Fishing Plastic Worms: What's your favorite brand and color?
I love the plastics. Here are my favorites- Zoom Finesse Worm in June bug, red bug or watermelon green.--Zoom speed worm in the Paddle tail version in the same colors and red shad also. Zoom Baby Brush hog in the same colors and cotton candy colors also. And a Yum Dinger in those colors and a yellow and black swirl works great with it.
Whats the biggest lure you have in your tackle box?
longest that l use regularly would be a BPS or jelly worm, 10 inches long, occasionally 12 inches. heaviest would be either a 24 ounce diamond jig, used for bottom fishing or a straggler deep six, 24 ounces. l use the occasional swimbait but none of the huge ones very often. maybe 6 or 8 inches. oh, yeah... l do use fairly often a soft plastic craw, molded from the real thing, 6 inches long, plus claws and feelers, on an ounce and a half (l think it is) football head jig. two bodies for ten bucks.
Best fishing rod for my 5 year old?
Get a 6-foot ultralight pole and a small spincasting (closed face) reel. This shouldn't cost you more than $25 at Walmart and will probably cost you less than $20 if you find a sale. Ugly Stiks are great for kids -- I've been around lots of the little brats and I've never seen a kid break the tip off an Ugly Stik. I've seen dozens of Eagle Claws and Southbends and Shakespears busted and ruined by kids, on the other hand, and kids really seem to dig the idea of having something that says "Ugly" right on it. Small Ugly Stiks are usually not very expensive, and Walmart and the other big-boxers usually carry the inexpensive models. Don't get him a spinning reel (the kind with an open face and a bail) unless he really knows what he's doing. For a 5-year-old I'd get closed-face reel with a casting button. These work well for kids, and although they can get buggered up like any reel, it seems like keeping the line and spool away from little kid fingers works a bit better. Your Scooby Doo special was probably a closed-face spincaster. All this assumes your little tyke is catching bluegill and small trout and the like. An ultralight combo will catch anything Scooby Doo was catching before and can catch bigger fish, too.