blckshirt98

I put a small donation in, best wishes to the family!

I got a Phenix M1 SMX-90H a while back on the cheap from Sport Chalet without a plan for it. It's rated for throwing irons in the salt (3-8 oz rated), but I'm wondering how it would work for throwing swimbaits. I've got a Curado 301E spooled with I believe 25 lb FC Sniper (it might be 30 lb, forget what I had the shop spool it with). Will this pairing work for heavier swimbaits or is the 9'0" length not ideal?

Hi all, I just signed up to the forums the other day and I'm just getting my feet wet with swimbaits. Reading through the various subforums/topics I'm really impressed with the friendly and helpful community here. One thing that caught my eye was the Hinkle baits, which I've never heard of until I went through the Black Market forums. The realism/detail of the shiners is like nothing I've seen, but also the pricepoint being up there with the RM Mothers. I've read a lot about the engineering and work going into the Mothers, but wondering what makes the Hinkle's tick and why the demand is so high? I couldn't find any forum posts that review the bait, and, the only YouTube video I found looked like an unpainted prototype a couple of years back. The visuals speak for themselves but how do they fish? Are they floaters with perfect balance/buoyancy? A super wide glide? Thanks for any info!

I use the Boomerang Snip and it's my favorite accessory. I keep it attached to a belt loop on my fishing pants via a small carabiner and the convenience of having a retractable line snip handy like that makes a big difference for me and my time on the water. It does dull out after a lot of use so I buy a new one at the start of every season in the Spring. It's easily still my best investment every year.

Just joined the site and this is an awesome review! Wish I found this site before I started buying up swimbaits, at least I can knock the Gillroid off the list.

I'm fairly new to swimbait fishing but hope to really throw them this upcoming season and looking for a rod. How would this Hudd rod compare to an LDC production H?

I have two Phenix XG3 crankbait rods, one stock, one custom with a spiral wrap. I don't notice any big difference in casting distance but notice the difference between the two on the retrieve. The spiral wrap rod/reel will stay put when cranking or reeling a fish in, with the reel staying face up. On the the stock wrap rod however the reel will have some torque where it will want to roll over and under the rod. You can't really notice on smaller cranks but after chucking a larger crankbait for the better part of the day having the spiral wrap seems to help. The best example to use was one I read where if you stuck a normal conventional wrap casting rod and a spiral wrap rod into a rod holder and troll. On the normal conventional wrap rod the reel will roll around upside down as the line gets pulled on the troll. On the spiral wrap rod the reel will stay put with reel facing up as the line gets pulled on the troll.