Hey guys, Bryan New, here. You know, temperatures are starting to cool off. It's not there yet, but it's fixing to be winter time. And you know, fortunately for me, that means I still keep going fishing, but everybody across the country doesn't get to do that. You know, lakes freeze over and sometimes it's just too cold to go enjoy it. But even myself, I live in the South. I still get to go fishing in the winter, but I still have a lot of downtime. And that's when I really start doing my tinkering.
And today with Bass Resource, I'm gonna tell you some of the tweaks that I like to do, some of the things I like to do over the winter break, freeze, whatever you call it, where you're from. Some things that I like to do to prepare my swim baits for the next season, you know, so I can get that fishing fix when I can't go fishing. And there's a lot of different things. I'm a tinkerer, you know. I always wanna make something great, better than it is. And there's a lot of ways to do that. And one thing is I like to weight some of my baits to do different things. You know, I may want a glide bait that I fish right against the surface, but I also may want a glide bait that I fish a little deeper or even deeper. And to do that, you need to weight those. So I've got this box that I carry with me, and it's got a handful of different weighting, things that I use for weights. You know, lead wire, you just get this, you know, a lot of different places. I believe it's made for fly fishing. I know nothing about that, but I think that's what it's made for. And they make it different sizes. This is a 0.35, and I carry a 0.25, obviously smaller diameter. But you know, lead tape, you know, you can get this lead tape from a golf store. I know nothing about golf, except for you use a club and a ball, and you try to hit it and get it in a hole. But I've got a friend that plays golf, and he gets me this golf tape, so I think you can go to some golf store and get it.
But there are other things, like these are little adhesive lead weights. They've got a white on them, and they make different colors as well, but you know, that can kind of match the color of your bait if you think that matters. You can even draw a little bit of chartreuse or red if you want to tinker with it that way. But another thing, there's Tungsten adhesive tapes here as well, and you can cut them down to size, as well as the lead, you can cut sizes. There's a few different ones. I got these off Amazon. I think they're made for golf as well. And here's some that Baitsanity makes these. So there's a lot of different ways.
And even on top of that, maybe you want to make your bait float higher, and there's different ways of doing this. This is adhesive foam you can put on the back of your bait, and that secret's kind of got out a little bit over the last year of people doing that to jerk baits, you know. And one thing that lets you do, it lets you put a bigger hook on your jerk bait so you've got a bigger bite. But those bigger hooks, obviously they're heavier, so they make your bait sink. Well, maybe they're sinking too much, maybe you don't want to sink it at all. That's when you use this adhesive foam to help that sink rate as well.
One other trick that I don't carry in this box that I use for weighting, I'm gonna grab it here, is drop shot weights. You know, this is where I keep my Carolina rig and free rig. I call them free-rig weights, and it's just a slender, open-eye drop shot weight. If you're gonna use this drop shot fishing, you would actually tie a knot and not just pull it tight, you know, like a lot of the drop shot weights. So I can use this and I can actually put it on my split ring to weight my bait down. When I need a lot of weight, that's when I'm reaching for these, you know. This is a 3/16. So I carry from 1/8 all the way up to 1/4. So, you can add a lot of weight to your bait that way. And you know, here is a SPRO Sashimmy Swimmer that I've actually done that way. I just, you know, put it on the split ring exactly the way right there beside your treble hook, the same way you put a, you know, a replacement treble, and that's a pretty cool way. You can put it in different places. You can put one on the front and one on the back, to really get a lot of weight. So many different ways.
Another little deal that I've been playing with, not a ton, but I have been playing with, is the braid split rings. And you say, "Braid split ring, what does that mean?" It's actually not a split ring, but it's replacing a split ring with braided line. And I don't have one rigged up here, but essentially what you do, you remove your hooks, you remove your split ring. You get you some good braid here, and you run it through, you put your treble on as well, and you tie a knot. You make sure you tie a good knot, because that's what's holding your hook on your bait now. But that's a pretty cool deal. So what that does...it does a few things. Maybe you're wanting to get rid of some weight, so you don't want the weight of that split ring. Well, there you go.
But on top of that, maybe, you know, a lot of baits... So the SPRO Chad Shad, it's a pretty big bait. So with big baits, you want a swiveling hook hanger. Well, the SPRO Chad Shad has that. That hook will spin and spin forever. It never has a stopping point, where most baits, when you hook that fish, it has a stopping point. Where that split ring...that's as far as it can stop, and that fish can use that bait at that point as momentum to throw it. So, with replacing that split ring with the braid, it eventually has a stopping point, but it's so far down the road that it's probably never gonna happen. So, it's not as good for the spin aspect. It's not as good as an actual swiveled hook hanger, like on the SPRO Chad Shad, but it's much better than a fixed hook hanger.
So, once again, the two deals, getting away from some weight and adding that almost never-ending spin. That's when I'm reaching, you know, for a good braid to use to add my trebles to my bait, replace that split ring. It's very time-consuming, so you wanna do that this time of year while you're tinkering, while you're getting that tackle fix. Because while you're out there, it takes a lot of time to do it on the fly. You don't wanna be doing that during a tournament. You don't wanna be doing that while you're out there just fun fishing, you know? You only get one day a week, one day a month, one day a year to go do it. You don't wanna waste that time while you're out there on the water. So, go ahead and be prepared with that.
You know, changing your treble hooks. You know, treble hooks, they eventually get bent. You know, I've caught a ton of fish on this SPRO Sashimmy Swimmer. Gamakatsu makes a great hook, but they eventually, you catch enough fish, you get hung up enough times, you know, that hook there is bent out. Now, it's still fine. I'll still catch plenty of fish on it, but it's not great. It's not the best. So, you know, go ahead. And, you know, I carry a lot of extra treble hooks. You know, I've got treble hooks for several different...I've got every different size. I use the G-Finesse a lot. I use the 2X size a lot. And when I'm using the 2X hooks, you know, that's more for a heavier rod. If I ever am using braid, that's when I'm reaching for that 2X. If I'm using lighter line, that's when I'm reaching for the G-Finesse. But also, this hook's not even available in the States yet, but this is a Japanese Gamakatsu hook, a big bait special hook. You know, these hooks are what I'm reaching for. You know, I'm replacing those when I need to replace those big Chad Shad hooks, those glide bait hooks. That's the hook, you know, I'm reaching for. It's got the magic eye on it, which makes it very easy to get on your split ring. You don't even need a good split ring plier, you know, for those.
But yeah, change your hooks, weight your baits. Play with the braid split ring replacement. Man, it's a lot of fun tinkering with these baits, getting them ready for next season. And yeah, man, when you can't go fishing, you gotta get that fix somehow. So get that fix by preparing for next year's season.
