Leaderboard

Had a good day lost three around this size and 7 bites on the new hudd hollow body. Didn’t get a weight in this fish

Double digit bass in the books! This experience was an absolute blessing of a lifetime. After countless hours, days to years of time spent on the water practicing my craft, re-evaluating my techniques and shifting my mentality to become a trophy bass hunter I was fortunate to connect with a Washington state DD. Thank you to everyone who motivated, inspired, and pushed me to be better. I appreciate the support. 10lbs 13oz x 23.25” 4.90kg x 59cm

Less time on the internet and more time on the water learning your style of swimbaiting.

Just bring a buddy

Mail will never be better than it was today…ever

Didn’t get some great pictures, this video is the best I got. Panfish were warming up in the shallows, bass unfortunately weren’t taking advantage but this pickerel sure was. Wicked fat 3.5lber. Ate the bull gill glide paralleling an underwater bush. IMG_6831.MOV

That's a great blank for 2-4oz treble baits. I use it a ton for customer builds, and fish one myself. Holler if you need guide layout measurements. I've got Fuji KW on mine. Alps tx16 seat, and Batson oversized cork split grips.

You need a 908 ultra mag

Just painted these guy's up! First time trying these patterns.

Was gonna keep this tk for show but once I saw it in person it’s fate was decided faster than sleepy joe can fall down the stairs to Air Force 1. Lip out tail mode b. Slurped off the top after some subsurface gliding and pause to let it rise. First decent fish on the Monstruo 710 and it’s quickly become one of my favorite rods. Also this older woman was gardening so I asked her if I could fish in her back yard and she said yes. I was really happy about that as people aren’t usually kind to me while fishing. FullSizeRender.MOV

A googan (goog) is internet toughguy slang for someone who doesn't fit into the cliche/stereotype of a given elite circle. Using surfcasters for example, god forbid you have a white walmart rod, a bucket to carry your stuff, or don't wear waders when standing ankle deep in the water at the beach, you'll be branded as a googan. Always hated that term. What do I call sticks? Usually "gdm mf'er" under my breath will do it.

Not sure if you're building yourself or having someone custom build, but assuming you're DIY'ing: Getting a set of digital calipers was the #1 thing that helped me order the right components in one shot. Lay out how long your rear grip will be, measure blank diameter to get the sizing of the reel seat and winding checks, and use them to measure the tip of your blank for tip top sizing. Sometimes the rodbuilding suppliers don't have a lot of technical specs on inner diameter or outer diameter and you have to do some sleuthing, but it's a lot better than it used to be. The other thing that's a must-have are some reamers; these will allow you to custom fit your grips and reel seat to exactly the place on your blank you want them to sit. Saves the headache of dealing with tape arbors and other stuff to make up for loose fitting components. Guides: I run single foot guides for all but the first one, and there I use a Fuji K double foot in size 8. Size 7 is about what I like for my belly guides and running guides, and I do single footers for these with Forhan locking wraps to hold them securely in place. Some prefer double footers all the way up, which I've never felt was necessary on freshwater rods, but again personal preference. They're expensive but I like the Fuji arowana torzite tip tops, usually also in a 7mm ring. Torzite is denser than other materials, so the inner diameter of the ring is actually about 0.5mm bigger on a torzite insert than SiC or similar for the same listed guide size. Especially good if you run braid to leader. Spiral or traditional layout is personal preference, but either way you should start by looking at the recommended guide spacing from the blank manufacturer and tweaking based on static load testing. Reel seats: The Fuji ACS is a super polarizing reel seat; some people love it, others hate it, and very few in between...personally it makes my fingers go numb, but your mileage may vary. Make sure you fish with one for a solid day before committing to one on your build. The Fuji ECSM is their most popular seat and has been for years, and while it's not flashy it's super comfy for pretty much everyone. I've used both the ALPS MVT and tex touch seats, which are both fine in my book apart from the nosebleed prices on the MVT seats. Some of the American Tackle seats look nice but don't fit the big blank diameters of some swimbait rod blanks. Grips/butt: For split grips, I'd take a look at the new soft touch carbon fiber grips from CFX. This one is my personal favorite and I use it on pretty much everything. The knock on carbon grips for me was always that they were kind of rough, but these new soft touch grips solve that entirely. The other thing I've done is wrapped a carbon grip in xflock shrink tubing for a more swimbait-y aesthetic if that's your jam. If you want to custom shape cork or EVA, get yourself a steel mandrel and you can chuck it up in a drill to use as a little DIY grip turning lathe. If you don't want to mess with any of that, American Tackle makes some adjustable length carbon handles as a kit you can use, and there are plenty of good cork options as well. Good cork has gotten super expensive so don't be surprised if it costs almost as much as carbon. I personally don't like the big bulbous end caps that are common in swimbait builds since they always seem to get stuck on my shirt, but that's a personal preference thing. I either use a simple metal/rubber plug like this, or a smooth vinyl cap like this. Finish: A lot of people use high-build epoxy to cover their thread wraps, but I've moved entirely to using urethane finishes like Permagloss. They don't yellow, are flexible, and are incredibly tough with extremely low weight. It can be kind of tricky to apply, so if you decide to go this route you should look on rodbuilding.org or post up questions here. Hope this helps.

Little guy out of the river on the TK. Just barely got him.

It all comes down to COMMUNICATION. And you can't compare buying from a bait maker vs buying from an individual. If you are an individual and you don't plan on shipping within one to two days of the deal and you don't provide an update to the buyer, then you are you are creating an issue. If you communicate to the buyer that hey man I won't be able to get to the post office till the end of the week, then that's cool. That's called communication. If you take someone's hard earned $ and leave them wondering after 3 or more days with no communication, then you are the problem. I don't list baits for sale unless I plan on shipping same day or next day and at the very least I update the buyer as to what's going on. If you can't provide updates to the buyer then don't sell your stuff on here. Again for you hard of hearing peeps its called COMMUNICATION. If your let a buyer know when you will make it to the post office, ever if its 6 days later or whatever, your treating people like you would like to be treated if you were the buyer.

2/3 hookups in two short trips. Very impressed. Confident this lure is special and will pull some bigs this season.

Googan is a good one or a squid is my other favorite

I know how shipping can be, I have a few custom rods and shipping was no joke!

Hennessy Outdoors Electronics has a Boneyard section on their site. They list the units people take off their rigs to upgrade. They rig a lot of pro and regular tournament boats from what I've seen. Hope that helps.

Been a great week!

New crawler just in time to head to wisconsin next week.

Pegboards work great for me. You can place the hooks wherever you want according to the different weight distribution of the rods.