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What up 2012 fishing thread? I had a perch charter booked for this past Sunday that ended up assing out at the last minute because the wind was coming into the harbor from the northeast which was causing Lake Michigan to be sporting some five foot swells and the captain told us to rebook. Quite the bummer to wake up at 3:00 am to drive an hour and a half just to go back home, but such are the ways of charters. I'm turning it into a king salmon charter in July instead. That being said the temp crash after the oddly warm March in Illinois has effectively shut down my honey holes for the time being and so I've stuck to dragging lethargic walleye out of the Fox River by my house. No pics yet, nobody is impressed with any 11 inch walters, but I have a huge season planned and I'll be damned if I don't get something legendary posted in here in the next few months. I've also invested in a soft plastic binder and a new Cabelas back pack tackle bag and so I've been balls deep in repacking my gear and deep cleaning all of my reels which is a fun way to pass the time when you can't be on the water.
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Apr 26, 2012 01:56
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 01:40 |
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Not an Anthem posted:I have an old "berkeley safari" fishing pole with a shimano ss-ul BassOne reel, some 5 or 6 lb line and a bunch of random pretied hooks on short lengths with loops at the top that I don't remember what they're for. Some rubber bait too, different size. Your set up should be fine for panfish, it doesn't take a $2k salt water reel to pull in 1lb fish. The random pretied hooks are called snells and to use them you tie a snap swivel to your main line and then use the loop on the snell to connect it to the swivel. They're popular rigs for kids because there's less constant retying if you use a 2lb swivel and 10lb snells, if you get stuck you can break the swivel open and just pop on a new snell. If you're up for a little drive and want to catch crappie all day long you can try Busse Woods forest preserve in Schaumburg, there are two dams in the preserve and both hold absolutely crazy numbers of fish, the two caveats being A. Busse is a wastewater discharge and therefore it should be catch and release only because, well, yuck, and B. The place gets overrun with bucketheads and you can end up fishing elbow to elbow with some less than ethical dudes who keep anything that bites including undersized game fish. That being said, those same dudes are the ones who showed me the way to success and so I can't get too mad at them and there is are literally thousands of fish just on the dams alone and so it's not that big of a deal. The best spots are along the wings of the dam on whichever side the water is currently flowing and it's as easy as a 1/8oz jig head in a bright color tipped with a small minnow rigged anywhere between 6 and 8 feet under a slip bobber. You can see the high water line on the dam since the water in Busse is stained and dark, the lower the water the higher you fish. If you keep getting bit by dink largemouth you're too high and if you keep getting little cats you're too low. Once you find the sweet spot you can go through a bucket of minnows in two hours. There's a bait shop across the street on Arlington Heights road that doesn't know the meaning of "a dozen" and will give you "more than enough for all day" for the price of one dozen. Honestly it can get boring pulling them in, I normally don't do it for more than an hour or so and then I move on to try the rest of the lake, which is as high pressured as all get out and so it's a bit more challenging.
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Apr 26, 2012 14:52
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EnsignVix posted:Nice OP! I'm determined to post a good trip report from my rod and gun club where there is a stocked quarry. I've been skunking out there way too much. What size hooks are you using? For trout you're going to want to use tiny hooks in the 1 or 2 size (not 1/0 or 2/0, those are bigger) and make sure that you're keeping steady, constant pressure on your line while retrieving. Tight lines mean caught fish, slack can provide leverage for the fish to throw the hook easier when it jumps or takes off and too big of a hook can also provide leverage for the fish to throw you off. Your hookset likely isn't the problem since trout are small and have soft mouths so you don't need to swing for the fences to get a good set. Just make sure you're using the right size hooks of a high quality and that you replace them when they dull. Hooks are dull when you can drag the point softly across your fingernail and they don't feel "sticky", or if you're having a great day then just retie after three or four fish since your hook will have dulled and your line will have pulled the knot too much. If you hook into something impressive, retie immediately to make sure you have a sharp hook, nick free unstretched line and a good strong knot.
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Apr 26, 2012 14:59
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To be honest you can probably get away with being much lazier about it than that, but there's a reason that most hooks aren't sold in packages of one and it's not because the good folks at Eagle Claw are offering you a lifetime supply. Any fishing gear that comes in packages of 5 or more should be considered (responsibly) disposable and frequently replaced. This goes for line, plastic baits, hooks, jig heads, any small and cheap pieces of tackle. I normally cut two feet of line off before retying after a good fish or a bad snag, the stuff comes in 500 yard spools and my reel holds 75 yards, there's a reason for that. There's also a reason that jig heads come in 25 and 50 count packs. When the paint goes or the hook dulls, so does that jig. This is why I tend to buy in bulk and the guys at my local tackle shop light up when I come in. I'll buy cases of my key gear every year just so I'm free to dispose of them as often as I see fit. Most of my tackle bags come with a water bottle holder and I put a beer coozie in there with some cut down plastic grocery bags so I have a little trash can, that's how often I trash gear. I have fishing buddies who kill me. They'll think nothing of dropping serious coin on G. Loomis rods and Shimano reels and driving six hours to a hot lake and then they'll spend all day nursing the same re-bent hook along like it's the only one they have. That's a sure fire way to have a poo poo day on the water.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:57
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For certain, there is never any shortage of trash at most public fishing spots, especially huge birds nests of super thick monofilament for some reason, and lengths of fishing line are deadly to anything that comes across it, birds, frogs, turtles, anything. Not everyone is as much of a hippie as I can be, but if you ever see line left behind pick that poo poo up no matter if you leave all the beer cans and styrofoam worm containers behind. You can recycle line at home or even mail it directly to Berkley at the address in the link below and they'll turn it into new line! But besides my own little makeshift trash can I keep gardening gloves and trash bags in the car so that I can help keep things nice where I go since public spots tend to get destroyed. . I do organized clean ups throughout the year too where a group gets together and cleans up and posts fishing regs too, since the Illinois DNR has almost zero budget anymore to do it themselves. Fishing is enjoying being outdoors as much as its about catching fish and everyone can lend a hand to help keep the great outdoors great. Oh, the link: http://www.berkley-fishing.com/about/berkley-conservation-institute/recycling/line-recycling Sorry Dk Hz, I'm running all over your thread again bud. I'll shut up for a minute.
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Apr 27, 2012 03:12
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Dik Hz posted:I got up into the mountains of North Carolina and did some prospecting in the Pisgah National Forest for trout. I did catch one super-plump 8" rainbow trout on a wild stream, but I spent most of my time hiking around and observed the water rather than fishing. To me, that's almost as much fun. The stream was infested with this weird species of creek chub that would hit my flies, but were much to small to get hooked. Kinda made fishing a pain. If I went back to that stream, I'd just skip from honey-hole to honey-hole. But that's not really my style. Surf fishing is easy, it's just weight and bait, think like a heavy duty river rig with seven strand as a leader. Get enough lead to throw it the distance you want and tip with squid or cut bait. You can haul in little sharks all day long that way, but they don't fight for poo poo, it's entirely like cat fishing. At least that was my experience in Beaufort SC and I suspect NC would be similar. Never had my shot at OBX yet though, but hooks, bait and sinkers work everywhere right?
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May 1, 2012 03:40
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Dik Hz posted:Thanks! How do you go about choosing where to fish on the coast? Not really, sorry. I'd be willing to bet that they're throwing what we'd consider esox caliber spoons though, that's what I'd throw at a ball of fleeing bait, something flashy with a big vibrational profile. I'd even put $20 on a 5 inch Daredevil working. I'm a Midwesterner through and through though, my brother was stationed in SC when he was in the Marines and so on a visit we just grabbed some catfish style big spinning rods and picked some empty beach. Water is water, we tried to find changes in depth, or water clarity, anywhere new water was coming in, and flats. We really just chucked out shrimp and mullet and squid and drank beer and it worked. I wish I could claim baller surf caster status but that's not me. But be smarter than we were and bring gloves and spreaders or gaffs, most ocean critters are toothy or spiny or both and even a foot long shark isn't something to gently caress with. We had to cut most of them off and wish them luck which I hate but I hate stitches even more.
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May 2, 2012 03:54
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Chemtrail Clem posted:What is the most treasured fish of all? Is it something you'd have to catch on deep sea fishing or could I catch it in a small lake (Lake Ontario, so not a small lake per se but smaller than the Ocean obviously)? Thinking about doing some serious fishing for the first time without my dad to help me on the boat and I want to know which fish to gun for. Thanks! Coelacanth. But barring that there's no such thing really. There are guys who pine away over bluegill and there are guys that lift weights all year long just for a shot at a single tuna. The most treasured fish is completely in the mind of the beholder. Some days they're trophy quality fish that you get on your first cast and other days the most treasured fish is the 8 inch bass that hits on your last cast so that you can go home not smelling of the skunk. Lake Ontario is nothing to sneeze at though and there are serious, serious fish of a lifetime fish swimming around in it. Of the species in the great lakes I'd pick the lake trout as the most treasured as it's a native fish and very slow growing so if you can catch a monster you've really got something there.
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May 2, 2012 13:53
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icehewk posted:There's a fly fishing blog I follow that fishes fairly close to me here in Wisconsin. Here's a story he posted this morning. The site is down at the moment so not sure what's going on there. I am captain catch and release, I don't object to fish being kept in accordance with regulations and provided that the fishery can handle it, yadda yadda, but that motherfucker would be on my wall as fast as I could pay a taxidermist to get the job done. I've tossed back "trophy" fish countless times but that thing has to be a line class record if not a state record and were I to ever pull one of those off, welp, tough times Mr. Feesh here comes the fortune and glory.
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May 16, 2012 02:26
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Dik Hz posted:I would definitely return the fish and commission an artwork that I would at least stand a chance of getting my future significant other to let me hang on the wall. I'd probably have a better shot at being able to put something up if I just put the picture of me and the fish, especially after my wife found out how much mounts go per inch, but I don't care. That trout is something magical and it's the very concept of a fish like that which can rouse me from a hangover at 4:00am to spend another day splashing around in the water like a goof accomplishing squat. The only trout we have down here are the little stockies that they toss in the forest preserves twice a year and then the stuff in the lake and since I don't regard charter boats as truly "fishing" I'd likely carry a fish like that around with me for the rest of my life like some sort of increasingly rotten teddy bear.
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May 16, 2012 16:57
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WayneCampbell posted:Anyone have any recommendations for websites for learning different types of rigs? So far my repertoire consists of bobber/sinker/hook and that's it. Nothing wrong with a classic, but either hit us up in here or just try Googling but be forewarned that any one rig can be known by 400 different names. Minus the niche specialty rigs there really aren't all THAT many of them to be honest. Everyone should have the drop shot and a variation on the river rig ready to go, combine that with the float and hook and you're ready to hit both moving and still water under most circumstances. I've heard good things about that new casting spreader rig too but that's gonna be a pain in the rear end to actually fish. Focus more on your baits and your spots than on your rigs, put the right food in the right spot and you'll catch fish. The rig is just the means of getting and keeping it there, once you learn to read water and conditions you can throw the "wrong" rig and still kill it.
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May 17, 2012 04:05
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WayneCampbell posted:The areas around Chicago, IL. As far as I can tell from the IDNR's website, the local Species are walleye, pike, bass, crappie, channel cats, some muskie and various panfish. And each and every one of those can be easily and adequately targeted with the hook and float save perhaps for the muskie, but even then I know guys that have hooked into them while pan fishing because muskie are unpredictable in the extreme and exist solely to confound fishermen. When you say "rig" are you talking about terminal set ups, such as different methods and concepts of tying weights and hooks and leaders and such for live bait or are you talking about different methods and baits like spinners and plastics? Artificials are nice because they don't require you to lug around 20 pounds of water in a bucket for minnows or have to deal with running out of crawlers after an hour, however none of them can really touch live bait in terms of success. That's why tournament anglers are forced to only work with artificial stuff. Since I'm from the same area as you are give an idea of when and where you're thinking about fishing and what you'd like to go after and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. That being that, if you want to go out and catch bass and feel like you have Bill Dance level mystical skills at it target neighborhood retention ponds and throw wacky rigged stick worms such as Senkos or Yum Dingers in the 4-6 inch range. 8-10lb mono on a spinning reel, size 2 hooks, and just hook the worm through the middle so that the point comes out of the top and you have roughly equal lengths hanging off of each side like so:  No floats, no sinkers, nothing else. Hook, line, worm. They come in the complete rainbow of colors, but stick with green watermelon, it's the go to color. Toss this out between zero and ten feet from the shoreline casting straight out, to your left and to your right so that you can hit water that your footsteps haven't spooked the fish out of. Let it fall, don't work it, jerk it or anything else. Most of the strikes come on the fall, but let it hit bottom and sit there for a few seconds too. If nothing, slowly lift the bait up and let it fall again, the worm does all the work rigged like this, undulating like crazy as it falls throught the water. Lift and drop back to the shore paying attention once you can see it again because bass will follow this worm and can hit right at your feet even. Repeat as necessary. Most of the time you'll feel the hit, but if your line starts moving, set the hook. Ta-da, you're now a total bass fisherman. Cluricaun fucked around with this message at 13:39 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 13:35
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Texas rigging can be great, but getting it right is a huge pain in the rear end. That diagram makes it look easy but the bait needs to be really straight so as to not totally screw the action and that takes a lot of practice to get right so that the worm isn't all kinky and hinky on the hook. Hating burning through 4 or 5 baits to get one on right is the reason I switched to stick worms from Slug-Go worms in the first place. If I'm throwing in muck I just use hooks with the wire weed guards on them now. They're not perfect, but neither is the Texas. Part of fishing is cleaning weeds and muck off of your bait. That's why a towel or bandanna is an essential piece of gear to have with you, because your hands are going to get dirty. If the bottom is pure muck I'll switch over to a really light weight drop shot rig, I mean rigged with as tiny of a split shot as I can get away with and then with a nice leader of mono on there with the stick worm still rigged wacky, but not so long that it can also hit bottom. That way I have a little shot hitting bottom but not a hook. After a while this is where practice and high end gear can start to make a difference, because you can learn to feel your bait hitting weeds and where the bottom is so that you can fish right in there without constantly dragging up sticks and weeds and smelly muck.
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May 18, 2012 14:49
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causticBeet posted:An addition to that - really try to get senkos or yum dingers for brand- while any worm will work, those two really have the best action when they fall. Also quoting this for truth. Senkos are the absolute best, but they're also the most expensive and the shortest lived, they're so soft that they get shredded up really quickly. If you're going to use Senkos also invest in the Wacky O Ring tool, which slides a small rubber grommet around the bait so that you can tuck your hook through that instead of right into the worm, it makes them last a bit longer. But stay away from off brands, house brands or discount stick worms, they just don't work as well. I've tried them from Cabela's, BPS, Berkely, Tiki, home pours, really all of them and those are the only two that I'd ever really pack. I myself am a Yum Dinger man, I think that they're almost as good in the action department as the Senko is but they're a few bucks cheaper and you get a lot more baits in the bag with the extra added bonus that one bait can last a good few fish even without the grommet rings.
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May 18, 2012 14:57
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DoctaFun posted:This is an absolute killer method for bass fishing. My advice would be using a line that has some visibility though. I'd say over half the fish I caught with the wacky rig I never actually felt the bite. Since you are just letting the bait sink slowly, there is going to be some slack in your line, as soon as you see that line start to tighten, set the hook! I actually have had very good luck with a light weight baitcasting rod with green braid. That may not be the best rig 'technically', but I could see and feel that braid tighten a lot easier than I could with my spinning rigs. I admire anyone who throws light weight baits on a baitcasting reel, that's hard to do. The visibility thing is the reason that red colored line went out of vogue for me pretty quickly, it's just as hard to see against the water as it supposedly is under water. The wacky rig's weakness for me is windy days when you can't really help but get a huge bow in your line, that can make fishing it nearly impossible unless the fish are hitting like linebackers. To help combat both issues I've found it helpful to use a fairly long rod and polarized glasses. This way I lose less in the glare and then I use the rod itself to sink the bait. I cast, reel up the slack and then try and lower the bait naturally by lowering my rod tip instead of letting it fall on totally slack line to try and keep as close contact with the bait as I can. Berkley makes a line called Vanish Transition Gold that supposedly disappears underwater and then shines bright gold in the sunlight, but I'm not a huge fan of fluorocarbon lines because I like a little stretch in the line when wacky fishing. I might spool up a reel full this year though and see if that helps the visibility thing, but it's hard for me to use anything but green mono.
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May 18, 2012 19:03
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tesilential posted:This stuff had almost as much memory going off the plastic spool than my several year old mono had coming off the reel. Is this normal? I may have put on a tad bit too much but I feel I can cast further with more line. When spooling mono onto a spinning reel you want to make sure that the line coils are coming off of the new spool in the same direction that it's going on to the reel spool. So if you hold the new spool of fresh line with the label facing you watch which direction the line is spooled on there, and make sure that you're spinning it onto your reel in the same direction, and under a little bit of pressure to make sure it's going on nice and tight, normally just pinch a bit of line with your fingers so that it's harder to reel on. Conversely if you do have the line twisted try and open the bail either behind a boat or on moving water like a river with nothing tied to the end and let all the line out into the water and then reel it back up. That will also eliminate any line twist that you might have. You also only want to fill the reel spool to within a quarter inch of the spool face. Too much line will result in big fat loops of line coming directly off of the reel when you open the bail and making a giant screaming rod throwing mess at your feet. If you look at the reel it probably gives a capacity based on line weight or diameter as well as the spins per turn of the handle ratio letting you do a little math to figure out approximately how many turns of the handle you should put on.
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May 21, 2012 19:40
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Bean posted:Hi! I've fished a little bit. A tiny little bit. Rapala. They're wooden carved baits that look like fish that are both relatively expensive (hence being ideal for a gift) and deadly effective (hence not being a bad gift).
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May 22, 2012 11:33
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 01:40 |
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Cluricaun posted:I had a perch charter booked for this past Sunday that ended up assing out at the last minute because the wind was coming into the harbor from the northeast which was causing Lake Michigan to be sporting some five foot swells and the captain told us to rebook. Quite the bummer to wake up at 3:00 am to drive an hour and a half just to go back home, but such are the ways of charters. I'm turning it into a king salmon charter in July instead. I am a man of my word, even though it took me much longer than anticipated due to things other than fishing taking up a great deal of my time this summer, but I'd like to show off a little bit of what I've been up to. First off, that salmon charter in July went off flawlessly, six guys limited out on salmon in two hours of fishing which is damned near unheard of. Hard on the hands, hard on the arms, but oh so worth it when you can coax monsters out of the depth like these. I went 6 for 6 by bringing in every bite on my turns and netted enough filets to open a restaurant. Yes, I'm doing the depth of field trick here by holding the fish closer to the camera as evidenced by my giant sausage fingers on my bottom hand, but this sucker still ran well upwards of 25lbs and took me damned near a half hour to bring up and in from the near 100 foot depths we were running spoons at:  Then two weeks ago I splashed about at my Wisconsin river spot. Rough year for the ol Wisco, places that normally run 8-9 feet were at best a foot and a half thanks to the drought and so my whole game plan needed to be rearranged on the spot after arrival (as usual) and my 3/4oz walking sinkers were swapped out in favor of 1/4oz so that the current could actually move my rigs. Both of these happy fellows came on floating crawler harnesses run about a foot off the sinker on my modified river rig. The channel cat is probably pretty close to maximum size that one of them is going to get almost anywhere and refused to not flip the gently caress out on the dock, hence the unconventional grip I had to put on him, and that white bass isn't really a trophy but I was happy to bring in similar sized feesh all day long since they can be pretty elusive outside of the spawning run. Plenty of sucker and drum again and not pictured are some dink walleye and smallmouth that weren't picture worthy and a monster bluegill that I wouldn't have guessed lived in that river that I didn't photograph because one of my other lines went just as he came in. Alas no sturgeon this time and I lost something that went right through a 150lb mono leader like a knife that had to have been some sort of monster esox. Maybe next time you toothy bastard. Still did over 50 fish for three days worth of work which ain't so bad.  Happy fisherman! 
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Aug 23, 2012 16:03
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