Brian's Bees Prop-3

[dartag]

so i am reading my FLW mag and see some of the anglers at the FLW campionship used Brian's Bees Prop-3 baits.  found his site on the net and they are nice looking baits.  although the price 25.00 each is a little out of my range.  anyone ever use one.
here is his site.

http://www.brianscrankbaits.com/

[yukonjack2]

I've never used Brians baits, but heard good things about them.  For top water buzzers, lucky craft makes two - a single buzzer called a wake tail, and a front/rear called a splash tail.  HAd great success this year on both.  AS far as the hand made cranks, take a look at a GLB member site Carolina Chip. 

http://www.carolinachip.com/Carolina_Chips.htm

They are also pricey, but well worth the $$$.  Just don't throw em in known pike water.

PS - I hope this pic thing works out - thers got to be a beter way - who takes 70 kb pics?  Any suggestions on how to resize without lodsing the total pic quality would be appreciated.

Jack

[djkimmel]

Jack, almost all of the larger pictures I put on this site are under 70KB. Space is load time and money.

Most of the web is 96 pixels per inch or 72 pixels per inch. Digital cameras tend to do 200 ppi to 300 ppi. This is unnecessary detail for the web, wasting storage space and load time. Takes about 4 to 10 times as much memory at 300 ppi. My digital is only 3.3 megapixels, but still way to big a resolution for the web, which 1.3 megapixels is about right.

If I allow any size, I run of attachment space and have really big pictures make the forum expand off the screen.

Your camera may be able to take pictures at a lower resolution, which will take less space while taking a picture that looks fine for the web, or may be able to lower the quality/resolution when downloading.

Or, use a simple graphics program. I use Paint Shop Pro to lower the resolution to 96 ppi of my digitals that were taken at a higher resolution, and then sharpen them. I get a 400 to 500 pixels wide picture that is usually 20 to 65 KB depending on detail. I'll see what open source or free programs are available that would make this easy for you if your camera doesn't have any conversion built in. One to look at might be (does not work on Vista) www.gimpshop.com.

[djkimmel]

Jack, here is your custom crankbait bass picture at 96 KB.
Your picture stats:
652 x 474 pixels
at 300 ppi
2.1 x 1.6 inches
64 KB
911 KB when decompressed after download

My stats (took less than 3 minutes to do):
500 x 363 pixels
at 96 ppi
5.2 x 3.8 inches
45 KB
537 KB when decompressed after download

The picture looks fine on the Internet - with the original, I could make it look a lot better, but no, I'm not volunteering - you can ask if you have a 'special' picture and I'll do what I can, but I couldn't keep up if everyone wanted me to reformat their picture Now, back to your regularly scheduled custom topwater thread...

[Bender]

Or if you are running XP try this "Power Toy": http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
It is the Image Resizer and is about halfway down the page. It lets you click on a picture file (or group of files) then make it smaller.
For enhancements I use the Gimp: http://gimp.org/

Edit: back on topic, thanks for adding to my wish list, Chip's baits are already there and now I have another.

[djkimmel]

Thanks for the tips to help out the 'graphically-challenged'

[Waterfoul]

"Don't throw in known pike waters." 

I hear this a lot concerning expensive cranks and such.  But the problem is... most lakes in Michigan are teaming with pike.  Around west Michigan where I do most of my fishing I can't think of a single lake that doesn't have at least a decent population of pike... and these fish will take just about any bait you throw.  This is the biggest reason I refuse to spend more than about $6 on a crank bait or spinner bait.... and still HATE losing those to the esox critters.

[yukonjack2]

well, thanx for the hepl for the graphically challenged - I am not only unale to resize per the resize button, but computer limited on the work laptop as they have it locked down.  I would not want you to resize for me, but if someone can send me a pm as to how to make a pic small enought to fit somehow on here-  it would be greatly appreciated.

Jack

[djkimmel]

well, thanx for the hepl for the graphically challenged

I wasn't talking about you Jack... I was talking about the other guy...

What environment are you running on your 'puter? Maybe there is some program on there somewhere that can be used to lower the resolution to 96 ppi or 72 ppi if necessary. Sure your camera doesn't have a lower quality setting or an edit capability?

[bshaner]

Back to the original post.   I've been telling myself I need to buy some of these cranks for about a year now.  I really like what I see and I've heard good things first hand from people who have them.

I did buy a prop bee in early spring and had some real success with it.  The bream pattern is awesome.  The props run perfect, it's balanced perfectly and the custom paint is unmatched. Now I just need to fish some southern impoundments that have bream.

B

[djkimmel]

Duck Lake in Calhoun County has shellcrackers in it - used to be some WHOPPERS. There are other S MI lakes that have had them planted, but I think bream are just big bluegills?

[bshaner]

Sure, just let the wind out of my sails!  I need to fish southern impoundments!  I'm building up justification!

B