Magic Man CP

"Bootleg nitch"...? Riiiight, cause now any bait that looks like a fish just as someone else's fish replica is now a "bootlegger"... Personally, I like the bait because it does indeed have a different design than the previous ones out there. Honestly, I like most baits period, but I can only fish so many at any given time, I get bored fishing the same baits all the time, so I'll get dif. stuff to try as a challenge. That being said, I choose to buy the baits that encompass the best qualities for the best price, end of story. So if a company comes along and takes an existing design, but re-designs it with definite improvements, and provides it for a fraction of the cost, why not give em a try?? 90% of all the baits I fish are my own personal designs, so it is nice to find other baits that you can establish confidence in, and I think the Phoney shad has found a permanent place on my deck.

Umm, not sure what you're referring to... But if you must know, I swim test my baits MYSELF. I haven't had any issues with the baits yet, even after an 11, couple over 5, and several in 4lb range. Hell, I'd say I've already got my $$$ worth with just the DD! But honestly, aside from teeth marks, it's still looking gorgeous! One awesome quality about it, is that it is indeed tunable on your own, in fact, on one of mine I closed the bottom joint a touch, opened the top up a lil, and now it's almost like a slow diver, SICK for the windy days!!! I have 0 brand loyalty, just enjoying having a great product in my hands and not stuck on a waiting list. I'll be selling my Hinkles soon as well, no more need for them.

I will pm you Jason,, prefer not to get this thread locked up... lol!

I personally will never again support anyone, or company that requires ALL the $$$ upfront. What other business does this? I can understand 1/2 down, other 1/2 upon shipment, but I'd still never do that as a company owner. Unforeseeable events occur, I'd hate to put myself in a bad spot. I sell mostly to retailers, which often involves net terms, delay of payment 30, 60, upto 120 days after receiving the product. So I'm often on the other end of it. I can understand it taking a while, but months on end, heck even over a year??? Produce in 50 qty batches, I'm sure that'd cut down on wait times. It's usually just the shad makers having this issue,, I'm glad I found one that seems to be doing things rt for once, I like my Hinkles, but I can't see ever buying another one, but that's just me. Good luck guys.

Clear Lake is trying to institute a catch and destroy policy, because they're a threat to the Hitch, and CL is the only place Hitch are found. I say every fish for himself, sry you were born a hitch, it's called natural selection for a reason! Furthermore, seeing people mistreat bass anytime of the year is equally maddening, however, I'd rather see guys string em up and eventually let em go after their long drawn out photo opps, vs. plucking em off beds with live bait, throwing em in the bottom of some crappy lil skiff, then into the pressure cooker to feed their house full of dozen lil crumb snatchers!

Thanks guys! It's been hit n miss this last week as far as weather goes,, I managed to squeeze in two more trips. On Friday the wind and rain was not only sideways, but I think it even came from below,, EVERYTHING was getting soaked! But even in cruddy conditions, top quality rainwear can make they day enjoyable, and of course along with a good bite! Ended up w about 32lbs, one being a massive mama weighing in at 12.08lb, she ate a bait that we make with a 5" swim behind it. Other fish came on non-swimbait stuff, so won't go into all the details on those. Lol. All in all, a great day out there, we'll worth the battle with the torrential rain & sideways wind! Sunday was a better day as far as the weather goes, but missed the two best fish we came in contact with. One I'm guessing high 9s chased the Phoney shad to the boat on two different occasions, just no commitment. Another smashed a topwater bait that was in the high 7 to low 8lb range,, definitely would've helped the day's total. We ended up with two fish over 5lbs, about 19lb total. My best came on a 6" Daiwa DOA

Loving these,, almost too sexxee to throw in the swamp water... Almost. They've been putting in work, no shelf baits for me!

Daaaaaang,, surprised she's not dropping eggs in the boat bro! Awesome job!

C'mon upJacob,, I had to cancel all my bookings for the season due to Yamabomb! I'll get you out on the water bro, pm me, we'll make it happen!

Hey fellow bass addicts! I've been off the water for a lil while now, had to get a new power plant put on my rig, so I should be fishing regularly now, at least for the next 8 years (warranty term on new Merc) haha! First off, I cannot express enough of how awesome my experience went with the re-power! From my claim through arguably the best insurance company, Progressive, to the people behind getting me back on the water in blazing fast time, Mike and staff at Boatmasters in Livermore CA! Thanks to good friend and Member Anthony "Big Slant" for the referral! I feel it's necessary to include these lil mentions because as sportsmen, unforeseeable events happen, and it's nice to know who to go to, that'll treat you with respect to the fullest! Ok, so still in break in period on motor for a lil while, 4.34 hrs remaining... Can you tell I'm antsy?? I'm really supposed to be doing more running than reeling rt now, but anyone who's fished with me knows I don't really run around that often, it's really unnecessary, there are literally fish everywhere. So I picked up my rig the 11th, launched and fished for a few hrs, had Slant along for an hour or so before dropping him back off. Caught several fish, but nothing huge, I did manage a 4+ on the new Phoney Frog glide shad, a bait I had been impatiently waiting to get wet! Very impressed with initial experience. Managed to get all the new Lowrances installed and back out on the water on Sunday the 17th. Got a lil bit of a late start, and that's ok because the tide wasn't favorable. The weather was pretty hot and no breeze to speak of, crappy conditions for my preference. Managed to get a 5er' rt off the bat with the Phoney, actually my first cast with it! My wife and kids were pretty excited about that, figuring it was going to be a lights out kinda day! Well it wasn't that kinda day. Between fighting with trying to figure out the touch screen Lowrance (I HATE technology btw), and the tide rushing in, I just wasn't happy. So we decided to rack up some hrs on the Merc, after all that's what our objective was supposed to be, lol. We ended up making a pretty long run to the north, went rt to an island I had fished a ton growing up when I couldn't go far from a nearby ramp. I know every contour of this area, and it hadn't changed in past 8 years I've been away from it. With a full pool high tide we opted to try out the Talons, deployed them, had a fat lunch, and an even fatter NAP! If you don't carry an umbrella, you will if you ever see how cozy I make a crappy hot day look under mine! Lol After a couple hrs of downtime I looked at the time and saw on the tide chart it was time to pack up and get moving. I keep mentioning the tide because on the Delta, the tide can be the biggest factor of success. Different guys like different phases of different tides. Personally, a full high outgoing is my preference, all the way into the last hr of the low. But the first half hr being the most significant, and at the back of a long slough, the movement is subtle but consistent. My wife had already been seeing some heavy cruisers in the area while i was snoring... So we raised the anchors and started fishing rt there, I grab my Loomis w Phoney shad, the impact of the first cast caused an explosion of fry to skitter on the surface. I reeled in as fast as I could after fishing the strike zone. Put my next cast with the Phoney just past the nearest pocket by where I saw the fry boil. As soon as that bait touched down, before the splash had landed, it was as though a bowling ball was shot at my shad! I could tell instantly without a doubt she was teetering on DD status. So naturally I calmly summoned assistance for the net, ok I lie,, I went into full on frantic mode screaming at three bewildered bystanders and a fur buddy to ""GRAB THE NET""!!! I don't care if I catch 50 more DDs in my time, I guarantee I'll be just as excited as the first few or all of them for that matter,, if you lose that feeling, you've lost the fun! She put up an awesome fight, wrestled her off some mossy weeds, and got her into the net, thanks to all four of my partners! Couldn't wait to get my hands on her and on the scale to see what my prize weighed. Put her on the scale and weighed three readings, 11.13, 11.08, 11.08! She was jumping around a good bit but calmed down enough to get an accurate read. She's one of my top 5. We put her in the well to calm her down a bit,, then we released her to reunite with all her future DDs! She actually didn't want to leave us, followed the boat for quite a while,, craziest thing I e seen, and she looked even bigger in the water, measuring 26.5 x just under 19" of girth,, I have to wonder if she'd be close to a teener a couple weeks ago... Hopefully that lil story gets you fired up, I'm ready to get back out there, this Friday and Sunday, totally addicted!!! Want to also thank the great people at Phoney Frog USA for making such an amazing tool to use for favorite passion in life!

Exactly!!! For myself, not charging upfront was a no brainer go ahead move. I've never sold baits over past twenty years taking money up front,, it's just not wise business,, it puts me in a weird position. I personally will never buy or sell like that again. Honestly,, I'd absolutely not have given this bait a shred of recognition if I didn't think it performed flawlessly. You'll be happy with it, I put my name on the review, so there for I take my share of the responsibility if you're not 100% happy,, I'll buy it from you Jeremy, or anyone else who's purchase was based on my review! The success of his company is very important to me, for one reason, and one reason solely,, Jason and I have the exact same character when it comes to business ethics. Bringing the absolute best product possible, to the people (anyone of all income levels), for the best competitive prices, and highly frown upon ANY flippers!!! If I were going to branch off into the swimbait market with my company, I'd do exactly what Phoney Frog is doing. So there for I don't even need to. This shad flat out catches em!!! I'll do a got em report this afternoon, my experience with their bait,, in just a short time it was responsible for one of my top five bass ever...

I know man!!! Haha,, this thing's gonna be ridiculous on CL, I was gonna go up this week, but the tour guys are there, I'll give it another week or so. Besides, the Delta is always a few weeks ahead of CL, already spotting big pods of fry there....

I want to say I was only on the waiting list a few weeks. I saw his post on ig and emailed him. It was pretty quick turn around compared to other companies (just sayin'). I've got a couple more I'm waiting on, since my others came in,, he keeps in good communication, I totally know how that stuff goes so I like the rest of you guys just gotta be patient, haha

Want my atty's #...? There's legal action you can take, and I can almost guarantee a successful outcome. It's a trade dress rights violation.

Thanks Mike,, been getting a lot of pm's about specs, weight/length,, I'll try to post that when I can, from the best I can tell, it's very comparable to the other popular shads. Maybe around 5ish ounces

How's it going fellow SU members, Just wanted to take a moment and submit a review on a bait that I've been recently having a lot of success with. Having been a bait designer/manufacturer going on twenty years now, you can pretty much guess if I haven't seen it from other designers, or attempted something similar myself, it's probably not worth the time and effort. You can probably also imagine it may take a bit more for a bait to grab my attn and keep it, more so than most guys. Having a lil understanding of what makes baits tic, much like a watch repair guy to a clock, I do admittedly tend to over analyze a bit. I received a couple slow sink Phoney Frog USA glide shads about five weeks ago. My first impressions were; Unbelievable aesthetics rt outta the package! The paint scheme was true and very natural, not overly exaggerated on color hues, in fact once under water, the pigments become even more realistic. The finish wasn't too thick either, but I could tell it had a high level of durability. The eyes are truly lifelike, I'd almost say close to that of what a taxidermist would use. It always amazes me why other high end companiesstill use cheap peel backer eyes. The fins were very realistic, anatomically correct, and appear to be extremely durable! Some very notable features; rotating hook hanger swivels, a very helpful aid in hook retention. The hinge/connection design is exactly how I'd design it myself. A stainless connector pin, I'm guessing .075" thick, extremely durable, joins the two halves via sunk in heavy duty stainless eyelet screws. You can hardly see the hinge system from a side view. This system provides the most durability without question. Unlike molded in door hinge systems, very difficult to break on unforeseen hard structures, (we've all done that a time or three... lol). Another great attribute to this system, is adjustability, cause we all have that buddy who thinks he's the next Kevin Van- Skeet- elite who claims to know exactly how the fish want it served to them, lol! Well it is possible to tune the glide yourself with this system, although I wouldn't mess with it, it comes factory tuned just to my liking. But nevertheless, a great feature to know you have so you can fix down the road without having to try to count on some guy helping you fix it, the same guy that took eleven-teen months to even get you the bait... So this far I'm actually pretty impressed! One awesome thing,, I didn't have to wait three, five, ten months to a year and a half to get my order either! The owner of Phoney frogs ensured me I'd have no longer than six weeks to receive my order. He was wrong! It only took three!!! Lol. Granted this was during pre-spring time, a less busier time than I'm guessing now would be. But another great fact about this company, HE DOESN'T CHARGE YOU TIL YOUR ORDER SHIPS!!!! Now I absolutely do not agree this is something we as consumers should ever feel necessary to get excited over, but the fact is, and many of you can vehemently relate, the other popular shad bait producers have nearly successfully got us to believe prepaid lists are normal business practices. Well they're not! Not hardly close to ethical or responsible. Have you ever asked how the heck you'regoing to get your money back heaven forbid one of these bait makers decides he's done making baits, or just disappears, or even dies...? Believe me, I've thought about it, actually quite a bit lately, I have several hundred dollars floating around out there, with no idea when my bait's arrival is going to be, or if at all... And quite possibly after publicizing this review never see my baits or money again. And want to know an even better part? You get ALL that, at a fraction of the price of those bigger names out there, who only have the popularity because of lil groupie like followers, who have yet to impress me very much. With a retail of a $100.00 bill this bait will sell itself. Putting the Phoney glide next to others almost makes you feel a lil bad for them, no rough wood rasp exteriors, no funky tails that are going to look like a frazzled mess after a fish destroys it, just a great all around replica of a shad, the way it should be, a tool that's going to look good, function well, and provide you a lot of great memories the more you use it. Ok, so now time to get it wet. After tieing it up to my stick of choice, a Loomis IMX 957 and a Curado 301 spooled w 25# sunline super natty green, I gave it a short handed test run. Could immediately tell this bait was quality! It had a very smooth feel, looked extremely fluid, and best attribute was it's balance. On the pause it didn't want to nose dive, or roll, it almost stayed rt where it was paused like a REAL fish would. I varied my retrieve to see if it possessed the ability to duplicate all the retrieves I demand from a glide. I require the bait to have a smooth fluid like motion with a near suspension-like pause, to be able to be burned, and to have a real lively "fleeing or attacking" look when needed, ironically all the swim attributes found in nature. I immediately started catching quality fish on this bait, and it has now earned itself a permanent place on my deck. So to sum it all up,, I'd absolutely recommend this bait to you, my best friend, even my own mom! You will not be disappointed, I promise you that much,, and in the unlikely event that you are, please come visit me, I'll show you what you're missing.

I'm actually using piano wire, won't rust, very resilient, , a paper clip will work, but will rust up on you in a hurry. Shoot me a pm, I'll hook you up with some!

Haha! Guess I'll be guilty of it too,, finally got my boat back, time to twerk the heck outta Craig's bait! But for the record, I'd nevvver throw that onto a bed... ; )

Must be leaps and bounds better than his shad, mine's horrible, and will soon be swimming in the black market pool. I was wondering about the crappie...

Ok, well I've never tried a Breknell, they seem pretty popular though. I've know several guys on tour try them,, all I can say, is get it wet, and see what happens... I dare ya! Haha I fish in rain, hail, snow, salt spray, anything that I encounter. I require my gear keep up, or go away. The xtools has never failed me, I don't work for them, in fact if the owner didn't suck as a businessman, they'd still be around, had nothing to do with them being -/+ .002 oz off. It was a very effective tool that I found handy while fishing tournaments, cull feature was user friendly, fast, and effective. Bottom line, they're probably all good scales. I think if you get your pb, and you're worried about your scale not being accurate enough to differentiate 9.07 and 9.071... you should prob just keep aiming for a DD, not settle for the single digits!