Latest Tackle Purchase Thread (Bait Monkey Victim Support Group)

[PhishLI]

There's an unwritten rule of the universe that if I like something it'll either be discontinued or "improved" into something I hate. Might be bottled iced tea, or portable saw horses. You name it, if I love it, it's doomed.

 

I'd hate to be without my Magellan Sling pack. It's perfect for me as an addition to the other bags I saddle myself with, and especially by itself for pond hopping, but oddly I've neglected to grab a backup. Recently the universe slapped me upside the head again by vaporizing one of my favorite things, so with that reminder and Academy's father's day sale I chose not to delay any longer, and got me a back-up. Threw in some nice H2O tungsten weights for good luck, cause why not.?

 

[Ravox]

On 6/18/2022 at 8:06 AM, bulldog1935 said:

I couldn't be more hooked on finesse tackle.  I'm a 48-y fly fisherman, and have caught well over 100 species on fly rod in rivers and salt.  Finesse tackle pretty much makes the fly rod obsolete for all except trout fishing moving water.

If it makes you guys feel better, also have a local 400-acre no-motors reservoir, high on creek headwaters, where I kayak and fish my BFS MM bass rod (or 2). 

I use a stream trout BFS set-up for our endemic river bass - Texas Brook Trout - this is most often busting and wading, just like you'd use a fly rod (a bit of kayaking thrown in).  Also a good way to beat the summer heat in spring water and cypress tunnels. 

My most recent Japan purchase included Meiho 800NS lure boxes, which are the best for small lures I've ever tried.  You can fit a gang of them in your fishing bag, along with whatever else you want to bring.  (Meiho 1200ND is the same adjustable box sized up for bass-size plugs). 

Nothing in the boxes below is over 4 g, and only a few are over 2 inches.  Newly put together this floating (and +diving) box

Rounded out my sinking box with Smith Niakis spinners

and the black/gold Shine Ride crank on the bottom row is for bottom-bouncing. 

 

Salt finesse has 3 main uses for me.  Winter glass minnows in tide passes, and especially nite-lite dock fishing along a favorite navigation channel.  Same nite-lite use for tiny summer mullet in coast neighborhood canals.  The third use is wading and sight-fishing expansive salt "lakes", same place you'd use a fly rod. 

I added these lures to my salt finesse boxes.  Magbite Mimiq slow-sinking pencil shrimp that makes me want to wade Fence Lake with UL right now.
Timon Buriburi glow floater/diver (wakebait) going into Arroyo glow finesse box (only floater in the box). We mostly prospect deep in the navigation channel for schoolie specs and snook along the dock piles, but have seen times when their defense mechanism sent them to surface-only eats.
The bottom two are Smith Gunship floater/divers for sight-fishing reds in skinny grass. The "larger" 45-mm Smith plug has bad-boy Vanfook #3 single hooks installed. 

While a few of these plugs come ready with single hooks, most come with tiny trebles.  I also tried Vanfook ME-41 plug single hooks for the first time.  The photo on the right compares the tiny 36-mm Smith plug with #6 ME-41 hooks installed, next to an Owner/Cultiva S-55 #6.  The short shank on the Vanfook hook lets you go up a hook size - the tiny plug would need a #8 in the Cultiva hook. 

You have some fantastic lures that I’ve never seen before, makes me want to deep dive into finesse.. but living in Florida is hard almost any bass can break a finesse rod around here ?

[bulldog1935]

@Ravox For us, finesse goes way back, nite-lite dock fishing nursery seatrout with my girls. 

Any coast trip, it was a ritual to eat a meal at Cap'n Benny's, then release 40 of these the hour after sunset from Fulton Beach Pier - then ice cream. (She's in grad school at TAMU)

 

I bought a pair of XUL rockfish rods from Japan to pick up where Zebo UL-1 and Eagle Claw Featherlite left off.  They added great light-rig reach to the edge of the lights over Falcon UL rod and Penn 4200SS.  They have solid tip for protecting 2-lb test, and weave-graphite butt for fish-turning power. 

One summer night watching massive specs milling over submerged green canal lights and occasionally flaring to scoop tiny mullet, I had to break out one of the rods and jig up a big spec on 2" swim shad.  Discovered that night this XUL tackle had the backbone to land a 22" and a 23" speckled trout. 

 

Where we've really honed this is winter glass minnows in tide passes up the coast, and Arroyo Colorado barge channel in far south Texas. 

 

The Japanese tradition of threadline fishing goes back farther than our perspective, but for our bandwidth, they began with salt shore, moved to stream trout, and finally to bass. 

Tide passes and deep channels are so much like river fishing already, the lures made for stream trout work great there with a simple hook swap. 

Then for me, it's easy to back up with the stream trout tackle to fish our hill country endemic bass, which occupy the same fast-current in limestone creeks that trout do in coldwater, and a lunker for the species is 15 inches. 

The reservoir bass fishing takes more dedication for me, because it's so much easier to choose a breezy coast flat or shady limestone cypress tunnel. 

[Bass Rutten]

All aboard the zillion hype-r train, choo choo! ? 

Another shout out to JLS for 3 day shipping and a jackall break blade bonus gift, look out jackhammer!

[Dangerfield]

Hit up BPS and a local ma n pa shop with bass opener on Saturday. I walked away with a with a bag of Z-man mini max compact chatterbaits, a 75 Bone Whopper Plopper. Megabass i-Jack Crystal Shad, Evergreen SB 150 Bone - definitely grabbed the wrong size, some Berkley weighted wacky hooks, a Spro Flapping Frog and a Daiwa Fuego 6' 9" MR Casting rod for topwater duty.

 

I bought the Feugo after much deliberation, I was considering a St Croix Bass X 6' 8" MXF, current and last gen and Shimano SLX 6' 10" MF. The Fuego was as light as the others, with Titanium guides, a shorter handle and ~$40 cheaper. I took the Tatula 100 off my spinnerbait rod - 7.3.1 gear ratio was a bit too fast, seemed like a good excuse to pair it up with a Fuego CT 6.3.1. Still waiting for that one to arrive in the mail.

 

[Munkin]

Does a $3200 jet pump to start fishing shallow water count?

 

Allen 

[TnRiver46]

8 hours ago, Munkin said:

Does a $3200 jet pump to start fishing shallow water count?

 

Allen 

Yep! 

[PhishLI]

16 hours ago, Bass Rutten said:

All aboard the zillion hyper train, choo choo!

Bring some kleenex first time out, and don't blame those tears tears of joy on low testosterone. We're all manly, and we cried too.

[GreenPig]

Curado 150 MGL XG, Levante Braillist 7'5", a handful of Mini Max chatterbaits, Bait Fuel, 6" Bull Shad floater, and Damiki Mega Miki 11" worms.

[AndyPlaysDrums]

MOST recently (within the hour), I forgot salad dressing on the way to work. So, I made sure I got salad dressing.

 

Bait monkey has me real bad lately, though, highlighted by buying a kayak last week. It's all been downhill from there as I reinvigorate myself on bass fishing after some years of unweighted soft plastic laziness.

[Woody B]

I'll take a picture tomorrow when I'm in the boat.  Last weekend my Wife and Daughter went to a yard sell.  My Wife said "I got you some kind of plug at the yard sell".   It was a Devils Horse (my favorite top water lure) in the old original packaging.  She said she paid 50 cents for it.  The price tag on the box was $1.79.    I wonder how old it is.

[treble hook]

Just got home from Bass Pro… They were out of a few things that I wanted, but I couldn’t leave empty handed…

[Mbirdsley]

Getting more of my deep cranking game on.  I ordered 2 spro DD 70 cranks and 2 bullet crank 7+100’s come in the mail.  I didn’t realize how big the bullets were.
 

Only issue is I don’t know if my current deep cranking rod will handle the bullets.  If not I guess I know what I’m building this winter !!!!  I’d probably go for a speed cranking set up.  Like what they talk about in tactical bassin.  My current rod should handle the spro’s.  I know it will handle 8xd’s 
 

in bound I have 2 13 fishing troll hunter deep crank baits coming along with a mega bass deep 6 300 and a deep 100. 

[LrgmouthShad]

Custom spinnerbaits I ordered from Nichols. If these ain’t the purdiest things I’ve seen…..

 

Goly

[treble hook]

Bought something to get my baits back… lol…

[12poundbass]

Spent my Father’s Day gift card and the shipment finally arrived. 
 

 

[Dangerfield]

Swapped that monster Evergreen SB150 for the 125, still bigger than I'd like but was curious to see how the clear pattern would do and I caught 2 on Saturday. The Giant Dog-X (GG Perch) on the other hand, put on a clinic caught me 12 smallies from 2.5-4.5lbs in 2 hours. I fished it before without any luck, so I added a #2 Owner Tear Drop Split Ring to it and that seemed to awaken the bait.

[AmmoGuy]

What do you do when you accidentally break off one OG Slim???

 

You order five more of course.?‍♂️
 

[RDB]

2 minutes ago, AmmoGuy said:

What do you do when you accidentally break off one OG Slim???

 

You order five more of course.?‍♂️
 

Big fan of the Big Shad color.

[AmmoGuy]

2 hours ago, RDB said:

Big fan of the Big Shad color.

If I could only have Big Shad and “Bream”, I’d be just fine. 

[Sphynx]

In response to my thread about buying soft plastics which are new to me...

 

 

[Sphynx]

Seems that BioSpawn has very deceitfully released new products and made me aware of it only AFTER I had placed an order...I'm gonna beat that monkey one day. 

 

 

 

[RDB]

On 6/27/2022 at 4:49 PM, Dangerfield said:

Swapped that monster Evergreen SB150 for the 125

I am a fan of the Evergreen SB.  IME, the larger versions really shine when there is some chop on the water.  If it’s more calm, I usually go with a different topwater.

[Dangerfield]

3 hours ago, RDB said:

I am a fan of the Evergreen SB.  IME, the larger versions really shine when there is some chop on the water.  If it’s more calm, I usually go with a different topwater.

My only issue was the weight and it being double what my rod is rated for. The 125 is easier to manage.

[LrgmouthShad]

20 hours ago, Sphynx said:

In response to my thread about buying soft plastics which are new to me...

 

 

Holy moly! 
 

Yeah that’ll keep you stocked!