Lure review: Netbait Paca Craw

This is another bait that is one of my personal favorites. It would be a lot easier to name the pros than the cons. Some of the pros are: great action, cheap, durable, lots of colors, lots of sizes, and they are scented. They come in a yellow and clear package. I normally get them at bass pro. The paca chunks are around $2.50. The paca craws are around $4.

I normally use the paca chunks for jig trailers and the paca craws on a shaky head, a texas rig, a carolina rig, a flipping and pitching bait, and a swim jig trailer. They have a great flapping action good for Spring, Summer, and Fall. The size I usually use for a jig trailer if the normal paca chunk. My favorite paca craw size is the baby paca craw and the normal paca craw.  My go to colors are green pumpkin, black/blue, and natural craw. They normally last quite a while on a jig trailer and on a shaky head. This is the most erratic craw style lure I have ever used. They come in 3 sizes on the chunk, and 4 sizes on the normal craw.



This is another lure I highly recommend. As soon as you see the action you will be a believer.



The first pic is of the normal craw, and the second is the chunks.

     

Lure Review: Rapala shad rap

I am doing another lure review about the Rapala shad Rap. Just about everybody has one tied on on Percy Priest lake in the fall. The shad rap 5 is personally my favorite bait to use in the fall. These baits have a tight wiggle and they work best in colder water. My favorite color for the fall is the shad color. In the spring my favorites is the crawfish and bluegill color, although all colors work.  The size 5 is my favorite to catch a quick limit. After I catch my limit I will normally come back with a jig in fall or winter, and a lizard in the spring.  I normally throw these on a spinning rod with 8 pound test fluorocarbon. These baits are $6-$9 most places, but they will last you at least a season. I like the normal size bill and the shallow size bill depending on the depth the fish are at. These baits are made of balsa wood so they  naturally float. Because of the balsa wood they don't have a rattle so they work in heavily pressured areas. The paint jobs on the shad raps are super realistic in the craw, shad, and bluegill colors.  They make them in size 7, which also has the same action, but the size 5 is my personal favorite.


This is a lure I highly recommend for cold water situations.  You also need to bring a plug knocker with you because you will not want to break off this a $8 lure! Buy this lure and fish it and you will not be disappointed!




                                        The first pic is of the shad color. The second pic is of the bluegill color. The last pic is of the crawfish color.

Winter trout

I went to nice mill trout stocking today and I always use trout magnets. I caught about 30 today all on trout magnets, including several 12 inchers. I had my limit of 7 trout within 30 minutes. They were a bit pickier than normal today and they only bit if you had a flurocarbon leader on. They would bite one color until I caught about 5 then they would want another color. Some of the colors they bit were salmon, pink, chartruse, orange and chartruse, and white. I used a trout magnet bobber with the trout magnets. No one else in sight was catching as many as I was, even some using trout magnets without a flurocarbon leader. The flurocarbon I use it from trout magnet also. Here is the link to the trout magnet website. http://troutmagnet.com/

Lure review: Go 2 Bait Company

I love these baits! My favorite colors for them are Cranbug and Green pumpkin. They are hand poured with the highest quality plastics available. That makes them float. Most competitors put so much hardener and metal flake in their cheap quality plastics that they sink and have little to no action. Go 2 Baits also puts a limited amount of metal flake in their plastics insuring that they float. Also, they don't rip and tear as easy as other products because of the quality grade of plastics.

       The four I own and have tested out are the 4.2 inch lil' thumper, the swimming craw, the 7 inch shaky worm, and the 4.5 inch shaky worm.  The lil' thumper is designed as a flipping and pitching bait, but works great on a shaky head, texas, or Carolina rig. Since it floats the appendages float up they respond to even the slightest rod movement. It falls into the creature category.

 The swimming craw is as versatile as the lil' thumper, except it has a better swimming action and it is shaped like a craw. It can also be used as a jig trailer. It falls into the craw category.

The 7 inch shaky worm is my personal favorite. It is so much better than a zoom trick worm! It has a square head, allowing it to be used after catching many bass. It shakes on a very slight rod twitch. I love to rig it on a shaky head rig. If it catches the fish's eye and the fish follows it down, its tail will stand up, causing the strike. If the head rips after a few bass, just simply bite a little section off. You can get lots of bass off one worm. It falls into the worm category. 

 The last is the 4.5 shaky worm. I like to rig it on a drop shot or a shaky head. It is smaller than the 7 inch version, but you get more in a pack. It doesn't have the same design as its big brother, but it is still very durable. It also falls into the worm category. 

 If you are on the market for a soft plastic company, don't hesitate to try Go 2 baits. Everybody needs
a go 2!

Soft Plastic Colors and Styles

My Favorite color for soft plastics on J Percy Priest Lake is Green Pumpkin. That because the water visibility is usually 2-5 feet. If you were going to fish clearer water than that I would use Watermelon or Watermelon red. If I were fishing water visibility that was 0-2 feet I would use Junebug or Black. That is for soft plastics that are being hoped up of the bottom and crawled through the rocks. For a soft plastic that is imitating a baitfish I like white or any baitfish pattern.


     There are many styles of soft plastics, but I break them down into 4 styles. The first is a worm. It is more that likely that a bass has never seen a live worm in his/her life. But for some reason they strike them. I like fishing a 10 inch worm for bass in the summer. My all around favorite worm to fish year round is a shaky head worm.  The second is a creature bait. A creature bait is just that, a creature. Some baits nobody knows what they look like, but some look like lizards. Others just look like a mix between a lizard, craw, snake, bluegill, and other things. My favorite bait for flipping is a beaver style bait. Any creature bait is good for bed fishing. All you have to do is annoy a nest guarding bass just enough, and he will crush it.  The third is a craw bait. These are effective any times of the year, Texas rigged and as jig trailers. The last is a fluke style bait. Fluke Style baits mimic shad and other baitfish. I love to fish these in the fall.



          The first picture is the colors. Starting from the left is Green Pumpkin, Watermelon Red, Black, Junebug, and a baitfish pattern. The second picture is all the different style soft plastic worms I have. The third picture is the vast variety of creature baits out on the market. The fourth picture is some of the craw type baits I have. The last picture is some fluke style baits.

A little more is involved in fishing than most think

I fished in one of my favorite spots off the bank tonight. I did not get any bites until I tied on a texas rigged without a bullet weight senko right before dark. The cold front moved through and it messed up the fish big time. If you could even get them to bite they were short striking your lures. Well today got a little better and they bit my senko. I caught two 14 inch bass. They both were barely hooked in the corner of the mouth. Also, the senko had bite marks in the tail. So that tells me that the bass were still a little affected by the cold front because they just grabbed the tail and took it in real slow. Anyway, I will attach a pic of a senko in case anyone does not know what a senko looks like.

Catfish 9/10

I decided to go to catch some catfish, so I went to my secret spot I found a couple weeks ago. When I got there it was thundering and lightning, so I had to wait a few minutes to go out and fish. After I baited my three lines with chicken liver I wrapped them with sewing thread to keep them on the 1/0 VMC circle hook I was using. After I threw them out, I only had to wait about 10 minutes before I caught my first channel catfish. I caught about 3 more channel cats in about 1 hour, then I caught a big (for me at least) blue catfish, and it felt like I was trying to lift The Titanic out of the water. After that, I caught 4 more smaller channel catfish, the smallest being about 12 inches. I took all of them home and cleaned them, and they are soon to be a very good meal.