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Went out for my first tiger musky trip of the year and at the first spot of the day, on the 5th or 6th cast, this tiger shot out of the depths and engulfed the bait. About halfway through my retrieve, around 10ft from the boat, I saw this musky barreling at my bait and before I could react, I saw its mouth open and my bait disappeared. After a wild fight with multiple jumps, the fish barely fit into the net. Once the fish was in the net I noticed the back treble was hung up in its gills. After some quick plier work and safely securing the fish in the net, got a quick pic and it returned to its home with a strong release. 64410967433__86EA246F-C1B6-40B9-BC3B-C77911EF45CD.HEIC

Got the Hi & Lo on a Double Attack Rig... We gonna see whut it dew.

Blind in one eye but doesn’t take much to track down a bait like this! 3rd rat fish but the first two were little guys. Fun bite

It's been a while since I have been able to get out on the kayak. I finally got some free time and hit the water with my brother. It was a pretty slow day, with only a few dinks around noon. Towards the end of our trip, I finally got this chunk to bite my Bravo glide. As with most of my other glide fish, she hit after I gave two quick cranks of the reel handle.

Just a hair over 4lb. First fish on my customers new custom rod, and first Sly Shiner Fish. Fun day in the sun.

I've been using it so here are my thoughts. I don't recommend using it on any baits with a foil finish like the biwasagi colored DRTs for example. If you get any bubbles or peeling it will peel the finish right off. Using it on regular painted baits I've had no issues with removing it and damaging the paint. You just have to be careful when applying it not to overlap it on itself and not to allow any bubbles or creases to form. My first few I ended up making all of these mistakes and they would start peeling within the first hour of fishing. I decided to give them another try with the TK guards and I have had absolutely no issues. I have a joythief that has seen about 20 hours of use with many fish and no damage at all to the finish. The film has held up well too with no peeling or tearing. It's hard to say how well it will work on other baits of different shape and size. I had a negotiator where it started peeling I think in part because of the sharp angle on the bottom of the bait.

I hope that’s true!!!!

Hit a new spot with a biggfeast wake tonight and man was it a clone factory. First fish came off a thick grass point so kinda used that pattern the rest of the night and man did it pay off got 3 fish all in the 4 pound range work the whole thing and find another isolated weed matt in some open water make a cast and soon as it gets to the edge of the weeds i hear a blow up set the hook and nada not sure if it was big or small i keep casting same spot second blow up miss this point im laughing so i keep walking and casting i come back to the same weed spot before working the other side and boom finally connect with it a 4.13 last fish of the night but boy was it a blast to finally get on a decent wake bait bite

Catching a few still but bite is slowing down. Glide bait still getting it done but nowhere near the follows I had earlier. I’m sure many bigger fish are in summer patterns staying deep and feeding nocturnal. Only one really good fish 7+ she was spawned out and fattening up bluegills and you could see a big bluegill tail down her throat. Actually I think it is my biggest June bass ever. Seeing fewer big fish shallow now. About time to take weeklong trips up north to st Clair and 1000 islands anyway.

Hard to beat the little Garmin Striker Plus 4 for what you want to use it for in my opinion. Especially at the price point. It allows you to make your own contour maps on any lake, plus it has a dual band sonar with split screen. I’d imagine you can swap from split screen to full screen on either map mode or sonar like my bigger bass boat units do. You can mount it inside the yak through hull or rig it with an adapter that hangs into the water. But I’d go through hull myself since I’ve never had any issues with that type of sonar puck when I ran them through hull on my boat. The one thing to keep in mind if you’ve never used sonar/gps units much in the past is you’ll learn as you go as far as how to use all of the features to their full potential. But once you get the basics figured out, it’s much easier. Two videos below. Both kayak related. It gives you two different options of how to mount. One guy has a portable set up. Looks a little cumbersome to me, but I’ve never fished from a kayak so I’m no expert by far. Hope this helps.

Received my tracking number today for my Godzilla. Just a heads up for anyone that also ordered in April that’s been waiting. Placed my order on 4-10. Honestly forgot about it. Always a nice surprise when this happens.

Not the same profile but a proven paddle tail. 3:16 Rising Sons. The 5” get bit all year for me and can be thrown on weightless beast hooks and swim perfect— not too many baits can do that. I mainly throw them with weighted beasts and also flashy swimmer beasts. Probably the swimbait I’ve caught the most fish on and hookup ratio is very good. Buy some glue with your order and they’ll last many fish.

Creates a better wake seeing it doesn’t have rattles for attention that color is so sick in person, looks great with the texture, got mine today. hopefully holds up better than the hi float Tk, one fish on mine and a massive chunk of bait/clear missing

Dobyns Champion 807

You probably have a small hole where the line tie is. Any one of the repair ideas listed will work to fix it. JB Weld water weld putty sticks work well too. You can put it in front of a dehumidifier for a while or in the oven on the warm setting to get the water out faster. Good luck!

QUIK_20210605_204431.mp4

I was in the same boat and ended up going yolo with a Z2020 Black Limited

Got hit three or four times on the same cast before this one committed! 710822384_My9.62Citizen6ReleaseVideo.mp4

I've checked a rod tube on Southwest for travel within the US a bunch of times, and as long as it was under ~90" or something it counted as one of my free checked bags...I never flew with anything over 7'3" so didn't run into oversize charges. Other airlines wanted to charge $50-75 each way for the rods, so I just default to flying Southwest if I'm planning to check the rod tube. Apart from the cost, it's not that different from checking a regular suitcase...check it at the baggage counter, pick it up at the oversized luggage carousel with the skis and golf clubs. I put sleeves on each rod, put them in the tube, and then fill any empty space with clothes so nothing is rattling around. I also put my contact info on the outside of the tube covered in waterproof tape for when it inevitably gets rained on at some point along the way. I have one of those 6" diameter lockable Bazooka tubes that lasted a couple dozen trips, but eventually Southwest managed to snap a 12" length of the end off of the tube and they had to buy me a new one (rods miraculously survived unscathed). Luckily I've never had any rods/guides broken in transit, and the only casualty of the broken tube were some missing socks and t-shirts.

Reach out to Ben on Instagram and see if you can pre pay for one. They are worth the wait

Very happy with mine! Thing is sweet. Been wanting to try a Joker for a long time but was never into the colors until now

Those look awesome thank you!

Interesting lol full send

Will do!!

I follow some JDM Tackle Shops and they usually post what we are getting 2-3 weeks ahead of when we get it it and they were showing restocks on rods. We can cross our fingers tho!

If people actually fished his baits and didn’t flip em for 3-6x retail maybe he wouldn’t have changed how he was doing it, you have your fellow “fishermen” to thank I’d guess if he drops 100 baits less than 10 will get fished

Also would I be able to fit a lot of 20lb line on a 300 size reel?

I 3rd a z2020, I love mine. I was on the fringe of selling it a couple months ago but ended up keeping it and it’s the best decision I’ve made lol. I throw doom riders and tks up to 8” punkers and 10” mags like nothin, a great all around reel.

Finally caught a nice bass this year, about 20 inches bit i didn't get a weight. Based on how fat she was i'm assuming she weighed around 5lbs, possibly a few ounces more. Saw the fish cruising around while i was walking with my family and pitched a tiny bullshooter at her. I love these fish unfortunately theyre starting to make moves for beds so it's just about bowfin mission time.

UFOs Got a little bit of everything, Wakes/Crank downs/ Count Downs/ Slow Sinks

Hell yeah

Awesome! Congrats

Back while everything was still iced over, there was a thread here about knockoff baits and someone mentioned a site called Alternative Lures. I checked them out and found a blank Gantarel knockoff--that's been one of my wish list baits since I first got into swimbaits but I could never pull the trigger on the price tag. Painted it up, today I took it out to a local neighborhood shallow mudhole pond I just found last week. Raining, gusts up to 30mph, lake all blown out...perfect conditions for the loud, aggressive action of the bait. Had about 30 minutes to fish, maybe ten minutes in it all came together. She went 4.58, my third-biggest bass ever (5.71, 5.43). I used to never fish in conditions like this, that was crazy talk. It's true the fish love it though!

We took the jet way up in the mountains looking for some late run striper and some of the rumored big smallies. It was a great afternoon. Ended up breaking my PB with a 20.75” 4.25 and added another 20.25” 3.1 with several other nice fish to hand. Also found a nice 16# striper. All fish caught on a Paperweight. The ride and scenery isn’t to shabby either.

Now that the spawn is in full swing I can post my pre spawn success. March brought me my 2nd DD of the season and my PB coming in at 14lbs 15oz x 27”. A true giant and my first teener.

Connected up with a buddy at a secret big smallmouth hole and threw swimbaits around for a few hours before it was too dark to fish safely. Got six smallmouth in total between the two of us, the largest being these cookie cutter 3.43 and 3.57. Previous PB was an unimpressive 2.4 so I guess I broke it twice! The pattern I figured out was to burn the Balam full tilt into a stump or log and then pause it until something tanked it. Ended up losing my Hiro (recovered) buddy’s Deps (recovered) and my Balam, which is waiting for me to drive up and swim for it. All in all a great night! Also ignore the “5 3.57” mark. Calibrated the scale with a five pound weight and it’s saved as a fish weight, no idea how to delete it.

The only running I do is trying to beat someone to my fishing spot or a fish that's about to spool me

Ask Butch if he can Hybrid tune it for you