smithy97

Great tip...thanks for this!

Great report Hank, good to see you again! I went out for a couple hours on Sturgeon on my last night there, got 2 to follow, one was a nice one. They were slow and lazy follows on my double 10's. Went back the next morning after the winds had totally died. The lake was glass, but the fish were gone.

Thanks for the tip! Yah this is something I'm working on. Still very new to me and learning a ton everyday. My goal is 20 minutes max. I sure appreciate the advice!

Try a Z-Man project z weedless chatterbait, these do very well. Once the weeds go down a bit in the fall, fish this right over top. You can straight retrieve it or give it some rips like a jerkbait. The best trailer I've found is a Keitech swing impact fat 4.3 inch. As bass tear it up you can trim a little off the head and keep making it shorter, allowing re-use of the same trailer. White is always a good option for colour, black/blue if you fish chocolate milk.

Hey everyone, I made a video that shows the tips I described in the comments above. Its no where near Tactical Bassin quality haha...but it may help you out if you are having trouble getting bit on a frog. Not trying to promote my channel by any means, just think it could help someone out. Happy fishin!

Hey thats awesome! Congradulations! Bet you are addicted to froggin now like the rest of us!

I've never found a bait that flutters on the fall the way a Yammy Senko does. It's the original, and still my confidence stick bait.

Welcome eh! I know where I'll be getting my next tungsten order from.

Froggin is one my favourite techniques, and I've learned a ton over the last couple years. - Use a soft body frog like a Live Target. They compress really easily. I use these in slop and pads. I use Spro Bronze eye popping frogs in grass or more open water. The spro's are not as soft, so spend some time "working it in" with your hands when you take it out the package, kind of like working in a new baseball glove. - Trim the tails. I trim the length to about 2-2.5 inches in length. This creates a more compact profile, and a fish that only wants to "smack" the bait comes closer to the hooks this way. - Bend the hooks out. Flip the frog over the hooks and turn it around so the hooks are totally exposed. Take two pairs of pliers and put one one each hook, and bend each one away from the other at the same time. This will expose the hook points more (yes, a bit less weedless but will hook up far better) - Sharpen the hooks!! This never gets talked about. While you still have the hooks exposed, take a hook file and sharpen each hook until they are sticky sharp (if your thumbnail "sticks" to the hookpoint, rather than slides across it, you're good to go). Think about a bass hitting the frog, and maybe not grabbing it totally. Dull hooks will allow the fish to just slide right off if you don't get a solid hookset. The sticky hooks help to keep the bait just pinned enough to give you the time to react and set the hook. I've noticed my hook ups have gone way up since I've started doing these things.Another thing is to make sure the rod you are using is stout enough and has a fast enough tip to set the hook quickly. Yes, many times a frog will get "smacked" instead of eaten. I've found if a larger fish smacks the frog, the sticky hooks sometimes help to pin the frog to the fish and you can set the hook. A lot of smaller fish will smack the legs and may not hit again. Hope this helps

Check smaller shops that carry JDM stuff, like Megabass, Duo Realis, etc. Often these stores will have swimbaits from different brands there. I believe you could order the bait thru Cabelas or Bass Pro site and have it delivered to your place. I order everything from Tackle Warehouse or other American sites when they run sales. Then I ship to a shipping depot in Port Huron MI and go over and pick them up myself.

Upsizing baits is good, but location and timing are everything. Once you have the spot nailed down, try sizing up your bait for the situation you are in at that moment. Example, if you've locked down a big fish spot in the morning, throw a 5'' walking topwater as opposed to a 3.5'', or a 3'' frog instead of a 2''. Throwing a 5-8 inch glide bait is a great option if you have any, like the River 2 Sea s-waver 168 or 200. But, finding where they are holding is everything.

I just did my first youtube video, I edited it with Shotcut. You can download it for free. Lots of great tutorials on how to use it. I'm a newbie and I got thru it! I wanted to use the preinstalled windows movie maker on windows 10 but it would not export anything I edited, so I tried Shotcut and loved it.

Good suggestions here. For pike I like braid to fluro or copoly leader, its a solid set up that will hold strong as long as your knots are good. For bass, straight 10 or 12lb copolymer is my choice. Love how supple copoly is (in that pound test range), and it has very little memory and amazing abrasion resistance. I used to use 30lb braid to a 12lb leader for jerkbaits for bass, and I found the lack of stretch cost me some big fish. I switched to straight copoly and will never look back.

Haven't wet my line yet, but my wife and I are heading to Kawartha's on Wednesday for a week. I'm chomping at the bit..hopefully the muskies will be too!

Curious - what bands are you listening to? Off topic I know...