**Had me a Lando Calrissian moment this afternoon**

[Cristo]

Got out to Chapel this morning nothing happening only spent about 2 hours just to get out on the yak and get a little exercise enjoy the cooler weather before it warms back up later in the morning didn't see any topwater I think for this Reservoir I think that's about done anyhow have a few shots of the day

Some notes spent all morning with the 7" Hiro Shad and what an absolute pleasure of a bait to chuck. I was able to get this I believe just as far as some of my segmented swimmers and normally I don't get the greatest distance with your typical Glide bait. It is awesome all the way around with any kind of retrieve it's an amazing action I feel personally for a Glide. I have tested many types of glides and I have to say this might be one of my favorite ones to throw. along with the bullshooter 160 ss I feel I have a nice selection of glides to fling. I have an 8.5" soft tail trout in the typical stocker colorway on the way now Hiroshima Customs are the ticket if you love or even just like glide baits. I was definitely having fun with the 7" Hiro Shad, such a sick bait!

[Cristo]

Okay some more notes this is going to be for the 5-inch Billrilla "Count Down edition"

As you can see I slung from the shore it today. The Billrilla is super fun to fish. I didn't realize how versatile something like this can be I had fun trying to actually Smash It On structure to see how well it deflects. I had no problems hitting any kind of structure(boulders and rocks mainly) no Hang-Ups except for one I think I must have snagged some fishing line or braid but thankfully and I mean thankfully I was able to set it free as my heart sank as I was thinking I almost lost this bait. I feel like you can really launch this thing, with the Valkyrie WE 6'6" it was easily launched. It was fun to let it just count down and get to the bottom and deflect off of all the rocky structure we have here thankfully I didn't have any other snags as I mentioned earlier beyond that. the action is super fun like I said it feels like it's more akin to something like a magnum buzzjet but this thing is fun as you have a lot of control on where it's going to be at with it's running depth. Super versatile and still can be fished fairly slow which is a nice bonus so if you want to just creeping along rocks or anything like that you'll have no worries I think folks that have tons of submerged trees and stumps and thick lay down and things like that we'll have fun with this bait as it will easily in my opinion deflect off that particular type of structure and or cover. I won't say for sure as we don't have much of that in these particular Eastern reservoirs in AZ. Thanks again to Hiroshima Customs for another fun bait! So much so I'm going to get another one of those these countdown crankdown styles are nice

[Cristo]

It has been an awesome day. Had a long productive and fun day and was blessed with these two 160 SS from two different Japanese vendors at different purchase dates etc but arrived at the same time. Que up Ice Cube!



Deciding on all sorts of Feather Magic for these specimens

The Mustard colorway is nasty, has a nice flake in the paint that looks sick, I will get some sunshine picture for these as well but pictures generally don't do these justice.. Spawning Gill is also better and more vibrant than most pictures I have seen showed. As always Deps with amazing quality and detail

[Cristo]

Sorry with the naked eye is the only thing that'll do these baits Justice the spawning Gill is really dope because it almost has a ghosted purple chameleon type paint going as it seems to color shift depending on the angle the light is hitting it. The mustard may just get the "psycho Gill" Feather treatments although I couldn't quite get the flake to show up in these pictures on the Mustard one but man that is a super fun color way I'm going to love throwing that thing during the spawning season try to piss some buckets off if not as mentioned before I'll get some tooth marks on it maybe this coming summer when I get up to Lake Mary where are my understanding and they're doing pretty well again

[goldrod]

I’m thinking I want to join this club

[Cristo]

Rick James says come on over and join

[Cristo]

Hello,

Although I didn't get any fishing in as it was a short day trip and I wanted to make sure the wife and 3 locos were having an enjoyable time. A few shots at Rosie yesterday late for until early evening my a** needs to get here more often, been at least 5-6 years for me. It got me thinking in my head what why am I not here more often it really doesn't take much longer to get here and honestly it's quite a bit more peaceful and from the looks of it less pressured although there's quite a few boaters but there's a big old wide-open Lake and the wake's quickly disappear into nice Stillwater
Of course I was all packed up with my Triza Dragoon but alas I didn't get to assemble and get any time in as I was trying to make sure my kids didn't drown themselves while they were kayaking don't worry they had life vests on folks we were tucked up on this nice little Ridge and if I remember correctly called Cholla Campground. Met the lovely in-laws as they have a spot for a few days that is super dope! Just a quick 5-minute drive to get the kids down so we could launch by the main boat launch here that we were right next to I would love to get some swimbaits into this big lake got tons of trees so you know anyting crank down with the bill will deflect pretty well off of that so hopefully you'll hear some more stories for me up here as this as well as Lake Mary up by Flagstaff for the pike I'm going to be trying out this summer to break from. The grind of my closet reservoirs.


Anyway all wasn't lost at least I got a super good scouting trip in and have a new place to go to get out of the dusty crowded basin that we live in here

Anyway after I got back doing chores this morning this bad boy arrived and additional 160 SS of course

Thanks TT!!

[Cristo]

Oh and so the Rebirds lost an ugly one yesterday. I got the news when I got all settled back in last night definitely looks like the wheels fell off when we don't have our starters although we look the part last week so I'm not really sure what gives there I guess Cam Newton needed to have his day in the shine I guess been a while since he's had any lol.

Few more shots, one of 4 Peaks, this view is usually from the East down here in the valley so it was fun to get a western view of it

[Cristo]

More ramblings and sights.

Decided to hit a usual spot in the morning from shore( kicked myself for not getting the yak out as it wasn't too chilly this morning) quick before a bit of rain came in today. Took out the Valkyrie 7'4" H+ and a Ryoga 1520HL. Such a a fun combo as mentioned previously so far my favorite bait to throw is the 8" Triple Trout.

Speaking of which I decided to change out the hardware as the stock rings are starting to really rust so goes the rationale. I decided that Ceasar over at Toxic knows the craft well so decided to jump on the new SU split rings after he announced he is going with these rings for his line of baits. Hopefully I ordered correctly(today's order was for #3 & #4 sizes little difficult to judge online). I also took the opportunity to go with Quattro X-S21s in #1s front/aft on the 7" profiles and 1/0s front/aft on the 8" profiles. Those also were ordered up today. For now the hooks will remain naked and depending on actual size in hand will go with #4 SU splits for 8" and #3s for the 7".

Once everything comes in I will do an after shot and a few first impressions of the rings. You can see the junk pile

Happy Thanksgiving in the meantime and enjoy a few shots of the fishing related subject matter

[Cristo]

Another SB project completed. Notes on the split Rings they seem to be matched up nicely next to the old standard in the Owner Hyperwires. They are quite jumpy already had a couple jump off into Oblivion so they're pretty springy but easy to work with if that makes any kind of sense I like trying to attach them a lot more than I like trying to do these owners plus I feel like some of the owners we're starting to Gap when I would attach so I didn't really like that. I think my initial thoughts of doing the number threes with the 7-inch and number fours with the 8-inch was pretty spot-on as well as the size of the hook choices time will tell hopefully I'll hook you into some and be able to get some notes on how they handled but as long as they don't rust I feel like they're going to be a okay. Side note I really really absolutely love the packaging way better than what owner was doing I feel like you had to breach two or three layers of packaging just to get to the darn things this is a nice easy opening and seem like long lasting plastic. Also comparing the stats it's also no-brainer to go with something like the swimbait underground split rings but of course take that with a grain of salt to as we all know about specs and whatnot

[Cristo]

Additional shot to show comparison of the #3s also what I pictured up above....

[Cristo]

Psyched, groundwork laid for these two specimens. The VWE 6'1" was only matter of time as I predicted as I love the 6'6" and if course "back up" is a much used rationale and I saw an ad for the Cookai being intrigued I went a looking and found they offered a super bad a** 7'10" which looks sooooo sick! It will be a hot minute or two but rest assured I will blast the pictures up and impressions in February time frame hopefully if the Gods are pleased. I will sacrifice bull in Posiden's name tonight Obligatory gif of how I am feeling about these two future gems

https://www.megabass.co.jp/site/products/vkc-61xh/

https://www.megabass.co.jp/site/products/ck-710exhc/

[Cristo]

This was a much wanted upgrade but one of the longest to replace to old standard in the Stanley tape measure. I've seen a bunch of these around but I decided to go with a site that I often visit the most besides this place

I didn't realize it but it comes with a handy little girth tape for measurements of a fish if that's something that you find necessary. I never really been into taking girth measurements as usually I'm trying to get the fish back in the water pretty quick without an extra set of hands I'm lucky to pull off what I can in a yak as far as pictures to include shots with a tape measure(not ideal) plus when I get into regular specimens which hasn't been to regular for me lately but this should be nice it tucks Away really nicely obviously and there's not too much else to say it should be fairly long lasting as it seems like it's made out of a heavy duty tarp type of material you would see on signage that you would see outdoors for advertising.

Anyway I thought I would share that if anyone cares about these they're pretty darn handy it appears there's quite a few manufacturers usually what I've seen is the obvious big bait companies the custom shop type guys anyways usually will carry so.ething like this on their sites it looks like

it just taking me a real long time to put the coin down for this type of upgrade as it's usually rods, reels then Bates which for me Bates have been taking a huge portion of my time the last couple seasons and money of course

[goldrod]

Does this count? Jointed Claw 178
Its on the way

[Cristo]

Love the pink sight line on the nose!