Fishes in trees

I'm not a carolina rig expert. I don't fish it that often. One thing that I do know is that hooksets are free. If you think that a bite is happening and a fish has your bait anywhere near its mouth you should set the hook.

I think a Calais would look good on it.

I carry a tool kit, I carry enough sizes of sockets, wrenches, vice grips, bits, etc., that I can adjust any size nut, bolt or screw that is on my boat or trailer. Specifically, don't forget a prop wrench for your big motor and several extra pins. If you ever get a bunch of line wrapped around your big motor prop, you need to get it off NOW! It is possible to mess up seals and stuff pretty quickly. Looking at your list, I think that a culling system is very optimistic. If I fished a bunch of tournaments I would probably have one on my boat, but given my current level of skill, it would probably gather dust. There are a few things that I carry that aren't on your list. A - Lure Retrievers. I carry both the extendable pole type and the hound dog type. I seem to know multiple ways to get stuck, so I need both kinds of lure retrievers. I use both of them every tri it seems. B - I always carry a heavy duty extendable push pole for shallow situations where running the trolling motor isn't appropriate. C - As I've gotten older, I've found it necessary to plan ahead for taking a leak. Most of the time I can hang it over the side to take a leak, paying attention to wind direction of course. I have found that when it is really windy, that is a bad idea. I don't like standing on the edge of the boat in that situation. Carrying a bottle that is easy to leak in to is handy in that circumstance. I just keep mine in the livewell. That way it is always "rinsed out" D - This year I have decided to pay more attention to water clarity and be more "measurable" about it, so I carry a secchi disc now. E - I see you are carrying a spot light. I do as well, although I don't use it often. F - I do on occasion practice selective harvest, and most of the lakes I fish week to week have a fish cleaning station on site. In my fishing truck, I keep a fish cleaning kit. Fillet knife, skinning pliers, zip lock bags, hand cleaner, etc. Cleaning fish is alot easier when you've got all the right tools ready. Hope this addition to your list helps.

My current favorite drop shot hook is the Gamakatsu Wicked Wacky hooks, with the little tube glued on to the shaft of the hook. You thread your line through that little tube and it guarantees that your hook stays correctly aligned. They come in sizes 1/0 to 5/0 so they are kind of more suited to a bubba shot approach. I generally fish them on 20 lb abrazax. For regular drop shot fishing (6 or 8 lb fluorocarbon) I have a bunch of different styles & brands. I haven't settled on any one that I like more than any other. The spin shot hooks seem like a novel idea, but I don't like the idea of tying two knots. This upcoming season will see more experimenting.

The Sammy doesn't come with a split ring. I've done best on using the sammy bait when I tie some kind of loop knot. I generally use pretty stout line, at least 14 lb test and more often than not 17 or 20.

To me a chatterbait is more or less interchangeable with a spinner bait. I fish them both in more or less the same way - i.e. slow roll it through weeds, brush, whatever. I fish different brands, the original, the booyah , Gambler and a couple of others that I can't remember right now.

I heard Guido Hibdon say once that when the dogwoods were bloomed out 80% of the fish were in 8' of water or less.

Float and fly isn't a bad idea. Float and fly fishing is watching paint dry slow. If you're going to commit to it I'd give it at least an hour. I have limited experience with float and fly fishing I think that it a clear to very clear water technique. I'd want a secchi disc reading of 7' or 8' before I would consider investing very much time into it.

For a complete answer to this question, refer back to the original fishing rule concerning fishing times, i.e. - "The best time to go fishing is when you've got time to go fishing." Once you've decided to go fishing, get to the lake ASAP. This will afford you the greatest opportunity to get set up on the spot you want at the time you want.

I guess you just call them? I looked over the whole web site and couldn't find a price. They look like ok baits for $5.

Yeah, buzz baits will run off to one side or the other. It is a function of how the blade works. The idea of casting off to one side and running the bait into your target is a good one. Baits with counter-rotating blades will run straighter than a standard buzz bait. An in-line buzz bait will run somewhat straighter than a standard safety pin style. I just finished looking in the 2013 BPS catalog and noticed that they don't carry my favorite buzz bait anymore - the older style triple wing buzz bait. Oh well. ... glad I don't lose them very often. Don't get worried about buzz baits running off to one side or another. For me, more often than not, when I'm fishing a buzz bait I am fishing an area and not specific targets, so that generally isn't an issue for me. I guess if you are throwing it at specific targets it could be an issue. If so, use one with counter rotating blades.

If you were a carpenter, would you ban your circular saw, just because in certain situations it works better than a cross cut hand saw? If you were a mechanic, would you ban air tools because in many situations then work better and are faster than standard wrenches? An A-rig is just a tool that both competitive and non-competitive fisherman can use to catch fish from time to time. From time to time it works better than other tools. (which after all, is the nature of tools, there isn't any single all purpose tool) I think that banning A-rigs is foolish, reactionary and short sighted. JMO

I've worm glasses for many years. For me, when I am outdoors, there isn't any substitute for polarized prescription lenses. I wear mine all the time when I'm outdoors. When I 'm fishing, they let me see into the water better. I do have to adjust how my Color LCD graph is placed. If I look at it wrong, I can't see anything. It is just a matter of getting the angle adjusted right.

Airborne Angler - that's muddy. I'd guess a secchi disc reading of less than a foot.

Finally got out Friday, April 5. Went to Indian Creek, north and west of Chillicothe. A cool day, and a little breezy, didn't matter, first trip of the year. Water was up several feet from the last time I was there (Nov. 2012) closer to "normal pool". Water temps varied from 49 to 51 degrees. 40 or 50 minutes into the trip I caught a keeper off the dam on a shad rap and a couple of casts later shook off another short fish. I already know how to catch fish off of a dam on crank baits, so I went looking on other parts of the lake. No luck. Looked around several groups of trees, some ledges, open water humps, shallow flats, beaver dams etc. Couldn't get bit. In the end it didn't matter, I got to go fishing, ended up spending quite a bit of time driving around and looking at stuff with my depth finder. I did get to play with some new and repurposed gear and that worked great, for the most part. New Fenwick Aetos 7'4" MH rod is a great square bill rod. Wind up and heave, I get a little farther than I was getting before, more amazing is that standard length casts require much less effort than last year. Overall a great purchase. I had a Falcon Lowrider Eakins Jig Special rod that I never could find a good use for. It just didn't handle 14 lb. fluorocarbon that well. Anyway, it seems to like 10 lb fluorocarbon. Paired with a new Shimano 50 E this seems like it will be a great finesse jig combo. Over the winter, Cabelas had a US Reel Hibdon 800 SX on sale for $40. Slightly over a year ago these reels were "on sale" for $150 and then they were "on sale" for $120. I put some l7 lb mono on it and I mounted it on one of my spinner bait rods and threw half ounce spinnerbaits with it. The jury is still out on this reel. It is difficult to adjust. Different baits seemed to make a difference, the more wind resistant spinnerbaits, the harder it was to adjust. A heavy compact War Eagle was somewhat easier to cast. The reel seems "touchy", you'd make one great cast,, then have an over run. Backlashes happen frequently. The design of the reel makes backlashes easy to untangle, never took me more than a minute to untangle it and some of them went pretty deep. I thought I had found a bargain, but comparing it to my standard spinner bait reel (Calcutta 200 TEGT) it compared unfavorably. Yes, I know I am comparing a $40 reel to a $ 250+ reel, but I was hoping I had found a "bargain" I am going to fish with it a few more times before a final decision is reached, but I might have another catfish reel here. Anyway, it was good to finally get out on the water, maybe next time I will catch some fish rather than turning the day into an equipment testing session.

How muddy? Over the winter, I made myself a secchi disc. That is a tool that water quality experts use when discussing water visibility. It is so that guys in different parts of the country can talk to each other about water visibility using a certain standard. An acceptable substitute is how deep can you hang a white spinnerbait off the side of the boat before it disappears. So, when you are talking about muddy water, are you talking 6", or a foot or more. In Bull Shoals ( generally a very clear reservoir) a secchi reading of 2' is considered somewhat muddy. In some of the lakes I fish, some of the time, a secchi reading of 6" can happen. That is why, more and more, I' starting to say "how muddy" I think that color choices are related to water clarity, I don't really know how they are related and the secchi disc is how I am going about trying to quantify that, in my own mind. OK, now that that is out of the way, in the past, with secchi reading of around a foot or less, my best spinnerbait option has been a half ounce single spin, chartruese head, chartreuse/purple skirt , white/chartruese BPS plastic trailer and a copper colorado blade ( slightly bigger than a quarter, less than a 50 cent piece). I don't think blade color makes a huge difference in this equation, just the one I bought happened to have a copper blade on it. I don't throw a trailer hook on this bait because of cover concerns.

Some of the rods that say "made is USA" are actually assembled from components that weren't necessarily made in USA. This is one area of my life where I try to be politically correct, but I don't try all that hard. I do look at labels. I prefer to buy made in USA if I have a choice. Reels, you don't have alot of choices. Rods, you have a few more choices, but still not a lot, especially in the low to mid-range price points where many of us shop for rods. Lines, not many readily available choices. Baits you have considerably more choices. Fishing tackle is a good example of how the global economy works. Here's another story. The Japanese Domestic fishing market is huge. I met a pro at Rogers Lures once who was sponsored by Hildebrandt. They make quality spinnerbaits and other baits, they were wondering why their share of the Japanese market was nearly nonexistent. So the guy went over there and spend a month, fished around Japan, fished a few tournaments, met quite a few different fishing companies representatives. These guys told him that, for the most part that USA stuff didn't go over well in Japan because it wasn't "pretty enough". From average looking packaging, to lures with the mold slightly mis-aligned, plastic baits that weren't trimmed or were packaged funny so that they were bent coming out of the package and so forth. Hildebrandt took that message to heart and upgraded their packaging and quality control and now they have modest JDM sales, where before their sales were minimal. JDM anglers are very discerning about quality control. An adage in the fishing tackle industry is that packaging sells the lure as often as the lure sells itself. It is something to think about the next time you walk up and down the aisles of your local tackle store. Oh, and while we're on the subject the guy told me an exception to this rule, i.e. that many Japanese fishermen thought that Charlie Brewer tackle looked "rustic" and that is why they bought it. Go figger Brewer quality control is questionable. Find out for yourself. Buy a 20 pack of 1/4 ounce slider heads and weigh them. Never mind how many of them actually weigh a quarter ounce, you will be amazed at how many of them will weigh out the same. Being off a gram or two either way is common. Mis-aligned molds are common. Brewer stuff sells in Japan because they are really into finesse fishing.

Do not throw that old rig away. Do put new line on it. 15 lb big game, or whatever the strongest line that you can put on the spinning reel is. That rod is a great cat fishing rod. Everyone needs a catfish rod or 2 or 3 or 4. When you set him up with a newer rig for bass fishing, bring the old rig also. Bait it up with something (1/4 of a hot dog works good) throw it out and stake it down. You are likely to catch a catfish, maybe a good one. Or when you get to the water, make it a priority to catch a little to medium sized sun fish. Suspend it 12" to 24" beneath a bobber. Be sure you got a big enough bobber to float the sun fish. Who knows what will hit that. To help things along, take your fillet knife and run it through the sun fish a few times, start a blood trail.

I built a large shed to store my boat, fishing truck and assorted gear.

Another fishing web site - www.tackletour.com has done some of their own research on abrasion resistance and shock resistance of some braids and fluorocarbon lines. These guys are hard core fishermen from around the bay area in California. It makes for some interesting reading, and gives you something to compare your own braid and fluorocarbon experiences to. p.s. If I broke some rule about mentioning some other fishing web site - my mistake.

A few years ago, when I was starting to get into drop shot fishing, I started with spinning tackle. Rather than buy a new rod, I first experimented with different rods already in my arsenal. In hindsight, many of my issues with spinning tackle and drop shot fishing were due to being a rookie at the technique. I had issues with slack line forming loops on the spool, slack line interfering with hook sets and stuff like that. So, when I decided to get a dedicated drop shot rig, I looked around for a bait casting set up, and found it with a Loomis drop shot rod. Rogers in Liberty had the same blank in both spinning and bait casting configuration. So I got the bait casting model and paired it with a Calcutta 50, and spooled with 8 lb fluorocarbon line. Mixed results. Turns out I just like a little firmer tip than the Loomis rod offered. After a year or so, I went a back to spinning tackle, and not being such a newbie in the ways of drop shot fishing, my line issues went away, for the most part. Now I carry them both all the time. Turns out the Calcutta 50 will handle 20 lb fluorocarbon line great, so that got repurposed into my back up bubba drop shot reel. Right now the Loomis drop shot rod is on the bench.

Over the course of the past few years, probably a wacky rigged senko - green pumpkin with tiny purple flakes.

I carry 1 3700 box with 9 or 10 "ready" jigs, already assembled with trailer on, weed guard trimmed, etc. I carry several other 3700 boxes of components that I can assemble should I not like anything I've pre-assembled. Don't ask how I know this but don't use any heavily salted plastic trailers on your ready rigs.

I got a Mustang H.I.T. A few years ago I feel out of the boat - in early April - into 46 degree water - 16 or so feet deep. I wasn't wearing a life jacket. I was fortunate I got back into the boat. Later, in the evening when I got home from fishing, I got on the phone and ordered an inflatable life jacket. A year or two later I found out about the H.I.T. technology and how it was better than the standard auto inflatable and so now that is the one I use. I was religious about carrying a life jacket in the boat and I generally wore it when the big motor was running, but I didn't wear it when I was fishing. Now I do. All the time. Even in the hottest days of the summer. Falling out of the boat was a wake up call for me.

Hey, Flyfisher, laugh all you want to. I thought it was funny at the time. All I know is that at the time I was looking for an "outside the box" topwater presentation. It didn't work all the time. But it did work. My idea at the time was a "live bait" other than fish or worms. Oh yeah, the bass got released. The catfish was dinner for 4. Gourmet hippie food.