zanwhite

That's what I'm sayin

I got this from my grandparents from Habitat for Humanity where they volunteer, it's 7" long and made out of plastic. I can't find the make or model anywhere online, all I can find are giant saltwater tuna and crevalle poppers. Thanks for any help!

The tail moves side to side like a hudd, RP, etc... I've heard it referred to as a wedge tail too

"Hammer Tail" on the site now, they have 2 sizes and all the colors still left, in case anyone is interested

I don't know about your body of water, but allot of the ones I fish have a little shelf/dropoff within 10' of the bank all the way around, I fish topwater 95% of the time at night, and a well-timed pause at the end of your cast can be $$$. I agree with the aforementioned advice about fish eating close to shore as well. Most of my bites happen within a few feet of the bank in places that Ive never seen fish during the day. If not by the shore, the rest of my bites are either within a few seconds of splashdown and the start of my retrieve, or as far out as I can cast with painfully slow twitches and long pauses. If it's windy, really cloudy, or the moon hasn't come up yet, I walk the dog and use erratic retrieves. Sometimes they want it slow and steady, though. I've started to pay close attention to the rise and set times for the moon as well. I haven't figured it out yet consistently, but everything Butch Brown has talked about always seems to come back to the moon, whether it be the phase or the timing of its height in the sky. Anyways, just keep at it. If you have clear water, it'll all come together eventually at night IMO. Hope this helps ya in some way, I know it can be discouraging to night fish due to the lack of seeing followers (or anything) and that nagging doubt that fish just aren't seeing your bait

Marco, those were some solid reads. I swear I once saw Mike Gilbert say that his 17# bass on the Hinkle was the largest ever caught on a hard bait (maybe it said glide bait), but then I heard Manabu caught one larger on a Mother on Biwa? Maybe Mike said C2C?

I had to share this other video as well, again fishing the Balam 300. The spots that they're catching these fish just seem to be the most obvious places that would hold bass in the lake. I mean, I would immediately fish bridge pilons and massive mats of floating crap if I saw them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2tl7Dw0jNM At the 9:40 mark might be the craziest figure 8 fish catch (hooking) ive ever seen... Unreal

I went and re-watched allot of videos yesterday evening on youtube and started realizing how many of them were on this lake, it seems like the fishing pressure isn't nearly as high as it is here in the states. I'm curious to know how many people fish it compared to Biwa, for I've heard that the fish there can be really spooky and hard to get to bite. I also realized how large of an area that the tributaries spread to that connect to Ikehara, the watershed there seems massive. The little rivers and ditches seem like a dream to fish, I could cast at bluff walls and waterfalls all day longgg. There are some Roman Made videos where they are fishing literally a 1' deep by 3' wide concrete ditch, and there are 3-4-5+ lbers in them. It saddens me that the government there yet hasn't recognized black bass as a top-notch gamefish, or realized how much the bass fishing industry can do for their economy. I'm glad that most are practicing catch and release, but I did read an article where it was rumored that a 25 pound+ bass was caught in nets on Biwa and most likely served as a meal in a restaraunt...

A few months ago I first saw the hype video from Madness Japan for the Balam 300, which looked to be filmed in some sort of prehistoric river that was chock full of bass. I mean everywhere. No other video has made me want to go fishing in a particular place more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0u8NaVhVSU Only 1 problem, I couldn't possibly feed my fantasies without knowing where this was, and the comments for the video were disabled on YouTube... Today, out of the blue, I stumbled upon a picture of the man behind Madness (Satan Shimada) holding quite a large bass. Links were clicked on, and I soon came to find that he had owned the previous Japanese largemouth bass record years ago with a fish caught on a swimbait (19.3 pounds). This fish came out of a reservoir called Ikehara, which according to Bassmaster, was the first lake in Japan to be stocked with Florida-strain bass. Even before Biwa. (The link to this article is below, I found it to be a nice read). It (or one of the adjacent rivers) is the same lake as the video from which the Balam 300 was filmed. Score! I finally knew where this place was... https://www.bassmaster.com/node/39922 Anyways, this lake has been on the forefront for trophy bass fishing for years and yet, I had never heard of it in my life. There have been some monsters caught out of here, I mean some absolute studs, many of which came on swimbaits. The water is clear, the banks are steep, and damn do I want to go there... So, now that this lake is towards the top of my wishfully-thinking bucketlist, I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of it before? I'm trying to learn as much as possible about this proving-ground for JDM swimbaits and would love to open up the topic for discussion. Just look at the pictures on google images of some of the fish caught there. I figured I would share this info with yall considering I can't be the only one who saw that video and was amazed. It's certainly a long shot, but hey, maybe one day I'll venture out that way...

Precisely. If the drag is too loose and you continue to turn the reel handle anyways, all you are doing it spinning the handle against the drag and the spool itself doesn't turn. I've been steadily moving towards having my drag locked all the way down to keep this from happening, for sometimes that's all the slack a fish needs to headshake its way off the hooks. Also, I'm sure its just due to how the fish are biting the bait, but I tend to lose fish in bunches. I'll catch 3 fish in a row that eat, only to dump like the next 8 in a row with seemingly nothing else having changed

It's a big bait. If the fish comes up to the surface after you hook it, I put the rod tip down and grind it in as hard as i can. Most of the fish I lose on the big hard baits are from reeling just drag for a second or two after setting the hook

I have had people say "PM offers", and then when I message them asking if they still have the bait, they message back saying "yeah, it's yours for __$$" and the price is either at retail or often below. Some people just like talking to different members on here about fishing and other BS, hence the initiation of the conversation by stating "PM me". This isn't always the case, but not everyone who doesn't post a price is trying to flip their baits...

For sure look like some salty, get-bit colors

That's a slob, congrats on catching the first and second biggest fish!

Those are some pretty fish, that bass isn't that small either! I would call that a damn successful day

I have seen glass fly rods and cranking rods warp but never with graphite, not saying it wont happen though

I have a lip weight for my 250 that inserts into the slot on the nose left from where the bill would be on a silent killer. It lets you reel it very fast or the same as normal, but it gets down allot more on a normal retrieve. I'm sure you could hammer some lead down flat and shove it into a 175 for similar results