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Cluricaun 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.
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May 18, 2012 18:05
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I went out this past weekend on the Mississippi just south of St Paul. As group we did pretty well, biggest of the day was my 22 inch walleye!
DoctaFun fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 00:17
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Been fishing the Mississippi river near St. Paul/Minneapolis the last few weekends and we've been boating some really nice walleyes. I need to upload pictures later, but in the last three weeks I caught a 27.5", 25.5", 24", 23.5" and a few in the 19-22" range. The quality of fish in this stretch of the river is unbelievable, I've never seen anything like it. I would bet our average length is somewhere around 20", just unreal. I have only caught one fish under 20", and that was a 19 incher. One of my buddies caught a 26.5" literally one cast before I caught the 27.5"(our casts were within about 4 feet of each other too. I doubt I'll ever see anything like that again.
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Oct 18, 2012 15:41
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Transporting anything from lake to lake is usually a big no-no in Minnesota, I'd be very careful doing anything like that. I'm going ice fishing tonight and tomorrow, I'll report back with my(probably lack of) success.
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Jan 11, 2013 21:34
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Well we didn't get to fish as much as I would have liked, a few other people came up that needed to be...babysitted. I probably caught a half dozen crappies and a couple perch in the few hours we fished. Not too bad really, not fast and furious by any means but I had a good time.
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Jan 14, 2013 15:55
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Just worked out the details on my Lake of the Woods ice fishing trip today. I'm heading up next Thursday and staying through Sunday. Hopefully we'll catch some nice walleye and I wouldn't say no to a monster pike either  . Better throw in a few Tullibee for good measure, and hey, how bout a 50" sturgeon? One can only dream....
DoctaFun fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Feb 12, 2013 |
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Feb 12, 2013 23:12
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IM FROM THE FUTURE posted:Stradics are the poo poo. I just love them. That's pretty dang cool! I'm leaving in one hour for a weekend ice fishing trip to lake of the woods, I'll try to post some pictures when I get back. Wish me luck!
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Feb 21, 2013 17:52
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Drunk Badger posted:I'm thinking about updating my tackle box from more than some plastic powerbait and a plastic frog (found wrapped around a weed last year). Anyone around northwest MN have some bait suggestions for walleye or bass? Do you fish mainly from shore or out of a boat? I find walleye quite difficult to catch from shore in most lakes, although I live in the metro so walleye are much harder to catch down here in general . My favorite walleye lure is a plain jighead with a minnow. Seems basic but I've caught more walleye on that rig than everything else combined. I'd start with an 1/8 ounce jighead and move up to heavier jigs if you can't feel the jig hit the bottom as it's falling. Cast out, let the jig drop, once you hit bottom pull the rod up so the jig jumps off the bottom maybe a foot or two, let it drop again, reel up slack, repeat. Pitching jigs works great from shore or in a boat, and it's a great way to cover a lot of ground. Otherwise if you locate some walleye it can be very effective to vertical jig from your boat either anchored on top of them or letting your boat drift over an area. For vertical jigging you want the lightest jig possible that will stay directly underneath the boat. Depending where you are fishing a jig and a minnow can catch everything from walleye to crappie to bass to catfish, which makes it one of my favorite river presentations as well. Bass in my opinion are much easier to fish for, they can be caught much easier from shore(or with waders). My favorite two lures to use for bass are spinnerbaits and soft plastic worms. Like someone mentioned before a Texas rig is great for the plastic worm, as is the wacky rig. I've always had good luck with spinner baits as well, and spinners will catch a lot of pike up in your neck of the woods as well. Find some weeds and fish the edges and if that doesn't work try to righ up a weedless texas rig and drop that sucker right into some gaps in the weeds if you can. Otherwise look for downed trees, underwater logs, etc and just work every side of them. Bass fishing in Minnesota is pretty easy to at least get somewhat competent at, sure some people will be a lot better than others, but if you know how to work a texas rig and a spinnerbait, just throw those around some weeds/logs/trees and you're bound to catch something. Although I know the lakes get a lot rockier as you get up north so I'm not sure if this all applies as well as it does to the sandy mucky lakes in the metro.
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Apr 4, 2013 22:14
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I completely forgot about this thread! I have a bunch of pictures from the last year or so of fishing, but I'll just post a couple. I had a pretty successful hard water season up in MN this past year. A few trips up to Lake of the Woods made for some memorable fish. Fishing was slow up there by their standards, but we still saw a lot of nice fish. We fished through Arnesen's rocky point resort which is top notch. They run an amazing operation, like 200+ ice fisherman a day go out through them! They have floating trackvans that take you out to your house and pick you up, plenty of minnows, and they really try to put you on the fish. This was a 21" walleye I believe, pretty fish! As we were taking this picture my brother walked in to the ice house after going for a snowmobile ride and said, "okay you F'ers, which one of you tripped the tip up, I'm not falling for that!"  We went out to check the tip up and it turns out no one was playing any tricks on anyone(we had tricked my brother by tying an ice scoop to his line while he was out of the ice house previously, which was pretty funny).  This looks massive but is actually just a 24.5" :shh:, masterful hold job by yours truly though, everyone I show this to thinks it's pushing 30"!  Here's another pike my old boss caught on a tip up, these beasts are a blast to catch on tip-ups. We put the minnow 1 foot below the ice(ice was 3.5 feet thick on like April 10th!!!), you can see how much of the line this thing ran out, they make some HUGE runs.  This was actually on the mississippi river last winter, I was fishing for panfish on my noodle rod and caught this ~2 lber. That was a fun fight on 2 lb test line and that super super lightweight rod.  Finally a more recent picture, we went on a fishing launch on lake mille lacs a few weekends ago for a friends bachelor party, big fish of the night was this 25.5" walleye! Tied for my 2nd biggest ever! 
DoctaFun fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 15:42
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DocMcgillicuddy posted:Nice pics! I'm gonna pop my ice cherry this year I think, mostly for pike. Do walleye ever put up a fight? Most of the time I've fished for them I'd call them "mildly reluctant" at best. They definitely put up a fight, especially when they get a little bigger. I think a 29" walleye would be more fun to catch than a 29" northern, but that's probably because a 29" walleye is getting close to 10 lbs, while the northern would probably be about 6 or 7. Well, and a 29" walleye is a once in a lifetime fish for a lot of people . That said, they fight a lot differently than northern. Northern as you know just take really long, extended runs in seemingly any direction. Walleye tend to try and move and stay due south(straight down). It also depends on what tackle you are using, I'm usually using really light gear for walleye, so the big ones definitely have the strength to pull line out. Living in Minnesota there is a certain 'mystique' around catching walleye though. They are a little more difficult to catch, I think you have to be a smarter fisherman to catch a lot of walleye, whereas you don't necessarily need to do much research to catch northern. I won't say there's no skill in catching northern though, because I do know a few people who can consistently put 35"+ northern on the ice, but only a few people. Northern are just a lot more aggressive, and overall probably more 'fun' to catch. They are a lot less fun to handle, clean and eat though(IMO). And definitely give ice fishing a try, if you don't have a boat it's a great opportunity to get on just about any lake and have a good chance to catch some fish. Number one tip I can give is to go with someone who knows what they are doing and get a flasher! My Marcum LX-5 is far and away the best fishing related purchase I've ever made(along with my gas auger). After you've fished with one, you will never want to be without one. I just with the lakes in the twin cities weren't fished so hard in the winter  .
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Aug 21, 2013 19:06
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Boom, my fishing trip is a go! I leave next Thursday for 3 days at Lake of the Woods with a buddy of mine. He's been fishing LotW for almost 20 years and usually finds the fish pretty well. Last time I went up for open water fishing up there it was too windy to even get out on the lake, here's hoping the wind lays low for the weekend! Crossing my fingers for some big walleye, I know there's some 30+ inchers up there, but I'd take a few 25+ fish and a limit to bring home!
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Aug 30, 2013 05:08
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That looks awesome. I've never done much canoeing(except for this weekend), but that would be amazing. I might try to convince one of my friends to go on a trip like that. I had a little mini fishing trip this weekend. I went down to SE Minnesota to visit my girlfriend's family, but spent most of the time fishing. Took out a 16' aluminum canoe to the backwaters of the Mississippi River with my girlfriend's dad and did some panfishing. Caught a few bass and a lot of nice sunfish, probably could have kept a dozen in the 8-9" range. I also caught a pretty big dogfish which was fun, the thing was just ROLLING next to the canoe, like an alligator or something. On the way back from canoeing I asked him if there was any trout in the creek that runs through the front of their property(they have a bunch of land in the bluffs) and he said, 'Oh yeah, lots of browns and some brookies." I took a half hour that evening and brought my ultralite. I only had one little spinner that looked like a trout might like it so I tied it on and gave it a whirl. I had no idea what I was doing, and the creek was tough to fish, but I hooked into this one almost immediately!  I had a few other hits, but they didn't take it. Next time I"m down there I'm going to bring some worms, because there were TONS in that creek. Pretty cool to walk out the front door about a .5 mile to a creek loaded with these guys! I was told this was big enough to keep if I wanted to eat it, but I just like to catch em, these are beautiful! I pinched the barbs on my hooks because I didn't want to hurt any of these little guys. That creek was awesome though, it's spring fed so it's crystal clear and really cold. How neat is that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm3JodBR-vs That's pretty neat!
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Sep 3, 2013 02:15
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What's the longest, hardest to get through day of work? The day before a fishing trip. I can't concentrate on anything . I just want to catch some walleyes .
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Sep 4, 2013 21:00
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I returned from Lake of the Woods and forgot to post a report. We were able to fish all day Friday, and only for about 2 hours on Saturday because of the wind. We left the harbor Saturday morning and instantly we were taking water OVER the windshield of our 20 foot boat. Not fun. Anyways, I think our count was at 35 for Friday, that's combined walleye/sauger. We each kept our 6 fish limit and had an ice fish fry later that night. Saturday we got 15 in the two hours we were able to fish. We just pulled crankbaits on downriggers the entire time, the fish were scattered out in the mud flats, we'd troll for awhile and not see anything and then all of a sudden we'd find a bait ball and pick up a couple fish around it. I'd never used downriggers before so that was kind of fun, it gets pretty hectic in the boat though when you are trying to keep 4 of the riggers going and only two of the four people can help!
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Sep 17, 2013 18:48
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SERPUS posted:How does lake fishing change during the next few months as temps start to drop? Do I need to use different lures or what? I think this definitely depends where you are fishing. Up here in Minnesota habits definitely change as the fish prepare for winter. I'm not an expert, but a lot of trophy walleye and northern are caught in the fall up here, as they are probably trying to gorge themselves before the lakes freeze over. People generally start switching from crankbaits to live bait for walleye, not too sure about northern. One example is Lake of the Woods, a large population of walleye follow the shiners as they run into the river every fall. It doesn't happen every year, but when it does I guess the walleye fishing is outstanding as they just stack up where Lake of the Woods flows out into the Rainy River. The next couple months are prime time to catch some hog walleyes on the Mississippi River, I can tell you that. I think Ensign has it mostly right though, I know most of the big walleye caught out of the river come on small jigs and minnows(or soft plastics). Of course you asked about lake fishing so this is a pretty bad post.
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Sep 23, 2013 20:02
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SERPUS posted:How do I cast a 1/16th ounce lure more than 10 feet? Really really light line and a really long rod maybe? That's a pretty light lure though, tough to cast those. If you are using it with a bobber you could buy a weighted slip bobber that can help.
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Sep 24, 2013 01:11
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tesilential posted:Snook seasoned opened up after a 3 year closure on 9/1/13. Slot is 28-33" and I finally got my bad boy last night after 10 min of fishing. You guys that take fish pictures with the lure still in the mouth freak me out! I watched my friends dad get a treble hook through the thumb doing that a few winters ago. Awesome pictures though! I don't know much about either of those kinds of fish but they look nice! That's awesome!
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Sep 30, 2013 20:32
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I'm picking up my girlfriend's dad's boat this weekend to bring up to the Twin Cities, I am absolutely giddy! I'm hoping to get all over the Mississippi River pool 2 fall walleye bite in the next couple months. Here's hoping his boat can handle the river okay, I think it should, but it's not the biggest boat.
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Oct 1, 2013 15:12
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droneboat609 posted:Oh nice, you are from the twin cities? Good luck on the river, I would enjoy hearing how that goes, I've never fished it. Ive done most of my fishing on the northern inland lakes and lake superior, but always wanted to try fishing the Mississippi just never had the chance. I'm not super experienced on the river, I went a few times last year with a buddy of mine last year who's kind of a river rat. He has a really nice boat though, Ranger Reata 1850, he has the i-pilot trolling motor which makes staying in one spot super easy with the virtual anchor feature it has. I will not be so lucky with my 25 hp Evinrude . I might just try trolling cranks or something. If you have a boat, the Mississippi River is THE place to fish walleye in the twin cities. No one fishes pool 2 because it's catch and release only, and a lot of people are intimidated by the river, but there are some HOGS in there. Last year we caught a 27.5" and a 26.5" walleye back to back, within 1 minute of each other. I'll be sure to post in here if I'm able to get out there.
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Oct 1, 2013 15:48
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I don't think there's anything more addicting than buying fishing lures…I just bought about 20 new crankbaits in the last couple days and I can't stop!
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Oct 4, 2013 23:29
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Falukorv posted:I'm going to go fish for pike tomorrow afternoon in a very large lake, and i would like to ask for some advice, since i only so far have been fishing in summertime. I'm going to answer assuming you mean northern pike, but there's a possibility you mean what we call a walleye, because in some parts of the country people call walleye 'pike'. Anyways, usually in the fall pike are quite aggressive, so using fairly large/flashy lures is a good strategy. Medium to Large sized crankbaits(Buchertail Shallow Raider, Original Floating rapala/husky jerk, daredevle spoons, bucktails, spinnerbaits are all good choices. As a rule, you can always find pike where you find weeds. The hard part is finding the big pike. In lakes with a good pike population you should be able to put Pike in the boat by casting along the edges of weedlines(or even on top of the weeds if they don't reach the surface), you might get quite a few small ones though(which would be okay for eating!), but you should find some action. The best weedlines for bigger pike are ones that are close to deep water. Another popular lake feature for big pike is points, if that point also is adjacent to deep water and has good weed growth then it's probably a good spot! Another location(which I guess falls into the weeds category) is cabbage beds. http://www.jasonhalfenoutdoors.com/weeds.html. If you can find some underwater cabbage(may be too late in the year for that I'm not sure), then these spots will often produce some pike. Either troll right on top of them or right along the sides of them. Again, if you can find a spot like this that has deep water nearby, it's better for the big fish. As far as how wind affects pike habits, I'm not too sure. There's a general tip for walleye that you should fish the windblown side of the lake because the wind pushes the baitfish that direction. It's very possible that the pike will follow as well, but if you are looking for big pike I will say that they probably arne't feeding on tiny minnows(I've seen 4 lb. northerns T-bone and kill 2 lb. walleyes.) Just note that the 'big pike' spots will likely yield a lot fewer fish, but they will be bigger on average. If you are just looking for numbers then I would either cast or troll along weedlines all day, you should pick a few up.
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Oct 17, 2013 15:37
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Falukorv posted:Thanks! Yeah i meant Northern Pike, i don't think walleyes exist in Sweden at all. We do have the related Pikeperch though, but that's not what im after since they're pretty hard to fish here without the proper equipment or a boat. Should have mentioned, i don't own a boat so i'll be fishing from land, which limits my access to many possible points/reefs. I'm not interested in the really big ones, as i would like to catch one or two to actually eat, and medium-sized pikes make for better food. Well not having a boat definitely changes things , but that's okay! I like the spot you have marked, it allows you to potentially throw a lure out into deeper water because of that little bay, as well as throw into the shallow water/opening of that bay. Also, that island isn't that far out from shore, it's possible that there is some sort of trench in between the island and the shore, creating a natural funnel for predator fish to ambush baitfish. When I say deeper I mean relatively, the depth could taper off slowly from shore until you get half way to the island and start slowly moving back up again or something. The other spots I'd try would be that point north of you, casting straight out and then parallel to shore on either side would be a good bet. Especially if the weeds aren't as thick once you get to 5-6 feet deep or something, that might allow you to bring your lure back in parallel to shore, all the while staying on the edge of the weeds, or on top of some deeper weeds. Otherwise I'd try the mouth of those small inlets south of your marker. Pike don't necessarily stack up or school like a lot of other fish, so it's probably best to move around a bit if you aren't getting bites. As far as I know they move around quite a bit looking for food, and are aggressive towards other pike, so you probably won't find many small pike hanging out very close to really big ones(at least not by choice). I would walk along the shore and just cast all over the place. Don't stick to just one spot all day, keep on the move and you should find some hungry fish eventually. If it's sunny out, try something with a brass/silver polished finish(like a daredevle spoon), they will really flash in the sun which can really entice those fish. Since it could potentially be very weedy where you are fishing, you might want to look at some topwater baits. One of my favorite Pike lures is the Bass-Oreno, it usually stays within a foot or so of the surface and I've caught numerous pike(and a big musky!) on it before.
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Oct 17, 2013 19:24
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I spent the weekend up at Lake of the Woods and had some good fishing! We got to the cabin at about 4:30 and got out on the water by 5 PM. We saw a few boats stacked up in an odd spot for this time of year so we decided to check it out. As soon as we got on the same contour line as they were we started graphing fish. You couldn't put a jig on the bottom without getting bit INSTANTLY. We fished for a little over an hour and put 26 fish in the boat, but probably missed twice that many bites. It was fast and furious. We got up on Saturday expecting heavy winds(if it's windy you just flat out don't fish Lake of the Woods, way too dangerous), but it was calm! We hustled to the harbor and started fishing around 9:45. We had our 8 walleye limit in 40 minutes, and had 42 fish in the boat by 11:30. The size of the fish was really nice too, I think we had 6 or 7 slot fish(19.5"+), and all our keepers were like 17-19", just beautiful fat walleyes. Biggest of the day was this SUPER fat 24.5 incher. I also caught a few pike which was fun, had a ~35" pike get off next to the boat .  Fishing slowed down and we ended the day with only 74 fish for the two of us. Sunday was too windy to fish so we fixed a bunch of stuff around the cabin and headed home on Monday. Overall a pretty good weekend!
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Oct 22, 2013 15:28
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Falukorv posted:
I don't know a ton about trout fishing, I've only ever done it a little bit in some small streams in Minnesota. What I DO know is that they like both worms and spinners. A smallish mepps spinner works great in streams, and just about any trout will eat a live red worm/nightcrawler. As for how much they fight, brown trout are very strong fish and quite acrobatic. They offer very good sport on a pound for pound basis. Now I have a question for you guys, I just got engaged and we've decided we are going to Alaska for our honeymoon! I couldn't be happier. Anyone fished up there before? We will probably get to fish 2 or 3 days while we are there, I'm planning on spending most of our time on the Kenai peninsula, so we just have to decide where we fish. We will definitely do silver salmon/rainbow trout fishing on the Kenai, but then we have to decide where to halibut fish. There are charters out of Kenai, Homer and Seward, I'm just not sure if one area offers better fishing than the others. Anyone have any experience fishing up there?
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Nov 6, 2013 17:32
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I'm heading up to Lake of the Woods this Thursday, I can't wait . They have 12" of ice up there right now, and I'm hearing some great reports from the past week or so. Hopefully the fish continue to be aggressive and I will be able to share a few pictures next week. It will feel great to get out on the ice again, there's something special about ice fishing...
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Dec 16, 2013 18:23
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DocMcgillicuddy posted:Not a lot of winter time posts here. Since ice fishing is the worst poo poo ever does anyone else tie flies? Feel like this is the time to be restocking your core supply and playing with some new ideas. Uhhh, Ice fishing is the best. My lake of the woods trip went well, no pictures to share unfortunately, but we caught ~150 fish in two days, which is pretty good. Nothing huge, but we did lose a few big ones under the ice. I also caught my first eelpout! I fished last Friday-Tuesday everyday in south eastern MN for panfish on the river. Did pretty well, also got to try out the future father in laws new underwater camera, which was really cool.
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Jan 2, 2014 07:48
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Disco Dickdog posted:I'm leaving for the Big Island of Hawaii on Saturday, we have a 3/4 day charter one day so 6 hours, 4 or 5 of us + the knowledgeable captain. Anything I catch on this trip will probably be the biggest fish I've ever caught. Perhaps I shall post photos. My friend did a charter fishing trip like that and he caught like a 7 foot marlin that was 200+ pounds. He's a BIG dude(played O-line in college until he got hurt) and he said it was the most grueling thing he's ever experienced. Almost a 2 hour fight if I remember right. Hopefully you hook into something like that, but be ready for a fight!
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Jan 2, 2014 19:24
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PREYING MANTITS posted:Took my 7'11" 13 Fishing Omen Black out for a spin and the rod performed great both flipping a jig and regular casting of a Spro Aruku Shad. It absolutely launches the Aruku. There was one issue however and I'm not sure if it's the rod or the line. Hmmm, that's definitely an interesting problem. I do know that braided line isn't recommended for ICE fishing when it's below freezing because it will freeze up, but I'm not sure if that compromises the strength of the line or if it's just an inconvenience. I would maybe take a length of the braid if you have some and rub it through each guide on the rod, tightly. See if there IS a guide that's cutting it. It's possible that when the line freezes it gets brittle or something I suppose, but I've never heard of that happening.
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Jan 3, 2014 06:47
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Gozinbulx posted:Hey a fishing thread! Not sure about that area, but I wouldn't count on it. I live in Minnesota and the lakes near Minneapolis get hit really hard in the winter during ice fishing season. If you know of a good spot you keep it to yourself, if I were to post that I caught a limit of 12" crappies on a metro area lake and gave a pretty good description of the lake and spot, I guarantee at least 40 people(potentially A LOT more) would be in that spot the very next day. Too many people are out there trying to find that type of information. Of course it could be a different story in Florida, but something tells me that when people find a hot bite they aren't interested in sharing that bite with a lot of other people. That said, some of the forums are quite helpful for discussing fishing tips, techniques and what to look for when trying to find certain species, so I take full advantage of that. I got out ice fishing last weekend about an hour north of my house and we did pretty well. I bet I caught between 30-40 fish total for the day, and brought home 7 sunfish to eat. Caught a couple crappies but most were small, I was fishing with a big group, most of which were not familiar with fishing, so I spent a lot of time setting everyone up, drilling holes, etc. Still fun though .
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Jan 21, 2014 21:50
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Spudalicious posted:So I'm heading to Cabo San Lucas for a little bachelor party in May with some seasoned veteran fishermen as well as a couple of us newbies who have no idea how to fish. I don't have any experience in Cabo, but my advice would be threefold: -Don't just book the cheapest charter you can find because you or your friends are cheapskates. You really get what you pay for when it comes to fishing guides/charters, and trust me, you don't want to find yourself in a precarious situation because you wanted to save $50 a piece. I went on a cheap charter out of key west once and it was pretty janky, I wish I would have spent an extra $40 or something for one of the nicer boats. -Find a forum or something where you can find reviews of different charters, not sure if one exists for that area, but I'm sure there's a site out there somewhere. -Actually call these places and just ask some questions, make sure the captain or deckhand or whoever you talk to sounds friendly.
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Jan 23, 2014 18:43
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Managed to get out for about 5 hours on Saturday with a good friend of mine to find some panfish. We ended up catching probably 120+ sunfish, with a few rock bass and crappies mixed in. It was crazy, we drilled one hole in the ice in the general area we wanted to fish and there was a whole bunch of fish on the flasher. Setup shop there and we caught fish constantly. I don't think I went more than 3 minutes without catching a fish then entire day. Ended up keeping my limit of sunfish, which I'm going to eat tomorrow night. I can't get enough ice fishing this year, I wish I could get out more...
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Feb 3, 2014 18:16
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stealie72 posted:This is a fundamental question I've never really pondered before, and don't want to ask on my local fishing forum, since I fear I'll get a whole shitload of stupidity from all sides: That's definitely a fair question, and while I think that some of the 'claims' are probably crappy, I have experienced first hand some really crappy fishing line. I forget what the brand was but I bought it because it was like $2 for 300 yards. I had so many fish just break off it was unreal. I was using 8 lb test and was getting just broken off all the time. I switched back to(still cheap) stren and didn't have the problem anymore. Things like 'invisible to fish' might actually be true in some cases, I know clear Flourocarbon lines are pretty much invisible underwater, they can also have less stretch than mono in some cases, which in certain situations is a big plus. Some of the cheaper mono out there might have more of a 'memory problem' than others as well. That said, I think are just fine with the mid grade stuff, it's what I've used almost my entire life. Stay away from the super cheap bargain bin stuff and you'll be fine.
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Feb 18, 2014 04:20
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If catching a fish is too traumatic for the fish then outlaw fishing. I don't see how putting a fish through the same amount of stress but then killing it is better than giving it a chance to live... I'm a 90% C&R fisherman, but I'd much rather have a hook stuck through my lip and be pulled around for 30 seconds than I would have a hook stuck through my lip and be pulled around for 30 seconds and THEN be killed.
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Feb 18, 2014 17:35
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IM FROM THE FUTURE posted:In the same way that its mostly illegal to torture animals, but its not illegal to kill them humanely and eat them. Fishing for meat has a purpose of collecting food to eat. C&R is basically just for the fun of it. I dont agree with the law but I can see the angle they are coming from. That's not a proper comparison though. It's: torture animal vs. torture animal and then kill it for meat. I kind of almost see the angle, but it doesn't make sense since you are 'torturing' the animal either way. Maybe it's best not to try to understand it 
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Feb 19, 2014 05:54
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Well the ice fishing season is at an end here in the Twin Cities , I'm a little sad to see it go. I saw some big fish come out of the ice this year, a 28" walleye and a couple 41" northerns. Heres' the highlight reel from this year: Last trip up to lake of the woods for the winter, we went tip-up fishing for northern, we had 7 guys and 6 of us caught personal best northerns! My biggest northern pike ever, 37", probably a 15 lb. fish:  Here's a nice 39.5", as a bonus this one was caught on my ice warrior tip-up that allows you to hook a flag up to a rod and reel, so he caught this one on rod and reel instead of hand over hand, which was pretty cool to watch:  A FAT 35":  A 41" that was caught IN our fish house on a tip-up(seriously). The tip-up had been down for about ten minutes(kind of as a joke), while we were drinking beer/playing cribbage. This one was hooked awkwardly and as a result was almost impossible to get through the hole. We had a gaff that was about 2 feet long and there was 4 feet of ice and the house was a foot and half above the ice. I had to take my jacket off, roll up my sleeve and go down to my shoulder to get the gaff below the ice. Gaffed her on the underside of her jaw and pulled her up!  This biggest fish of the weekend, a 41" that was probably a lb or two heavier than the other 41", this fish was probably 22-24 lbs.:  This was the previous trip to LOTW, my buddies 28" walleye, biggest I've ever seen and biggest he's ever caught:  All fish were released successfully and we will hopefully catch them again some other day . All in all it was a fantastic season, I caught a lot of panfish within a couple hours of the twin cities, and caught a lot of walleye/sauger up at LOTW, and got to see some monsters. Now it's time to get the open water rods out, get in the boat and hope to catch some nice fish this summer .
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Apr 15, 2014 17:36
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:There's no standard rule for how fast you retrieve. It depends totally on the species you're targeting and the species you're mimicking. There are lots of piscivorous or otherwise predatory fish that will completely ignore a bait if you're not retrieving it fast enough. Skipjack come to mind; I fished for them for quite a while with complete failure until I figured out that I had to reel as fast as possible to get them interested in. With most fish that you target with lures meant for retrieval, you cannot physically retrieve a lure faster than they can swim. Predatory fish are fast. To add on to this, there are a lot of factors in play even within a certain species. I fish walleye a lot for instance and sometimes they will only bite if your crank bait is going as slow as it can go while still having any action, and other times they are biting size 7 or 9 shad raps/tail dancers at 3 mph!
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Apr 15, 2014 20:00
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FishUSA.com is having a sale on rods right now, some deals are okay, some are not great, but I picked up a St. Croix Legend Elite 6'8" MXF spinning rod for $215(they retail at like $340). These are vendor samples, I've heard they are always in great shape and have never been used(just handled). http://www.fishusa.com/Product/St-Croix-Rod-Specials
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Apr 16, 2014 16:23
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bunnielab posted:
Nice work! There are very few freshwater fish that can resist a live worm wriggling in front of their nose! As far as hook sets go, you will get better with time, I would check your hook size though because the eye of your hook looks pretty big(which might mean your hook is pretty big). It's very possible that the 'bites' you were missing were quite small fish that literally cannot get the hook into their mouth. This happens all the time with sunfish and live bait, if the fish are very small it can be tough to hook them. You can also experiment with putting a smaller bit of worm on the hook, sometimes you can cut a worm in 6 or 7 little pieces and catch more fish than if you were to cut it into 3-4, because the fish can't just suck the tail of the worm off of your hook. Your bait lasts a lot longer too! One thing you could try is to buy a few panfish jigs like this(these are my favorite panfish lure for bobber fishing): http://www.cabelas.com/product/Cubby-Mini-Mite/1605408.uts or something like this http://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/gapen-1-32-oz-freshwater-shrimp-jig-chartreuse/0000000023350 It will be tough to cast such a light jig, but one solution is to put a small split shot(sinker/weight/whatever you want to call it) a foot or two above the jig. I haven't used circle hooks very much, but I wouldn't be surprised if they work better when you are fishing more vertically, i.e.: straight off the dock or out the side of a boat. When you are casting your line 30-40 feet in front of you that's a lot of horizontal line before it goes vertical under the bobber. It's possible they are less effective in that presentation, but that's speculation, I think it's more likely that you are just using too big of a hook. DoctaFun fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 15:44
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I would say that you could go down to 6 or even 4 lb if those are the fish you are catching. Unless it's extremely weedy or something. The thinner diameter line will help casting distance, as would a weighted bobber(the 2nd from the right in the picture above). And yeah, definitely lose that big leader thing, just tie your mono straight to your hook/jig. I would HIGHLY recommend just using slip bobbers(the ones with a hole through the entire length of the bobber where the line slides through, as opposed to the first bobber in that picture(spring bobber?). The ones with springs are faster to get on but they WILL kink your line beyond repair. I've lost a lot of fish to my line breaking while using those bobbers, and it always breaks right at the bobber... The slip bobber is slower to get set up, but it's faster to adjust your depth once you get it set, and it has the added benefit of not ruining your line.
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Apr 21, 2014 19:34
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bunnielab posted:Thanks for the advice guys. Gotcha. Casting distance can be helped by the following: -Using thinner diameter line. -Using a longer rod. -Using a heavier lure/bobber/sinker. -Using a bigger spooled reel. Obviously some of those things are not going to help you without going out and buying more equipment(which you can probably hold off on for awhile). If a fish really swallow a hook, don't be afraid to cut the line as close to the hook as possible. I've always heard that most fish can digest small hooks(maybe fish biologist man can chime in though). At the very least they will have a better chance of surviving than if you rip out their innards while trying to dislodge the hook . If you do find some trout, be aware that they are notorious for swallowing live bait like worms. If you don't spook them first, they will almost always hit a live worm, but they swallow them quick. They also like small spinnerbaits, like this: Mepps Aglia Keep at it though, anytime you can go fishing and catch a fish is a success in my book!
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Apr 21, 2014 21:05
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