The drive from IL back to FL was mostly nondescript, other than being 6 months later than planned, but there was a little GAS.
Picked up 4 bags of the D.O.A. swimbaits @ BPS in Gainseville on the way back down.
Brought 2 new packs & a few loose 1's of these with me to WI back in May & the walleyes started cracking swimbaits pretty good about early July. With the aid of most of a bottle of "mend-it", I got those 12+ baits to last til mid Aug before they couldnt hold a hook or jig anymore :lol: Trying out some new hooks to try & find which I like best. The heavier the hook the better these baits swim.
Im not sure if the next 1 technically constitutes GAS as the only thing newly acquired was the end result, I think? Technically, I already owned the jackhammer & it was used-chicken, so....
With chatterbaits Im not too fussy about the trailer. A hunk of just about any plastic can be fashioned into some sort of trailer, but, If I had my druthers I do prefer a "boogie" or split-tail style over an action tail & prefer to leave the vibration/thump factor to the blade, instead. Finding black split-tails has always been tough to find on the fly, though.
Well, after cleaning up an old jackhammer & going to put it away, I kicked a small box of trashed saltwater baits that Ive been meaning to throw out for the last couple years
. 1st thing that caught my eye was a perfectly intact feathered tuna squid with a broken hook. It had a bunch of beautiful 6-7" full-sized black hackle feathers in perfect shape. After stops at 3 different BPS's between Lexington & Gainesville, I failed to find any black split-tails. With this memory fresh in my mind, well..............
And now I present the chattering chicken hammer:
Tested this out in a pool & was pretty impressed. The feathers add no weight or wind-resistance & really "breathe". The full hackles really make the profile look huge. I may never change a plastic trailer on a spinner or chatterbait again!
Have spent a total of about 40 minutes throwing the chicken hammer in anything other than a pool & have gotten some encouragement