Fishes in trees

Some lures inherently have less feel than others and it can feel like there is nothing on the end of your line. But you know that there is, so at that point you have to redefine what is and what isn't feel. You have to watch your line more and learn to recognize what your line looks like when it is dropping and what it looks like when the lure is sitting on the bottom. This can be challenging, but it isn't impossible. Each lure has its own drop rate, and after a while you know when it is dropping and when it is on the bottom, strictly based on time. If your line does anything weird, like straighten out, or hop to the side or pause, set the hook. Hooksets are free. Believe me, I know the feeling when you can't feel your bait very well, and this is how I try to deal with it. Texas rigged worms or tubes with 1/4 ounce or less of weight is a challenge, especially when you're trying to fish deeper than 10 feet. You might want to change rods, for me a 7 1/2 foot rod is a little long. I dunno. Rod length preference depends on lots of things. There isn't any law that puts a limit on how many rods and reels you can own. Anyway - good luck - fishing a lightly weighted worm on a flipping stick can get problematic.

Don't sell the Smokes. But do go ahead and buy several more Shimano reels. The Smokes will make good loaner reels.

I've multiple spinning rigs. I run the gamut from light finess rigs ( for Brewer Slider type lures) to 7 1/2' heavy duty rigs for carolina rigs and heavy jigs, etc. For the most part, hook setting technique is similar for all spinning gear. At first recognition that you've got a strike, gently, tighten up, trying to put minimum pressure on the fish, but also trying to pick up some line. Then use a firm, but not forceful or line popping sweep. Try to sweep in the opposite direction the fish is heading and if you can't tell, sweep straight up. As you are sweeping, start reeling. The hook will catch somewhere and a combination of the firm pressure, your reeling and the fish struggling will embed the hook. This whole process takes 2 or 3 seconds max. At the end of the process, the line should be tight from tip to fish, and you have time (several seconds) to figure out what to do next. Just for the record, I don't use the drags on my spinning reels all that much. I tend to screw them down pretty tight and if necessary shift out of anti-reverse and back reel. It gives me the illusion of more control, and I never did trust my drags all that much anyway. Basically, if you're missing a bunch of fish on your spinning gear, you might want to modify your hook setting technique. There are lots of guys that use some variation of the sweep set, like I described above. Try it, and if that doesn't work try something else. If that doesn't work, but different gear and start all over. There really isn't any such thing as too much gear. On a positive note, you are getting bit from time to time. Hope this helps.

Even if they aren't broken off, drop the extra coins and get the transducer shield. I broke a couple of puck style transducers before I found out about the shield. Now, I haven't broken one in over two years and I don't fish any different.

Believe it or don't, but that design detail on that bait is intentional. It makes the blades spin n opposite directions from each other. Dicks used to have these on special every so often. They are ok baits. My issues with them is that I think that the wire is a little than and after a few fish I have to re-tune them That and I think that the skirts are shoddy and fall off too easily.

If you want to learn how to drop shot fish, start by taking the rod you got, rig it up drop shot style and start fishing. After a few trips, you might want a lighter, more sensitive rod - then go buy one and fish with it for a while. You might get around alot of brush, stumps and so forth. Go get a flippin stick and 20 lb fluorocarbon and fish with it for a while. There are many nuances to drop shot fishing, feel and preference issues that are unique to each person. Trial and error is probably the only way to find out what works for you.

I have a couple of them, one of them I've had for over ten years. I think it does a good job. Like any other line spooling plan, you have to pay attention or sometimes the line will clump on one side of the spool or the other. It isn't that big of a deal to get it right. You can rig it to spool line on spinning reels also, but you have to adjust the line tension with your fingers, again, not that big a deal. For a second, I thought you were getting hosed on the price, $30 seems a little stiff. I've got a Cabelas catalog right next to my desk and that's what they want for one in the 2011 Master Catalog. It seems to me that I frequently see them for less than that, I think I paid less than 20 for the last one I got, but I don't remember where or when I got it.

Many things factor into distance, both for casting and pitching. Gear, line, weight of bait, etc. Rather than going into all the perameters and permutations, I'm assuming you've got your reels set up the way you like them. Everyone has slightly different settings that they like. Let me give you an idea of the gear I'm currently using for different baits and the distances I generally get. For Rattle Baits (spots, rattletraps, Frenzys, ) I'm using a 7' graphite/glass Bud Erhardt cranking special. The rod was new in 90 or 91 and I've got it paired with a well broken in Calcutta 250. I use 17 or 20 lb mono on this rig. A wind up and heave with this rig, with the wind and I can go 100 to 120 feet. A normal cast with normal effort and I can hit anything I'm aiming at 50 to 90 feet. I very seldom cast any shorter than that. The baits I use on this rig are in the half ounce range. Deeper cranking with bait casters. Ledges or other targets with little brush. Currently I'm using I'm using a Kistler small swimbait rod. It has enough tip to help with distance, but it isn't whippy like some glass cranking rods are. A curado D with 10 lb test, with the wind and I can go 100 feet. When I try to go farther, I can go farther, but accuracy really suffers. Most of the time, I'm fishing cranks around trees & brush. Distance isn't as important as accuracy, but I still think I get bit more if I'm off from the target some. I'm using the Kistler rod or something similar and 14 or 17 lb Vanish, on a Calcutta TEGT reel. That line is a little kinky to start the day, but some line magic helps and once it gets wet and used some, many of the kinks go away. I very seldom use overhead casts for this kind of fishing. I will pitch a half to 3/4 ounce crank and I'm confident about accuracy at any distance inside of 60 feet or so. If I feel I need to go farther, one of those Jimmy Houston underhanded roll casts will get a little more distance. Some days I'm pretty accurate with this cast, other days, not so much. Keep in mind, I'm generally throwing underneath something, so you're trying to stay as close to the water surface as possible. Pitching soft plastics, I'm using a variety of rods & reels. Most of the time I'm using either a 6'10" Falcon rods Eakins jig special or a 7' Kistler MH pitching rod. Most of the time I'm pitching with a Calcutta 200 TEGT and 14 lb Vanish. Weights generally range from a quarter to a half ounce. From 30 to 45 feet or so, I hit my target the vast majority of the time. I can pitch over 60 feet, but accuracy suffers alot, and most of the time I find it easier to move the boat closer than to throw long and more often than not get hung on something. Now, I've written enough and a short answer to your question is: For me, a long cast is anything over a hundred feet. A long pitch is anything over 45 or 50 feet, depending on the wind. Long distance casting is a whole subculture of fishing that doesn't get talked about much here. One spring I got into throwing slab spoons at the Truman Dam tailrace. Ounce and a half and two ounce weights were common. I had an Ambassador 6500 with 20 lb test and a Cabelas 11' Predator rod. I'd call it a medium action, They called it a 2 1/4 lb test curve. Test curve is holding the straight out and level, how much weight does it take to bend the tip in a 90 degree angle straight down. But I digress, with this rig and a 2 ounce slab spoon I got to where I could throw a little over a hundred yards. I judge this by knowing that I had 300 yards on the spool to start and with a good cast, balanced and timed just right, over half of the spool was out when the bait hit the water. One local who was watching told me I was doing OK for a rookie, but with better gear and a better reel I could do 200 or more yards easily. Then he proceeded to show me. And he got bites and landed than and I didn't very much. So that's some of my experiences trying to figure out distance casting. I think it is important, but for bass fishing purposes, I think accuracy is just as if not more important. I throw cranks wih spinning gear probably more often than I do with bait casting gear, but that's a different subject.

Just my opinion, but if you're going to mount a transducer on a trolling motor, go ahead and spend the extra money and get a transducer shield. Over the years, I replaced 3 transducers due to smacking into stuff. It's been a couple of years now since I've got the transducer shield and I haven't busted my transducer since. They've got models to fit puck style and skimmer style transducers. It will be forty bucks or so and shipping well spent. I still smack into stuff with my trolling motor with the same frequency as before, I just haven't had to replace the transducer for a couple of years.

My appoach to fishing timber and brush varies, mostly by water color. In clear water,(2' or more visibility) my first approach is to throw a wacky rigged senko, on fairly heavy fluorocarbon line to obvious shadow pockets and shade lines. In stained to muddy water, my initial approach would be to throw a DC8 or DC 16 Timber Tiger. Pitching a jig or a 10" Berkley power worm is an option in any water color. I don't know about pitching out of a canoe though, catch a stump wrong or have wind blow you into a tree wrong and you're going over.

I like this joke. I wish I would've thoght of this joke. I'll use this joke at work. Thanks.

The Orschlens Farm Supply store in my neighborhood carries little trailers that could be adapted to what you need. New, they cost between $500 and $900 depending, well depending on a whole bunch of stuff, quality of wheel bearings, weight ratings, etc. The last time I went to the KCK Cabelas, they had a variety of small trailers, covered and not. I can't recall prices off the top of my head. I've run into this one guy, a couple of times, whose thing is fishing remote, difficult to access waters. He has a 20 ' trailer that he pulls with his pickup and he carries a a 4 wheeler a tows a little pond boat . They both ride on the larger trailer. He gets as close as he can with the large trailer and then he can unload and go much farther into remote areas with the 4 wheeler and pond boat on a little trailer. He can get into strip pits and remote watersheds that I can't even think about accessing. The down side to a rig like that is that once you get stuck, you are stuck good and it is a challenge to get it unstuck. So, anyway, food for thought. I don't know about Bass Raiders, but some of the Buster brand of pond boats come on little trailers. Look up Buster Boats, Trophy edition and you'll see what I mean.

Cheap WalMart type spinnerbaits just don't work for me. They generally have barrel swivels rather than ball bearing swivels. After a couple of uses, rust starts to happen inside the barrel and then the blade doesn't spin right. I've put cheap spinner baits away wet,(i.e. cut them off and threw them to the deck of the boat) and the next week, the barrel would be rusted tight. I think cheap spinner baits are more trouble than they are worth. That's why I like Terminators or War Eagles or any number of high quality regionally distributed brands. For instance, Chompers is now manufacturing the old J & J spinnerbait that was very popular in Missouri in the late 80's and 90's. Rogers "glass eyes" are a very high quality regionally distributed spinnerbait. It seems like nearly every bait shop you go into, you can find medium to low quality spinnerbaits and you can find high quality, finely crafted spinnerbaits. You've just got to decide how much you want to pay for a lure for a lure that, if fished correctly, sooner or later you're going to lose.

Back to the original premise of this thread, try to look at it from a different perspective. You're the boater. You don't know that someone has walked a quarter mile to reach this creek inlet. All you know is that you've taken the time to run up a creek to fish in inlet, you get there and then there is someone fishing on the bank. I don't know about you but if I've invested the time to run up a creek, and as we all know running up creeks can be tricky and time consuming, once I've got there I'm probably going to get a lure wet. As far as smacking into stumps and muddying up the water goes, that is just stuff that happens once you've run a long ways up a creek. In the situation described in the original premise, I don't think the guy was being that rude. Is it the job of every boater to know which creek inlets have bank access and which don't? I don't know? From what I read into this situation it sounds to me like one of those unfortunate things that happen during fishing from time to time, and can't we please all get along?

Back to the original premise of this thread, try to look at it from a different perspective. You're the boater. You don't know that someone has walked a quarter mile to reach this creek inlet. All you know is that you've taken the time to run up a creek to fish in inlet, you get there and then there is someone fishing on the bank. I don't know about you but if I've invested the time to run up a creek, and as we all know running up creeks can be tricky and time consuming, once I've got there I'm probably going to get a lure wet. As far as smacking into stumps and muddying up the water goes, that is just stuff that happens once you've run a long ways up a creek. In the situation described in the original premise, I don't think the guy was being that rude. Is it the job of every boater to know which creek inlets have bank access and which don't? I don't know? From what I read into this situation it sounds to me like one of those unfortunate things that happen during fishing from time to time, and can't we please all get along?

Sure, why wouldn't it?

Every single time I've ever busted a crankbait, there was operator error involved. You might try sending it back to Strike King. You might get some free stuff. You might not. Depends on how good a cover letter you write. The only thing you'll be out is your time and postage.

Over the past several years, the vast majority of the 5 lb + fish I've caught have come on methods other than large soft plastics. That being said, I have caught half a dozen 5 lb + fish on soft plastics over the past few years. 4 came on Berkley 10" power worm ( Red Shad) and a 1/4 oz JOBEE hook, 20 lb fluorocarbon, fishing among large submerged hardwood trees 10 - 15 feet down. The other two came on a Strike King 6" soft plastic swim bait, pretty near the surface in a weedy/grassy flat that was 3-5 ft deep. I generally use a 7/0 Lake Ford swim bait hook with this bait. I've caught quite a few good keepers on a wacky rigged senko over the past few years, but nothing close to 5 lb +. Just for the record, my best big fish (5 lb +) bait over t he past few years has been a Timber Tiger DC16, fished amongst standing and submerged large trees.

You need to put things into perspective. No matter what your income level is, it is still a finite amount. All you need to to is to boost spending in other areas of your life, for instance: High calorie foods, beer & liquor, women, trinkets for women, recreational chemicals, if worse comes to worse, take up golfing. At some point along this spending arc, the bait monkey will starve.

As observed earlier, everyone has their own opinions and experiences with line. Personally, I've never had a good experience with P line. I've spooled it on spinning reels and bait casters, in appropriate lb tests. It worked ok with practice casts in the back yard. Once I get it on the water I get tangles, backlashes, reduced casting distances, uncalled for line snaps and so forth. I had several spools of the stuff I'd picked up on the recommendations of guys I knew. I've ended up trashing it all. Maybe I'm allergic to the stuff, I don't know. Maybe it just doesn't like me. I know I won't buy any more.

If you're bank bound, any boat is a good starting point. A jon boat can last a long time. As a first time boater, please be aware that you will be needing some more gear than just a trolling motor. You'll need oars or a paddle ( strongly recommend oars over a paddle) You'll need a life jacket, some sort of throwable flotation, maybe a cooler. Once you get started in tricking out your jon boat, there is lots of different stuff you're going to want.

The easiest solution is to get a larger, more stable boat. If you can afford it, now is the time to get one. If you can't, you probably know somebody that has one that you can borrow.

I miss that line. I used 17 lb the most. I liked it for spinnerbait and shallow crank applications. Yeah, it did have some memory while it was dry, but after a few easy casts to limber it up and a shot or two of line magic, it worked great. It was incredibly abrasion resistant and I liked how it was so slick. I was happy with the distance I got with it. I had a couple of spools of 10 lb test and I thought it worked good as a deep cranking line. The only issue I had with it was that it was hard to see, so I never used it for any soft plastic or jig application. I never did try it in any test less than 10. I know a few crappie guys who used a bunch of it in 4 lb test, becase it was so abrasion resistant.

When I got my boat (several years ago) I bought a decent hydraulic post and one of those combo butt seats/leaning pads. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't bother with the leaning pad, because it puts me several inches farther up on the bow. My trolling motor pedal doesn't line up easily and I'm uncomfortable being that much closer to the bow in any kind of a chop at all. I much prefer the raised sitting position, several inches farther back that the butt seat offers. I like how the butt seat takes some of the weight off my legs while I'm fishing and the leaning post doesn't. Really it's a matter of whatever you get comfortable with.

My basic cold front strategy is to go "low & slow" I'll fish whatever structure/cover is available, starting on points. I figure fish wil be in it on on it rather than around it. Drop shots will normally be my first choice, buy I'll throw jigs, shakey heads and texas rigs as well.