D4u2s0t

I had a roommate from south carolina, and watching her cook was extremely disgusting... she put the worst possible things in the food, but dang, was it amazing to eat!! I couldn't watch her cook though or i'd be too disgusted to eat lol. Those southerners know how to make some good grub!

I never said 100% of the time... most of the time, yes. read the rest of my posts, geeze. I said when i'm not sure, I feel for weight. Go out and catch 200 panfish in a few hours, many times, and tell me you don't get better at feeling the difference. Some of the worst panfishing days i've ever had on my lake was about 10 an hour, all the way up to catching them every single cast for the entire trip. There's been a few days where the bite was off, and I couldn't catch anything anywhere in the lake. But, I'd be willing to bet i've caught more in a good week than most people catch in a year... NOT because i'm a better angler, because that's how many panfish there are. When you catch that many panfish, all the time, of course you're going to be able to tell a little better than someone that targets bass mostly. I live on a mountain, and my lake warms up MUCH slower than surrounding areas in the state... Bass fishing doesn't pick up usually till late may, early june... So early in the season, after ice out, I mainly target panfish until the bass bite picks up. Anytime someone comes up that isn't really into fishing, and won't be willing to not catch anything, (I'll glady target nice sized bass, and have no problem not catching one. just enjoy being on the water!) it's panfish time.

Our lake is small, and doesn't allow gas motors, so we have small aluminum boats... I won't go out in anything over 7-10 mph, because any stronger than that and you can't control the boat.

I agree. I think if an angler can't tell the difference between a few species of fish, they need to pay more attention to the bite. If you're confusing bass for a gill or perch, you're not paying enough attention.

In clear water where many times you can see the fish? Don't think so. That's why when i'm not sure I feel for weight. I'd miss a hell of a lot more fish taking a wild swing at a perch. Again, keep in mind i'm talking about water that is so overrun with panfish, you can catch them every single cast if you target them, and baits with appendages that last "long" still have their arms after 2-3 casts. Not unusual to throw a spinnerbait and trailer, and on the first cast the trailer arms are gone. I also said in areas or lakes without such an abundance of panfish, I don't use that approach. You're almost guaranteed to have at least 3-4 panfish hit your bait on any given cast... so, you can either learn to feel the difference, or you can strike out almost every time, and take your bait out of the strike zone before you have a fish worth setting the hook on.

looks like an amazing car... is it worth 350? can't say without driving one.. but there's a crapload of cars I would buy in the 2-300 range before this one if i had that kind of money.

let me give an example, and tell you why I disagree with blind hooksets... yesterday, I had a bunch of bluegills nipping at my bait... a wild, blind hookset would have not only taken my bait out of the strike zone, but probably would have spooked the 4 lb bass I caught by setting the hook on nothing. Majority of the people that say "you feel something set the hook" would have not caught that fish. I feel like setting the hook when you're not sure is a careless way of fishing, and is a beginner's technique. with some practice you can learn to feel the weight on the line and set the hook just as quickly as someone that swings for the fences wildly at the first indication of line movement or rod twitch. If you can't instantly tell the difference between a perch, bluegill, crappy, or bass, you need to pay more attention when you're fishing, because they are all very different and distinct bites. 99% of the time, I can accurately tell you what species is on the line before I can see it, based on the way it bit. When I feel a gill pecking at my bait, I leave it there, because many times it will bring the attention of a bass, and the bully bass will come in and take the bait from the gill. With the amount of panfish in my lake, I can guarantee you that i will outfish ANYONE that "sets the hook" at any indication of a bite. (this applies to my home lake, and I try to do the same on other lakes. obviously this does not apply in areas that don't have as many panfish.)

I have never noticed a difference between red and normal hooks. I have spinnerbaits with red hooks, and spinnerbaits with regular hooks, same skirt, same brand, same color, only difference being the hook. No difference that i've seen. This is how I look at it... if companies sell different color hooks, or different color baits, it means they're going to sell more product because anglers get lured into thinking that they need 50 million colors, and dozens of style's of hooks. Majority of what is on the shelf is there because people would buy it, not because it's the "best" or works better than anything else.

yep! Most of the time it's farily easy to find (assuming that someone that was using the baitcaster KINDA knows what they're doing...) if someone just casted, or let the bait fall, and let the reel keep spinning till it got so jammed it stopped, at that point best bet may be to just cut it out and re-spool. This will become easier the more you both learn, because after a while when something goes wrong you quickly apply pressure, which stops a birdsnest from turning into a BAD birdsnest. If you stop it quickly, 99% of the time it will come out using this technique if the "thumb and reel" technique doesn't work.

they all bite the same baits, and share the same habitat, so it's tough to target strictly perch in a pond full of gills. Perch are school fish, with the small size of the pond I don't know how it would affect them, but typically if you find a perch, there's more in the same area. So what I would do is next time you catch one, try to take note of exactly where it was, and what you did to catch it, and then try to replicate that.

wow that's awesome lol

that's one of the reasons why I like to feel the weight if i'm not 100% certain... SO many panfish in my lake, you can literally catch them every cast if you want. And they peck at anything, and will even pick up a bait and move it around. What i've learned is that if you can learn to tell the difference quickly, you will avoid spooking the bass on a crazy hard hookset when there's nothing there to set the hook on. If you really pay attention to the bite, you can tell pretty easily if it's a bass, bluegill, or perch. They have very distinct ways of picking up your bait. I don't like to take the bait out of the strike zone until I feel it's the right time, because many times if a gill comes and starts playing with your bait, that will put the bass in alpha mode and they'll come and take it. If that bait is out of the strike zone, not gonna happen. And just to clarify, if I "feel the weight" (which isn't all the time, just like I said if i'm not positive) it's a very fast process, the casual observer would just think I'm either setting a hook, or moving my bait. Learn to feel the bait and the bite... I can tell when a perch bites, when a bluegill bites, when a bass bites, and after I set the hook majority of times I know what's on the line before I start cranking it in. All it takes is some awareness and the willingness to really pay attention to what's in your water, and learn their feeding/strike habits. I know the old saying is set the hook if you're not sure... I disagree, and say learn to be sure through feel. Yes, hooksets are free, but swinging an empty bait or a bait with a gill nipping is worthless. If I swing and miss, I try to think about every possible scenario, pick the one that best suits what happened, and try to not do it next time.

are you sure they're always bass? I get tons of hits on plastics from perch and bluegills, they always rip off any appendages pretty quickly. I can't throw a spinnerbait trailer more than 2-3 times before it has no arms lol. if they are bass, you're probably either setting the hook too early, or too late. Sometimes they bite the end, and then they suck it into their mouth...sometimes they just swallow it whole... if i'm not sure, before i set the hook i'll lift the rod a little to see if i feel any pressure, and if i do BAM! If I don't feel pressure, I leave it right there for when the fish comes back.

the birdsnest happens when the line falling off the spool gets caught up in the line going out the eye... if you can find where the tangle is sitting over the main line, if you can get it off and pull on that usually it gets the tough ones out. pretty easy to find because when you start pulling out your line, when it stops, it will be right there for you.

it's like everything, you don't think about it until you have that luxury item... I'm 28, and in school I learned to type on a typewriter, there was no internet, nobody had computers at home, pagers didn't come out until high school. I got my first pager my senior year in high school, and that was the cool thing to have. Technology advances so quickly it becomes easy to take things for granted. When me and the fam went on vacation, we went to tripple a, they gave us a map, list of restaurants, and after that we were on our own lol. Each generation gets more and more spoiled.

like said above, do you mean ALONE, like just her on a boat, or do you mean without her parents? Because that's a big difference. and are we talking flying, boating, kayak??

Most people I see do nothing but beat the banks... and the bigger fish will not be on the banks in warmer weather most of the time. You have to fish a little deeper, so try working around some deeper structure. Never, ever will even one of my top 10 fish of the summer come from the shoreline. Yet, that's where majority of anglers spend the most time for some reason.

People think the fishing slows down, I actually find afternoons to be the best time, and have caught ALL of my best fish in the afternoon on hot days. I fish a little bit deeper, other than that, nothing else changes.

love em.

I often throw a spinnerbait with some type of trailer, and i'm looking to see if anyone knows of something on the more durable side. The problem I'm having is that there's so many perch and gills in my lake that literally 1-2 casts and your trailer has no arms left... you're just left with the body on the spinnerbait. Suggestions would be great, thanks guys!

if you're missing fish and you don't even feel them, you need to keep less slack in your line.

If they know what they're doing, I give people the same baits I use and go after some "big" girls. If i'm going out with people that aren't into fishing (the people that aren't into fishing usually get bored if they're out for a few hours with no fish) I set them up with a nite crawler and get them a few dozen panfish. At least that way they are always catching fish, and it's more fun.

only soft plastics i'll really use on spinning is when they're very light, or maybe a wacky rigged senko type bait, but I mostly use casting setups these days.

I use a 7' M Fast action rod.

a tick secretes fluids that make it hard to feel the actual bite. If you don't see, or feel the tick crawling on you before it bites, there's a very high chance that you will not know you had a tick. They feed for a while, until they're fully engorged, and they wouldn't stand much of a chance if the bite was noticeable by the host. Best of luck to you, glad you caught it early.