ww2farmer

I have had brand new crankbaits, jerkbaits, etc.....fresh from the package with upgraded treble hooks bit off by pike many times on the first cast.

I'd like that option as well

I love Strike King hard baits, but their stock hooks STINK. Everyone I buy gets changed before it even gets wet. I don't know if I would rather have SK charge $2 more per bait, or just leave them at the current price with crappy hooks. Even with a hook upgrade though, they are still pretty economical.

One that stands out to me was a Cabela's house brand rod with the guides on the inside of the blank.

Sorry for your loss.

I am a fan of Red Label, but I only use it as leader material. For main line, you might want to go up the price point ladder to something made to be a little more handling friendly.

this

I know I ain't doing much, but doing nothing means a lot to me.

Yup. Learn the "Alberto" knot for line to line connections. It's simple and very reliable.

My favorite way to catch them is FAR from my most productive way to catch them. Actually when I catch them this way, which is fairly often, it's often mixed in with largemouth. But flipping for them in heavy cover is pretty exciting. #1 they are not buried in the grass as often as largemouth, but when they are it's pretty much like poking a bear with a stick. Set the hook and they are mad, and they want you to know it RIGHT NOW. A 4+ lb smallmouth clearing the water higher than your head a rod and half's length away before you even know what's going on is quite the sight. While the fight is not as long as most of my smallmouth battles because of the heavy tackle used, the best description I can give of the battle is it's about like grabbing a full grown barn tomcat by the tail to give him a shot of antibiotics if he's acting sick , it'll be over fairly quickly if you can get the cat in the empty 100lb burlap grain bag to but some kind of tough material between your skin/eyes/throat and the cats claws and teeth , but even in the short amount of time it takes to get the cat under control and in the bag, your pretty sure you lost the fight and the cat spared you and not the other way around.

Maybe that's what's wrong with me............too much exposure to glyposate for the last 20 years. I'll never win an argument on this, being a lowly dirt farmer, who's obviously been brainwashed by the chemical industry. I'll let you superior intellects figure out how to save the world while I continue to kill, rape,and pillage in the name of agriculture.

Same. It seems I tend to also fish worms on a flick shake head on the ML and senkos on a M. Heck, I even use a MH rod when I step up to "power flickin"

A freemartin holstein heifer is mighty fine eatin'. One more than one occasion I have a freezer full of them. Back when we had a dairy we would always be like "wooo hooo free beef" when a cow had a set of twins and one was a freemartin. Sell the bull calf at the market, and raise the heifer for beef on cheap free forage that was basiclly "throw away" feed for the milking heard. We had 1000+ head of milking cows, and it happened about a dozen times a year.

Didn't say I was an expert, but when those products (glyphosate, and atrazine) are used in accordance with the instructions on the label, run off, and harm to anything other than the intended target pest is minimal (with atrazine) and non-existent with glyphosate. The problem is not with the products, it's with idiots who don't follow the label. Are you the kind of person that blames the car or the booze mfg. when a drunk gets behind the wheel and causes harm to others?

As someone who regularly uses Glyphosate, and Atrazine, blaming these two products for genetic mutations in wildlife is laughable at best.

The way I look at it is this................over the coarse of a season (at least on my local level/home lake) guys that rely on "spots" they were told about by other people will crush a couple big bags each year, the rest of the time they will be donating to the rest of us that actually know how to fish..,...it all works out in the end. Let them get their info, it becomes quite obvious in a short time who these people are and what they are doing. You just have to be mindful that at any given day, their spot could be on, and there is nothing a guy like me who just flies by the seat of his pants and fishes the moment can do about it. As a tournament director, I have had complaints from other guys in the tournament, and have been ticked myself at these guys, but babysitting a spot every tournament, all day is not against the rules, so it is what it is. Nothing I can do about it as a tournament director either. I can take matters into my own hands and be poor sport and go and stick every fish off these spots that I possibly can the day before, or give out the waypoints at sign up to everyone in the field and fiddle with boat draw numbers so the "waypoint wonders" don't get the chance to get there first, but that kind of stuff goes against what I am all about, so I just deal with it.

As much as my boat is on and off the trailer during a season, I have had to do my bunk boards several times in the last 10 years. I K.I.S.S.....2 new treated 2x4's cut to length, new lengths of carpet form the local Marina, new lag bolts, and just standard staples...no glue. I have never had an issue with the staples rusting/breaking/etc....I wear the top off the carpet before I have to worry about it. Takes me 1/2 hour to make them, and I change them right in the parking lot of the boat ramp after the boats in the water. 10 minute job tops.....That is if I remembered to bring all the tools.

What a coincidence, I only carry 4 colors of jerkbaits: Bluegill Yellow perch Clear Ayu Clown

On spinning gear, I skip with 20lb braid. Tied direct to the bait in dirty water, and with an 8lb fluoro leader in gin clear water.

Much like the OP, I have tried an arm's length list of suspending jerkbaits and have narrowed it down to the ones that are the most consistent out of the box. My go to jerkbait is the KVD 200 size. It suspends perfectly in cold water, slightly nose down, on 8,10,12, and 15lb fluoro, AND with the stock hooks replaced with Mustad KVD Elite 2x strong, 1x short triple grips. In second place is the Storm Twitch Stick, it is a very slow riser with the stock hooks, but the same Mustad hooks as I use on the KVD bait, it suspends. Baits I will NOT buy again: Lucky Strike Clunn's...............they float more times than not with the stock hooks which are junk, and sink like a stone with the Mustad hooks I like, I don't have the time to monkey around looking for an alternative hook, nor do I like playing around with suspend dots. Rapala X-raps.............hit or miss, one will be perfect, the next three will not, and all do various unsavory things, not to mention a couple decent sized pike and bass caught on them will mangle the hooks, and like the Clunn's, I have had little luck getting them to suspend right with my hook choice. ANY bait that cost's more than $12..............with the way pike around here love jerkbaits, it's an exercise in stupidity to feed them $$$. And using steel/wire leaders are not an option on a bait that suspends.

Since I fish open tournaments with nothing but a "thanks for playing" for catching 5 most of the time, I don't subscribe to the "get a limit then look for a kicker" thing. I start each and every tournament fishing baits that I have 100% confidence in of catching big fish. Sometimes............well many times actually, I have had to do a 180 when it's turned into a grind just for a bite and start finessing them, but I never start off hoping for five.

It's not your fault he doesn't know what to charge for shipping. Asking for more $$ after the fact is turgid. Tell him to pound salt, and maybe he'll learn from his own screw up.

Power Pro. It's cheap, always been boringly reliable for me, and it's available 5 minutes down the road from me at the Walmarts. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

Hard to beat the SK KVD in that price range. I have a box full of them.

I use boxes too. I keep a rubbermaid tote at home with my plastics still in their bags, sorted by type into large ziplock bags. When my boxes get low, I just get into the tote and grab enough to top them off. I hate having empty bags all over the boat, or digging through a mess trying to find one bag of something, one glance at a box and I know exactly whats in there.