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I have found that the owner and trokar hooks that have actual bladed points, as opposed to a straight taper like a needle, really work better at punching through plastics. This combined with switching to straight shank hooks whenever I can, seems to have dramatically improved my hook up ratios. I do now tear plastics a lot quicker, but it's a small price to pay in my opinion.  Caught this big boy this morning on like my second cast. I went to this little pond to play with my new finesse casting reel. I am hugely impressed, even with it on a pretty stiff medium action rod I am able to cast small weightless plastics 40 or 50 feet with ease. This is a lure I called the most everything on today, at least until I ran out of the stupid plastics.  It's a Strike King Rage Menace on an Owner 2/0 cutting point hook. This plastic has been super productive for me all summer I think I finally settled on this as the best way to rig it. It's compact enough to cast very easily, skips well, it's salty enough to sink at a reasonable rate, has a ton of action reeled very slowly. Rigging it on the straight shank hook like that does make them pretty fragile but again, totally worth it as I didn't miss a single hook up today. bongwizzard fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 21:41
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 02:53 |
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 I'm the perch master! I caught maybe three dozen this size this morning and another dozen or two smaller ones. Also caught a couple of small Pickrell and had a huge one on until he bent the hook and got off right about side. Went out with a bunch of other kayakers and the ones who went to the mouth of the river were catching stripers one after the other. The Severn River in Maryland is on fire right now.
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Sep 21, 2016 18:28
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 Spent two days fishing the Potomac. It was tough going until I hit the last spot of the trip, got this guy and a few other small ones.
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Sep 24, 2016 01:56
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All I have experience with are Chain Pickerel, which are the little babies of the pike family. Around here we catch them in brackish water while fishing for white perch, so on small spinnerbaits and minnow imitators. We also catch them as baycatch when bass fishing, where they mostly hit spinnerbaits and cranks. But, I have caught them in ponds on Ned Rigs and flukes. They do bite through line like bastards, I think proper pike guys use wire leaders? We just suffer through lost lures. Thats pretty much the total of my pike knowledge, other then: Do Not Lip A Pike! 
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Sep 25, 2016 00:18
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Also, fish streak continues, got three LBMs today from a pond I have fished hundreds of times. This brings my total in this pond to 5. No idea why I keep coming but today it worked out. Small:  Medium:  Large: 
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Sep 25, 2016 00:21
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I don't think I would like touching a live squid, I just know the texture is gross as gently caress. Skunked the last two days, had some hits close in to shore in grass but have not made a hookset. I have been messing with my new bait finesse combo and the learning curve is steep.
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Oct 1, 2016 04:54
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Gumbel2Gumbel posted:I don't have any proof, and I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure I spent about 45 minutes trying to catch a turtle.   Bad pic but he was a monster, shell at least 20" around. I got the hook out of him, but it was rough going. Fish become helpless on land, turtles get stronger.
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Oct 5, 2016 15:10
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Very nice. I have also heard good stuff about these stickbaits: http://www.bizzbaits.com/product/sassy-stick/ I just try to never buy senkos not on sale. Outlet Bait and Tackle will sometimes have them for like half off, the good colors go quickly but I have scored some amazing deals by jumping on like when I get a sale email from them.
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Oct 5, 2016 18:30
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I have very little wacky experience as I have yet to find a weedless hook I am really happy with. I do have some o-rings that have a small second ring molded on perpendicular to the main ring, so your hook is perpendicular as well. My issue, aside from hook quest, is speed. I am really bad at fishing slowly I can only stand to wacky rig if I am in a really target rich area, like docks or standing trees. I also like to skip them under low tree limbs when kayaking. I far prefer faster lures and probably fish flukes and Menace grubs like 4:1 vs senkos. I set out last spring to fish them more but could rarely resist swapping out to a fluke or menace after a few dozen fishless casts.
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Oct 5, 2016 19:34
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God I wish I could backyard fish. The farm I am living on has a pond, but it is so full of tadpoles and stunted bluegills that I cant see that there are any bass in there. But, I have never really given it a good hard try. Might grab some minnows and see what's in there.
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Oct 6, 2016 17:48
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Gumbel2Gumbel posted:Isn't that prime food? If you own it, you should stock it. I don't own it. The owners are not opposed to stocking it, but are not going to do it themselves. The urge to stock via bucket biology is getting stronger and stronger, but I have been too lazy to rig a live-well for my car. Field Mousepad posted:Catch a bunch of bluegills and fry them up. They're delicious. They are like 4-6" max, most are super super small. I should look into pond care and stocking a bit more, it is decently large and like a 2-3 min walk from my front door.
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Oct 6, 2016 18:47
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Oh I know, I was saying that 4-6" is large for the stunted population in this pond. I was fishing a bass tournament this spring and caught what was likely a citation sized bluegill, but in my bass frenzy I threw him back without a pic. I regretted it before he disappeared from view. My favorite sunfish are Redbreasts. My favorite smallie spot is full of them and they are great fighters. I would love to catch a Warmouth, just cuz of the name, but I have never seen one around here, despite a lot of my spots having a population. I kinda want to get into panfishing more. When I first started on bass I used really light tackle and would often give up on bass and target panfish. Once I had bass figured out a bit I stopped doing it, but I kinda want to get a tenkara rod to carry around so if I see a good spot I can quickly jump into panfish mode.
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Oct 8, 2016 12:45
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I have never tried it. I just t-rig them until the nose gets tore up, then I trim them back and use them for trailers. I love working a fluke, they are my favorite plastic. If it's working though, go nuts, they are about half the price of senkos.
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Oct 11, 2016 19:52
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Are fly rods more fragile than conventional casting are spinning rods?
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Nov 19, 2016 20:04
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Wood carving is so last century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRxhgxH6FUI While I want neither of those products alone, I would pay a lot for that talking fish.
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Dec 8, 2016 02:45
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The midwest finesse guys go "bass fishing for trout" with their ned rigs and I have caught stocked rainbows on all sorts of random rear end bass lures. My best day being like 15ish of them on a series of small cranks.
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Dec 27, 2016 23:31
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  It has been too long sense I posted a fish. These are two of the better ones from the last few weeks.
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May 1, 2017 19:47
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Here is a tough old bastard I caught today, he had a dead eye and was missing part of his tail fin.  Then I caught his fat wife.  Today was great, these two and like 6-7 more decent fish, all from a tiny tiny pond that is a mile from parking. That mile is loving key as I saw so little evidence of other people fishing there. I did run into another guy who was also there for the first time, we both swore to tell no one. I caught them on a wacky 4" senko. I am trying to give wacky rigging a solid try and while I like the results, I hate how much I snag and how much poo poo I leave in the water. I have never found a weedless wacky hook that I like, might give circle hooks a try next.
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May 10, 2017 03:14
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That is madness, are you burying the hook when you t-rig them, or leaving it exposed on top of the worm? As for senko size, I don't know man. My instinct is to always fish the smallest lure I can, but I am slowly coming around to the idea that one should start big, then start sizing down if one isnt getting bit. I have absolutely caught bass on a 5" wacky senko that are small enough to stand no chance of actually eating a real creature of the size of the worm. I was using 4" ones as I had them left over from my "Battle of the 4" Stick Worms" I held last fall, and they fit in the tiny hiking kit I wanted to bring today. The "winner" of said battle was the 4" Strike King Ocho, but I was specifically looking for a worm to use in some of the really small streams that I fish and the Ocho seemed to have the best mix of action and sink rate when rigged both ways. I am trying to learn the way of the senko but I am so twitchy that it is hard to fish it slow enough. It is already clear what an amazing fish catching tool a wacky rigged senko is though, it is nuts how I can throw half a dozen lures at a bedded bass and only when I throw a wacky worm at it will it bite. Also, I am in the process of purging a ton of poo poo from my huge mess of plastics. I am going to donate the unopened stuff to this charity that takes disabled vets fishing, but PM me your address if you want a bunch of half empty bags of random plastics. I gotta get them out of here before I lose my will and file them all back away. There is some good stuff in there but I am making an effort to learn the classics this season and need to reclaim some space on my workbench.
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May 10, 2017 04:26
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The Slack Lagoon posted:I don't have a fish to post but is the a thread about fishing? I want to get my wife a fishing pole but it has to be collapsible because lol City apartment Does it have to be collapsible, or can it be multi part? To get a good collapsible you're in for about $160-180, a decent multipart can be had for less. What's your budget and what is your wife going to be fishing for?
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May 17, 2017 14:02
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gamera009 posted:I'd actually disagree. I picked up one of these off amazon on a lark and it's now my go-to, cheap-rear end (but solid) collapsable rod for trout and bass fishing. It's held up for three seasons in all weather, and I have more difficulty with respelling line than the rod. It's cheap enough that buying a couple isn't bad, and I like using it as part of a packable ultralight for small/largemouth and trout. I have never tried that one, but of the three cheap ones I tried, all were almost useless for anything that required a good hookset or any kind of bite detection. They were all worse than an Ugly Stick, which is my benchmark for "acceptable fishing rod". In any case a 2-part or even a 4-5 part is going to be better than a telescoping one at any price point. Went out for my first wading trip of the year. I got a hand full of smallies around this size;  This was the best of them, he jumped, shook the lure, then hit it again as soon as it hit the water.  I forgot how much I love these dumb fish. So much more fun than largemouths. I also got some nice big Redbreasts and a single rainbow trout. All were caught on the Ned. I also saw something crazy;  This pool was just full of these really large fish I was no able to ID. They were silver/gray in color and the larger ones were a solid 15-16" long, with most around 12". They were full bodied, almost like a white perch. There were like a hundred of them in this little pool. They showed no interest in my lures and would run from them. They had a very sharp V tailfin. I thought they were some kind of sucker or carp at first, but also maybe they could be shad that somehow made it up this far inland? More excitingly, I saw three or four nice large snakeheads in the same pool. They would surface to breathe and I could get a good look at them. This spot is right off of a trail in a build up area, no idea how they are still there. I only had my Ned rig stuff with me and they were not interested at all. I have to be better about bringing a few small hard baits along even if I am 99% sure I will never use them.
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May 18, 2017 20:56
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LingcodKilla posted:Snakeheads are bad. Kill them without mercy. No way man, snakeheads are an excellent game fish and apparently quite delicious. The local fishing forum seems to think that they are shad that made it unusually far upstream. Apparently this was a very good year for them so it might be possible, and we had a prolonged period of heavy rain over the last month that swelled a lot of the local rivers, so they could've quite easily swim up this far and got stuck. Although Maryland has had a closed season for them for the entire time I've been fishing, you're still allowed to catch and release so I might get some shed darts and try to catch one for positive ID.
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May 20, 2017 00:54
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Thus far, at least in the tidal Potomac River, I have yet to read about any impact that a have had on the fishery. Hell, even our beloved bass were only introduced in like iirc the 1880's. If people wanna kill some fish the blue cats do damage and grow into 50lb monsters.
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May 20, 2017 03:10
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Telsa Cola posted:They can outcompete a bunch of other nice fish and literally every Fish and Wildlife mention of them says to kill them upon capture. The other issue is that they are hardy as gently caress and their are concerns they could spread throughout the entire US if measures are not taken. Sure, they all say to kill them, but nothing I have read about them from the MD DNR shows any actual observed harm or damage. If they are as bad as people say, where is the data?
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May 20, 2017 15:02
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LingcodKilla posted:Sigh. They really don't need a lot of data to show that an invasive piscovor with no native predator of its own is bad news for an environment. But like that exactly describes largemouth and smallmouth bass? That link isnt about snakeheads?
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May 20, 2017 16:17
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gamera009 posted:Thought you guys were discussing lion fish! Well, first, are already everywhere, here is the spot I saw them the other day "39.134487, -76.830679". They have already taken root. My main concern is that some is going to get the bright idea to drain the watered sections of the C&O canal to keep them from spreading north. Also, a lot of the " initial efforts" at control involved encouraging idiots to run generator boats through all the SAV, destroying it, to go after the snakeheads with bows. Or when snakeheads could not be found, gar, carp, beavers, or whatever else was out there. And in any case, killing individual fish isnt going to do poo poo. I am not going to kill them the same way I am not going to kill introduced bass, introduced trout, or those nasty horses that poo poo all over our beaches. Give the snakeheads a hundred years and they will be as beloved as all the rest.
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May 20, 2017 17:26
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Looking for a general rod for beginners. Neither of us have fished much but she loves fishing and I wanted to get her a rod. Sure, but like, a "fishing rod" is a hugely broad category. What species does she fish for?
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May 20, 2017 17:27
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gamera009 posted:I bet whoever released the lion fish into the Caribbean reefs said the same thing. Well, who ever introduced the bass has my thanks!
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May 20, 2017 17:36
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Its almost like different species will interact with an ecosystem in different ways? Should we kill all the bass too?
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May 20, 2017 20:00
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LingcodKilla posted:Why do you keep bringing up bass, an already established multi billion dollar economic powerhouse and native fish? Completely incorrect, the bass pro shop in Maryland sells ready-made generator boats with huge banks of lights on the front specifically to bow hunt for snakehead at night. There also at least a couple charter captains that do snakeheads specific charters in the tidal Potomac. And as I said before bass are not native to the tidal Potomac, they were introduced at some point in the late 1800s.
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May 20, 2017 23:17
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LingcodKilla posted:Ultimately its your fishery so if everything dies but snakeheads from some nasty introduced disease or other such import from stupid fucks introducing stuff into new environments I can at lease safely laugh at you from the west coast. Everything is going to die around here due to runoff and other land-based bullshit. The air breathing snakeheads might be the only thing that survives in the Potomac. Well them and the blue cats. And guys plowing up weed beds is doing more harm than any good that would come from killing a few fish a night. Also they seem to like to shoot loving anything, like say a pile of gar;  Taken at Mattawoman Creek, which is one of the best bass/snakehead fisheries around here. Encouraging bow hunting at night was so loving stupid I don't even know how DNR came up with the idea. Like, I get want you guys are saying and believe it applies generally, but in the specific fishery around here there has been 15 years of study and thus far no actual harm shown. There were a few years where the population boomed, but now, due to factors that no one seems to be studying (or publishing if is studied), they are pretty rare, with most guys having to make special trips to have a chance of getting one. I have been out on average 2-3 days a week for the last two years fishing dozens of waterways around here and I have seen them a grand total of three times, two of which were in this same 1/8 mile stretch of river. And if Gumble2Gumble doesn't want them, I have a pile of bass plastics up for grabs, if anyone wants a some packs shoot me a PM and I can mail some out next week. It's all sorts of open packs with a few pieces missing, so not worth trying to sell.
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May 21, 2017 01:23
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  Looks like the spawn is ending and the girls are hungry again. It was very pleasing to catch these two (and two more smaller ones) as I maybe catch one like one in ten trips to this pond. They were all right where they should be, under docks or floating mats.
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May 21, 2017 16:50
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There is a guy in the TFR hiking thread who is a big tenkara nut and super nice and helpful.
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May 30, 2017 13:11
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Very nice! I am a failure, spent three days in Florida living on a lake and all I caught was a buzz.
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Jun 2, 2017 12:50
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Suspect Bucket posted:Florida lakes are weird. Little out-of-the-way backyard ponds are where the real freshwater action is. Yeah, I did see a few bass but couldn't get anything to bite. I wasted most of one day chasing a 3 foot gar that was cruising around the dock. The lake I was on had almost 10 feet of visibility which continually broke my brain.
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Jun 2, 2017 13:48
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Suspect Bucket posted:Oh, yeah. Those lakes are hard. You gotta be hella sneaky or have a cast net.  This is me trying to fish a hole just past that mat. It goes from 5' to like 25'. It's from people having sand pumped out just past their docks to make a little beaches, it also looks like some absurdly good summertime bass habitat.
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Jun 2, 2017 16:41
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Gumbel2Gumbel posted:Going to the Jersey Shore to catch stripers, if I don't come back avenge my death Have fun! I love the idea of surf fishing but there is no where really near me to do it.
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Jun 3, 2017 18:42
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Gumbel2Gumbel posted:Post more photos! All I can pull out of my pond are LMB so it's interesting to see anything else. Trout bait works well, as do tiny plastics on jigheads. I prefer to fish for them with moving lures, like tiny cranks and inline spinners. I do swap the trebles with single hooks and pinch the barbs down. You still catch a ton of fish but you can clearly realse like 99% of them. The 1% will somehow manage to be a super dink that hits a hook hard enough to drive it through it's own head.
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Jul 31, 2017 19:42
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I spent an afternoon watching YouTube videos about carp fishing in England. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen, they were using basically the same equipment as a bass fishermen would but it's such a totally different style and process they barely seem like the same hobby.
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Aug 6, 2017 16:26
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 02:53 |
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Gumbel2Gumbel posted:Hey man I have a question. I fish on heavy braided line with barbless hooks and from what I've gathered I should just be reeling bass in as fast as I can. Constant pressure seems to keep them from jumping and also shaking the barbless hooks out. As I understand it, you play the fish to keep tire it out so it is is easier to land. You don't want to exhaust them to the point where they can't recover, but landing them super green is never a great time and just increases the risk of the fish flopping out of your hand and hitting the ground. When the temp gets hot as poo poo you wanna get them back in asap, but other times I like to play them a bit to make them easier to land and release. Also, what are you calling "heavy" braid? I tend to run pretty light line and have only had a single break off that was not pike-related.  I caught this guy more or less right under the dock I was standing on. This is like the only spot I can catch them on this pond, so I usually end up having to let them run a little before I try to get them over/in between the dock rails.
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Aug 7, 2017 01:32
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