abkeenan

I am kinda in the same boat. I have never used anything on my baits. I asked this question about a month ago on Bass Boat Central and got a lot of feedback. I think the overall consensus was that it doesn't get you more bites or attract them to your bait per say and its not going to turn you into KVD but most guys said that the bites that you do get the fish will hold the bait longer without spitting it up thus giving you a better shot of putting them in the boat. I recently bought some Megastrike in crawfish and plan to put it on my plastics and jigs but not my moving/reaction baits like cranks and spinnerbaits. I bought this because I have heard guys swear by it and it was in a tube and looked to be about the simplest/less messy to use. Just a squeeze tube that doesn't take up space. Will give it a shot this year, can't hurt I guess.

X 2 on what WDBerkley said. During that time I have had it feast and famine. Have had weather during that time be 60 and perfect and just slayed them and have also had it 38 with wind gusts up to 30MPH and it was just miserable. That's Missouri and the Rock for ya...never know what you are gonna get in the early spring time. But for the most part jerk baits, jigs, wiggle warts, "scrubbing a grub" and the A-Rig all are players during that time. Pretty much what they are catching them now on but they should move up a little more shallow as the water temps start to creep up. Of all of those just swimming a 5" inch grub on a 1/4oz darter head is hard to beat for #'s.. Can catch them on that just about year round as has always been a producer.

I just bought these and think they are a great deal at 104.99 for some angling specific polarized lenses glasses. Like I said I love Oakley and will never own anything but Oakley. http://oakleyvault.com/product/polarized-hijinx-angling-specific-sunglasses/24-113

He is the Aunts Creek moderator. You have to get a special pass from him to enter and gain access to that section of the lake. Below is the image I saved from my Lowrance HDS8 side scan of Aunts Creek.

Ask Techo. He keeps the thermostat in Aunts Creek on digital temp control year round so he could give you within a 1/10th of a degree margin of water temp anywhere in that creek.

Just thought I would share this. I posted about the 10XD a couple of month ago and now Lucky Craft has their version and WOWSERS. Just look at this thing in comparison! The 10XD according to those that have it is just huge....and this SKT Magnum dwarfs it....just look at the pic of the two side by side. You guys think these are just too big for TR? I am not gonna lie....am thinking of picking up one or two.

Would like to attend but that is a haul from the dam area by boat or auto for that matter.

I am as guilty of this as anyone on this board I am sure. I am just terrible about ramming that hook home when mentally I know I don't have to. Like Bill said the hooks today are just insane sharp and if you just put one on your finger and then raise the line with the rod tip up with minimal pressure you can imagine how with just a little more effort or "umph" that hook point would easily penetrate a fishes mouth. Knowing this I still am an idiot and get excited or something and swing from the heels like a moron. Have been thinking about this particular topic a lot this winter and am going to really make it a point to chill out on the hook setting this season. Also to address the breaking off on the hookset.......I've been using 10 and 12 lb fluoro (Berkley 100%) for about 4 years or so and HAVE NEVER HAD A BREAK OFF. Like I said above I doubt anyone here sets the hook harder than I do so if you are breaking off, like BB mentioned, there is a real issue with a bad batch of line, bad knot, wrong knot or you are not checking the line for damage (knicks, fray, scrapes, etc) often enough. I use a Trilene Knot for every single kind of line...fluoro, mono, braid and co-poly. Never have had any issues other than very small diameter co-poly 4# for pan fish on my crappie/blue gill gear and use a palomar knot now for that as well as my drop shot on spinning gear. I have watched the "Knot Wars" on youtube and the Trilene Knot is near the top at every single type of line so I just stick with it for mono and fluoro. Braid I was a little unsure of but after throwing A-Rigs all day it just reconfirmed that its a hell of a knot and will not let go unless I tied it wrong or the line breaks before the knot does. There is a 20 foot cedar tree in the cove just south of the diving rock I wrestled with while throwing an A-Rig last year that is half uprooted that is proof the trilene knot works well with braid.

I use fluoro on all bottom contact baits, jerkbaits, spoons and medium to deep cranks. I use mono on topwater, spinnerbaits and shallow/squarebill cranks and braid for A-Rigs. I use co-poly on my spinning gear. So I am not a pure 100% of the time fluoro because I don't think its the best for every situation/presentation. But as far as bottom contact baits where sensitivity is at a premium and I want abrasion resistance....IMO fluoro is a must.

Please don't take this as an insult but I just don't see the logic in spending less for line. Again this is not a bash. I see comments like this all the time when "Line" opinion type posts come up. We spend $100's of dollars on gas running the boat, another couple hundred pulling it, buy $15 Lucky Craft baits, have 30K+ boats, thousands of dollars worth of rods and reels and another couple hundred to couple thousand in electronics and yet we don't want to pony up an extra 10-20 bucks on a spool of maybe the most important aspect of catching fish???? The line? Like Dave said he puts the good stuff on his kids rigs because he doesn't want them to be at a disadvantage. I know I would be heartbroken if I had a 8lb'er or nice fish lost because I used cheap line.....would you pay $20 to have another chance at landing the fish of a lifetime or another $40 to have your kids, grand kids, nephew, father, brother, friends, loved ones create a lasting memory for life of a great fish or day of fishing? I know I may be taking this to maybe the extreme but to me it doesn't make sense to skimp on line. You can skimp on soft plastics, hard baits (to an extent) and rods and reels to a degree...but the business end like line and hooks I don't think you can cut corners. I don't know peoples budget or financial situations and I don't aim to offend anyone, these are just my opinions of course.

Just another heads up that Tackle Warehouse is having a Bassmaster Classic Sale and G-Loomis, Shimano and some others have 25% off of their products. That is some serious coin you are saving if you are into the high end stuff. I am eyeballing the Crucial Alabama Rig Rod for 127.xx after the 25% off....but my wife would kill me if I added another rod to the stable.

GET OUT THE SCUBA GEAR!

No worries, didn't take it as "walking" on my post. I haven't tried swimming it at this point. I just use it in the typical texas rig or jig type of presentations....crawling and hoping it. I did rig a 6" Luck E Stike Magic Shad hollow belly swimbait jika style with a big Trokar 7/0 swimbait hook and swim that but I think the weight not being attached to the shank of the hook or stationary like a jighead kinda killed the action of the paddle tail and I don't think it is the best option for swimming swimbaits. The weight wants to wobble because of the wobble of the paddle tail and it just didn't look or feel right to me. It might be okay if you did kind of a flutter spoon type of action with the swimbait jika style ripping it up off the bottom and letting it sink back to the bottom on semi-slack line. I dunno, will have to play around with it more.

I LOVE the jika rig. So simple, so effective and it flat out works. Just an improvement on the texas rig IMO. Instead of "pegging" the bullet weight on a texas rig you have the jika where the weight is directly attached and I feel it has better action and come's through cover a lot better and also hops better on the bottom like a jig would. Another somewhat pain in the butt sometimes can be threading the line into the bullet weight at night, especially if you get that weight where at the tapered/cone end the hole has been pinched a little bit...jika you don't have that. Dave thanks for the kudo's but I certainly didn't invent it. I just saw the jika rig made by Owner and said to myself "Ummm that is $7.00 bucks for 2 made up rigs that has an EWG offset hook attached to basically a mojo style weight using a split ring???? I can make probably 10 of those myself for $5". So that is what I did with just a bell sinker of different sizes, split ring and gammy/owner hooks. UBER EASY! I have a whole bunch of 1/4-1/2oz bullet weights for sale if anyone is interested...hahaha.

I used to throw a lot of big 10-12" Culprit worms...red shad most of the time and most of the time at night. For some reason I have kinda gotten away from that and throw a big jig more often now...BUT I now have some YUM Pumkin'Eds standup jigs with 10" YUM MightEE worms that are basically a gigantic shakey head with a lot of bulk and I plan on throwing this a lot more this year. Will see what happens on size of fish that attack it.

That is correct. I should have mentioned that about TW. They have awesome customer service and yes if you call them and speak with them over the phone they will give the 20% off. Good point Quill.

Bill, Tackle Warehouse has 20% off twice a year. First time is Memorial Day (or might be 4th of July) and the 2nd time is Thanksgiving Black Friday. Bass Tackle Depot has is a couple times a year as well. Bass Tackle Depot's 20% applies to just about everything....Shimano maybe not, can't remember. Tackle Warehouse you just have to look to see what brands don't participate in the 20% off....Lucky Craft, G-Loomis and some others I know do not. Bass Pro same thing, have to look in the fine print what brands don't participate in the rod and reel trade in. Shimano used to not do the reels but they did last year for the first time. -Brett

Welcome, Lots of good info from a lot of good guys here. I learn something new constantly here.

Just a heads up. http://www.basstackledepot.com/ is having a 20% off everything Presidents Day sale. I've bought from them before and they have some nice rods at prices you aren't going to beat. Worth a look if you are interested in a rod, or reels or anything else for that matter. For instance the Lews Team Pro that Bill was talking about for 299.99 is now 239.99, saving you $60 bucks. They have the whole assortment of Lew's reels. Sweet deals. I HAVE ZERO AFFILIATION WITH THIS WEBSITE. JUST PASSING ALONG GOOD DEALS.

Nice Phil, When we have tried grilling fish we put them in tin foil with butter, garlic and S&P (lemon squirt if that's your thing). That way they don't stick to the grill, don't break/flake apart, keep the juices in/don't dry out and can wrap them up to keep them warm before serving. Turns out pretty good and works for trout with skin left on also. That said nothing beats the ol' deep fryer!

I wasn't calling you out if that is the way you took it. Was just saying that you are really clobbering them and good job. Crappie and Walleye are the two best tasting fish if you ask me. But my unintended comment does bring up a good question. We put a lot of crappie in the freezer throughout the spring and also catfish. What are you allowed to have? I thought the limit was 15 per person per day?? The whole "possession" throws me off a little bit. Does it count frozen fish ? Like Phil said I want to stay legal and don't want there to be any question in my legal taking of fish.

How many refrigerators do you have for all these fish you have been catching the last month or so!

Great info Bill. Its hard to suggest rods without knowing a price point or budget. The typical weekend warrior (like myself) is typically in the $100-$200 range for a rod and about the same for a reel with a combo around 200-400 dollars which I why I suggested what I did. I was going to suggest The Falcon Amistad or Mike McClelland Signature also but those are 300 clams a piece. I haven't used them before (out of my price range) but I do have 2 Falcon's (a Bucoo and a Cara). Love both and don't really see any difference in the models other than the cork vs no cork. Action, weight, balance and sensitivity seem to be just about identical. Falcon makes some of the finest rods out there for sure. As far that the reel, I will also vouch for Lew's reels. I have 3 of them and they might be the new standard in the industry especial at the price point they have their models. Once again I don't have the top of the line $299.99 Lews models but I have some of the lower end models and they are just fantastic so I can only imagine the top grade models being out of sight awesome performers. I have Shimano Curado E7s, Pfluegers, Pro Qualifiers and Lews....the Lew's are by far the best bang for your buck and are made right there in Bass Pro's back yard in Springfield if I am not mistaken. Thumbs up on both Lews and Falcon. Can't go wrong with any product they put out.

David. Depends on your price point. To be honest Bass Pro doesn't carry all that many brands and doesn't have each model/action of each rod always in stock so its kind of a crap shoot as to what they have at the current time you go up there. At least that is the case for the St. Charles location here in St. Louis, if you are going to Springfield they have a lot more in stock. That being said if you wait a couple of weeks BPS has their annual Spring Classic Fishing sale and they do a rod trade in. Trade an old rod in and get a discount on your new rod purchase. Can save you anywhere from $5-$100 bucks depending on how much the new rod you want costs. Its a pretty good program if you ask me. Here is the link for info and $ breakdown: http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPageBasic?storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&appID=206&template=rod.cfm&storeID=14 Just from past questions like yours from other forums I belong to you will get about 10 different answers from 10 different people on rod preferences. The common answer go test them out at the store and get the one that is comfortable for you. People also recommend you put whatever reel you are going to put on it and put it on that rod in the store and feel it out. Bass Pro should let you do this if you ask. I don't know your price point or budget but here is a list of what a lot of guys like in the $100-$200 range: - Duckett Micro Magic - Shimano Crucial - Powell Endurance - Dolbyns Savy - Denali Jadewood - Abu Garcia Veritas - 13 Fishing Omen Those seem to be the most popular rods going at the moment, of those brands Bass Pro carries Duckett, Shimano and Abu Garcia. The others can be found at Tackle Warehouse or other retailers. Good luck with your search for the "perfect one".

Nice Report Terry!