

Snow is insulation on the ice. If there is a lot of snow on the ice, it won't "make" ice very well no matter how cold it gets, and in reverse, the ice will not melt very fast under the snow until the snow is gone..............however ice under melting snow is unsafe IMHO. What usually happens is the snow melts, and then re-freezes on top of the ice into a chippy, crappy layer of what we call "white ice"...............this stuff is garbage and totally unsafe to be on unless it's on TOP of a good layer of 4"+ clear solid "black ice"