dheath2

Blood knot works great. But if I’m using a Fluoro leader I’ll use a crazy Alberto.

Congrats man. Great fish.

I fished with their more expensive musky rod. I think it was around 130. No complaints. Just and absolute pool cue though, had to really horse fish in to keep them pinned. Worked well with jig hook and beast hook baits.

I'm mostly swimbaits most of the time but I've been known to dabble with other stuff. Probably 85/15 swimbait/anything else ratio. And I agree with the sentiment that a swimbait is not always the right tool for the job. But with the caveat that you can pattern with swimbaits similar to how you would with anything else. Patterning fish-evidence of repeated bass behavior in a given period of time. Their behavioral patterns from our perspective. Depth > Speed > Vibration > Profile > Color…refer to In-Fisherman Casting angle is in that equation as well…visible shoreline cover or offshore structure, parallel to the shore or a 45 degree angle from shore/to shore. Another key consideration is current weather patterns and some indirect correlations with moon phases. Date, time, Air and water temps, winds, barometric Px are probably the most critical to keep track of. That way when prevailing conditions exist that you have caught fish on in the past you may be able to repeat that pattern. Key word being “may.” It’s a matter of what’s working or isn’t working and adjusting your presentation until you can entice a fish to strike via its own reaction or demonstrating a feeding behavior. Large, expensive/rare hard baits are popular because they play on a fish's reactions. And because they are rare and expensive...And Carl is 100% right. Big baits are for big fish. Not for the sake of catching swimbait fish...but that's what the market has catered towards. One must also pay attention to his/her fishing...be analytical with what you're doing. Casual fishing with any bait will produce casual results. Chuck and wind without further consideration and analysis may get some fish, but you could have a better day or at least learn a little more about the area you are fishing. Swimbaits can be broken down into a few categories: Wake baits: BBZ floater, Slammers and others. Glide baits: Hinkle, Deps, Shine Glide, Sneaky Pete, R2S…etc. Multi Jointed baits: Triple trout, bullshad, hard gill Boot tail soft baits: Smash Tech, 3:16 RS, Osprey and many others Wedge tail soft baits: Realprey, Huddleston, Hammer tail, Burrito baits, Rago...Baitsmith is working on coming back Others: Segmented soft baits, billed diving baits…these are less common. Some may classify things like crawlers as swimbaits, I do not. My theory on how to figure it out…during this whole time I look like a crazy person in my boat talking to myself and working through my presentations. Start with what you know or have the most confidence in or really just want to catch a fish on. One piece of experience that is worth sharing is that you should never set a bait specific goal (I want to catch # fish on this bait)…common advice in swimbait fishing is to take one or two baits and leave all the others at home. This is good in theory and truthfully practice as it forces an angler to learn how to work a bait but will result in more skunks than necessary as not every single bait will produce every single time out. I do and don’t advocate this common advice given to beginners. I digress… For example I’ll use a soft wedge tailed bait first. Start low and slow. By slow I mean watch your spool turn. Not quite stitching slowly with your fingers. Cast to visible cover, parallel to shore and 45 degrees out from the bank on a long cast. Do this until you’re convinced that this isn’t working in this particular area. This may be cast or time based…it’s a bit of a personal judgement call. Unless of course you get a positive reaction like an aggressive follow...or catch a fish. Next, count the bait down a few seconds and just roll a medium retrieve. Repeat your cast angles. Then, burn the bait under the surface through the same cast angles in the same area. If this doesn’t elicit a reaction in your area, don’t worry. It can be just a matter of timing or bait profile/action. Since we only have so much time to fish on a given day we have a couple choices. Try to repeat the same thing in a different area, or change it up. Either is acceptable. In my case, I’m going after bait profile and action of the soft bait and I’ll repeat all of the above with a boot tailed bait with or without some flash (Owner flashy swimmer). I’ll repeat the process through the various bait categories until the fish tell me something positive via their reaction to a certain category of bait fished a certain way. Everything builds and develops until you figure it out...depth, speed, vibration, profile... Eventually the timing and/or presentation will be right. Or it won’t and your day is either over or it just wasn’t a swimbait day or your timing was just off in the areas you fished. It happens. Also of note, swimbaits can replace a lot of things that conventional tackle will do. However, you can't work them over slop or punch through heavy cover. You can really only fish edges with baits that are actually swimbaits. Otherwise, you should consider still keeping your frogs and punching gear. Or accept lost opportunity. Some may disagree. My opinions are my own, feel free to share and adapt/interpret. I could go on. Bill Murphy caught giants on little worms. Read his book.

I'd take that all day. Great fish!

Dude that's still cool. No green fish of the sunfish family will ever pull like those things do.

Dude that's awesome. Congrats.

I don't own a DRT. I feel like the person who says they don't watch Game of Thrones...but I'm that person too. I'm not a vegan and I have a wife and kids. I swear. Then again, I don't really plan on trying to buy a DRT either. I will binge GOT though....some day.

You guys talking about Scotts run? I grew up in York county all the way down in Glen Rock on the MD line. Fished Codorus state park and Prettyboy in Baltimore county MD with my grandfather. Parents moved to Lewisberry so I’ve thrown some big rubber in Gifford Pinchot a few times when I’ve visited. Stuck a few small Realprey fish but haven’t spent any significant amount of time in PA since 2012. Which corresponded to graduating college and being an active duty Marine. I miss those days on Prettyboy. Codorus always attracted a crowd when the sun came out.

Tackle berry and joshuya in addition to the Sansui locations. Most of the pictures posted on social media are in Sansui.

Mattlures gills. Hard and soft. Realprey gill also.

Great post for the collections thread.

I’m throwing Realprey and Alpha Shads until the end of June. Mixing in burritos and hammer tail gills a smidge too.

I use xuron for all spilt rings.

Straight braid is fine. 50-65#. You can run a leader to some mono/copolymer as well. That’s the way a lot of guys roll Dont confuse cover and structure.

Seems like you have most every scenario covered with what you have. Add a glide bait if you like. Perhaps an S waver or Gancraft 178. Sneaky Pete is a newer bait and swims very well. As previously stated, don’t waste time and money chasing rare, expensive baits. You can’t spend your way to a new personal best on every trip. Fishing just doesn’t work that way. Unless you buy a boat rigged to go electro fishing and shock ‘em up.

Way to stick em!

Dude, nice!

http://www.tackletour.com/reviewdaiwaluna.html

Con would be not having the outside adjustable braking system that’s on the 253. The 300 you use the take down side plate that turns. The 253 you just palm and turn to adjust the brakes Thats about it.

Real prey swimbaits

Luna 253 is killer reel.

Never heard of it. Looks like a jointed wake bait. Joint is pretty wide, probably has a fairly wide body roll.

Segaur Tatsu is a sweet line. Pricey, but sweet. But I generally use braid to a copolymer leader and only dabble with fluorocarbon lines here and there.

You could take a trip to Tokyo and get one for 80 bones, new.