hatrix

Really if you super worried and are not against it or in love with the line you use just spool up braid. You should be able to bend out most hooks and get it back. Wrap the line around your forearm a few times and start walking back and it should pop out unless the bait it self is caught in between like 2 rocks or something. Depending how close the snag is and how shallow just remember the 5 D's dodge, duck, dive, dip, and dodge cause it might come whipping back at your face.

When people say the finding fish thing is the challenge is sorta funny. Like everyone just goes out and starts casting aimlessly hoping there are fish around. I know what people really mean but it just makes it seem like there out fishing blind folded. Ya you might need to cruise around and mark some fish or bait and then they might not even be feeding or you you need to wait for them to turn on or keep looking and refine a pattern if you are getting bit. But in reality only on boats do you actually know where the fish are and you can even see how big they are. You can even track you bait and see what depth your running. If you have side scan down scan you can see it like a picture even tell what direction a fish is facing. It would be huge for everyone if they had that on there boat. It's almost like cheating you know so much.

That is one of my favorite square bills. Not the original wood ones since I have never fished one but they are still one of the best and just catch fish. It is pretty crazy that was it so sought after you could only rent them I guess and you had to put a security deposit down or something if you "lost" it.

How did you know what they wanted if you never had that lure? that dream seem a little suspect to me.

How often I retie depends on what line I use and how expensive the lure is or if something happens I am not comfortable with. As for the leader knot It don't matter what knot you tie but going though the guide will weaken it buy how much and how quickly I cant say. But I can say after say after 100 casts it sure is not as strong as when you first tied it. for the knot it is hard to go wrong with a double uni and a uni is probably top 3 as far as it goes for tying to your lure since it is a slip and really anything you tie should be a kind of slip and not actually a knot. The only knot I know that is technically a knot is palomar and tbh its junk you should avoid tying it really and only ever with braid. for my leaders though I have changed to a blood knot. Its super thin and insanely strong but somewhat difficult to get down. There is a way to tie it easy but you end up with the same amount of wraps from both lines and you might not always want that.

You can probably look at the spool also but I always watch my hand and then you can make your self reel evenly and not have a stutter when your trying to hardly move it. That actually happens a lot if you know it or not and are kind of chopping but just slightly and very slowly and you might not even know your doing it. Really though you can get away with fishing like you normally would and still be a great fisherman. But if you really want to catch that big one you just can't go slow enough. That planets would probably have to align for you to catch the biggest one in the lake as a trap go zipping by. but you slowly move that jig or whatever inches at a time right by it. Guess what... It is proven and it just a fact of life. It sucks but that's the truth usually.

I had a 1/4 oz one that I caught so many fish on It was ghost. The only place there was any paint was along the top where its flat. I even had others of the same exact lure and this one still caught them like nothing else. It just had to mojo going for it. It was way up there in contention for the lure that cost the most fish I have ever owned. That thing had caught 250 fish easy on it and that a conservative guess. I let a friend borrow it against my better judgement but he said not to worry had he braid on and could bend them out if he got hung. Guess what It was a sad day.

You probably fish to fast as it is and don't need to reel faster unless it was cause your trying to keep something up. Everyone fishes to fast and my self included. I am super guilty of doing that lots of times. Really you can;t fish slow enough I mean like stitching slow always if possible. The best way to actually really slow down and see how fast you actually reel is to watch your hand turn the reel. It a trick I use and so do others for fishing hudds painfully slow along the bottom. What you probably think and reality is 2 different things. You don't really know till you watch and you will see.

Everyone is or does sometimes and even I still do every once in a while but always try to avoid it and carry plies on me at all times. The funny part is that people will bite there line where ever they are fishing and I am sure they are not always fishing some crystal clear spring. There is places where your line comes back stained and lots of rivers can be like. You for sure wont lean over and take a sip but you put that line right in your mouth and cut it. It kinda messed up when yout think about it. But I can't really talk since I wet my line when tying a knot by putting it in my mouth and that's probably the worst as far as nasty goes. But really though biting your line can for sure mess up a tooth and the only thing I will bite is like some 8# mono or less. I wouldn't even dream of trying to bite though some 20# or higher CXX you might be asking for trouble. Actually probably any CXX for that matter. A lot of my rods even though I might not use it have a duo lock hanging on the keeper or hooked through the holes on the reel handle. It can make noise and it swings on the keeper when it hits the rod and it can be annoying so I just hook it somewhere else.

You forgot to tell him when fishing unfamiliar waters where you not sure of the bottom to "ALWAYS" set the hook any time the rod feels heavy even if you never felt a tick. The big ones have giants mouths and lots of times especially when slow rolling you never feel it so swim for the fences. It is probably a state record. In all seriousness though what I said about big ones and the rod feeling heavy is actually true.

Here is a couple of the baits I tested today and I know how you kids like your senkos so I even made a wacky one just for you. A close up

Well... In hindsight I actually kind of regret posting this. Really I would rather just leave it at what it is already and that is that. Today I played a round a bit to validate my theory. I went the one of the worst places I know where you cant really fish anything. that isn't on the top unless you find a good lane or luck is on your side. It like maybe 8' deep at most and loaded with crap and tons of slime on the bottom and in places just suspended in the water column. With high sun and no wind its like 100% visibility because of the weeds and slime filtering it. The place has some good fish but its so hard to get them but I have caught a few that went 5# on weedless 68's and punkers. Early this year I bagged one that went 6.6 on a S-Song before it get out of control. That one was actually worthy of busting out the scale to see exactly what it went fish that go 5 if you know what i'm saying. I fished a bunch of different things on different line power rods blah blah and would just try to bury it in the junk to see what happened. Lots of time I thought I finally got it to fail but I still have 100% success rate and the hook have "NEVER" been what fouls. It is always the actual bait it self and the head will catch but since its the head You can basically always shake it free and never totally be screwed. I also never had any slime stick to it but a little tiny bit might grab the keeper since it is exposed. I also have hooked every fish that ever bit except 1 today that never totally grabbed the jig so that doesn't change my rate. I only actually caught 2 fish today but I wasn't really trying to catch fish but caught 1 on a jig and 1 on a sebile flat shad. Yes I made a weedless treble that also never grabbed weeds. The flat shad is kind of light but I tested with a 1/2 oz red eye shad and those sink like a rock and I could yo-yo it all day in and out of the weeds. So I suppose I will post some pics of stuff even though after my initial post and you have a general idea it shouldn't be to hard to figure out. I would assume most of you are mildly intelligent and it is such a stupidly easy concept I would think you could make it happen if you really wanted to.

I have day where things got tuff and the only way you can catch them is on the initial fall. They will get in a mood where unless it drops right down on them you wont get bit and they are only feeding up. Usually it probably doesn't even matter what the bait is or so it seems. You catch 5 fish on a number of different baits and they only things you can pattern is the initial fall. There is times of the year where I can basically call it when beating a bank with something that floats and you know where fish are holding. It is not so much before you ever do any thing like a bait that sinks but as soon as you start to walk that spook or frog or crank that square bill they grab it. As for the person talking about setting a hook free spool. I think about 2 years ago there was around a week straight on this lake where the spook bite was just insane. It was probably the best bite I have ever been on. Well I clipped the seat on a cast and it was a nasty one so I sat down on the deck and was about to start picking it out and my brother says something hit the spook and I was like ya whatever it doesn't even matter we catch so many. He just looked at me all funny so to be a ass I thumbed the spool and set the hook over my shoulder with the bait behind me and then my line pulls right to the knot and its pulling hard. The fish wen't almost 6# and was the biggest fish of that whole streak anyone caught. That was one of the fishing moment I will always remember. It was just such random crazy luck and out of the hundreds of fish the fish I didn't care about because we were killing it every day I was going to let go.

I would say 5 or 6 I use or would have out on the water. The rods I pick vary though depending on where it is and what im throwing. They pretty much get used depending on the situation but some more then others and they are more suitable for what lures I use most and places I fish most often. If I am bank fishing I would want to have just as many but it would be far to much work and a pain in the ass. I usually bring 2 or 3 and prefer to bring 3 if I feel up to it. Changing the way I fish and wanting to throw the big stuff just added more weight and another rod to what I would like to bring. If I can absolutely only bring 1 rod its the big one hands down but I like to keep some options open and or not have to. I would rather have the power to throw bigger stuff then have a rod more suited for a wider range of baits. don't get me wrong I would throw a 1/4 3/8oz jog or like a little hollow belly or square bill if I had to on a M/H swimabait rod. I have in the past it will still get it done and bomb some lures just as far but its not ideal.

Really you should be able to set the hook just fine on a jig with a glass rod. As long as your drag is set right and your hooks are sharp you should be able to just reel down and lean back on it and stick them without much issue. Unless maybe your fishing super deep or your line has a ton of stretch or the jig has a tuna hook like I think its the hack attack jigs that do I think. The only reason it isn't very viable to me is because of the pop you kind of need when fishing a jig. They make punching rods that have that slow parabolic bend so you can just lean back on it and not rip on the fish so you end up with a clean hook set and don't tear them. They are rated much heavier then your cranking stick im sure unless its one for deep divers. It is basically the same thing almost and if you think about it they are punching with maybe 1.5oz and your cranking with 1/2oz and there rod is probably rated for 3x the weight and there hooks are 3x as thick so it probably almost evens out. Really I don't know why more people don't use a glass or composite rod for things other then crankbaits especially on anyhting that is constantly moving. As long as you have your line and drag set to what you need it is the same thing as why you would want to use that for a crankbait.

So I a bright idea the other day because I had the River 2 Sea Standing Yarbies I think they are called but were not weedless and they kill it but I was limited to where I could throw them or they would foul pretty quickly in my retrieve. Well any ways I just screwed a screw lock onto the eye and then originally took a piece of the skinniest worm I had and went from the lock to the hook. Problem solved and now it was ridiculously weedless. Well later on I refined it and I had these skinny clear straws that just happened to be in the junk drawer from something. They fit perfectly inside the screw and I would just screw it back a turn or whatever to get over the hook point and it was amazing. Maybe some of you already do this or something similar but I can not believe I never though of this before. I am always building a better mouse trap. That is just what I do and how I think by nature and it kills me I never thought of this till now. This can actually be a huge game changer for me and opens up the door for so much. I would say it is probably the best weedless design I have ever used in a bait. Lots of baits I wish I could throw in places or do but it can be iffy on how soon it might get fouled. As soon as I did this never once did I have weed foul my hook and when setting the hook it pops right down and I hook fish no problem. I actually think I will probably just cut the guards off most my jigs and do this since personally I think those guards can be pretty iffy sometimes and rarely work unless you fishing almost vertically in heavy grass. Think about the fish you probably would of caught if you made it through clean but blew it cause now your dragging 2# of junk back towards you and this is probably waaayyyyy more true with the big ones as if you mess up somehow from the start your chances drop dramatically. Now if I can figure out a way to perfectly keep the nose clean on every bait or a solution for trebles would be all set Actually writing this maybe you I could do 3 locks on a treble. This is still a very fresh idea to me and I have not got to fish it a ton but I did fish some spots that were 100% covered and were always very spotty to fish with these baits and generally more hassle then it was worth and not once did the hook grab weeds.

Ok so look at your avatar. Is that what you feel to not be challenging and thats why ponds are easy to fish? I don't even know whats behind you. That's like a hole in a field. I don't even think of something like that when I hear pond but I am sure that's what almost everyone relates to when they think pond. Pond to me is usually like some natural middle of the woods crap and we have plenty of those out here. I just don't relate it to holes in fields or even development ponds and those are notoriously junk and rarely if ever produce and decent fish.

That's nothing you should count your self lucky you lost cheap stuff. I if pop off a bait that even really mattered it was probably a $40 bill. I actually seen a thing with Mike Long saying on a good day fishing jigs he will loose 20! He is trying to get them in some super crazy places though I guess when hunting for a world record but it sounded silly to me. I am sure he doesn't really care though since he probably doesn't pay for them and get tons at a time but d**n. I would have to think he knows about knockers. There are different types and if you learn to use them and get a decent technique you can get any thing back and its rare to not be able to free it. The only real time its a wash is if you break off end up way in some trees or snag super deep. Even then on a deep one and depending how much u care you can try and slide some weights down and see if it will knock it. Learn to use a knocker and it can change your life.

A Worm and Jig, Tube rod is basically as do any thing rod. The whole thing with technique specific rods is that there are many other variables. They don't account for the type of line your using or the cover your fishing or the resistance a specific bait has ect. I open water fishing moving like hollow bellies or swimjigs chatter baits whatever where I dont need the tip to pop a bait like in grass a glass rod cant be beat and I will use that all day. When I am fishing through all the grass and nonsense in places around here It is a M/H F that would be considered a worm/jig or maybe spinner bait rod. Everyone likes different stuff anyways and it is basically personal preference and I think varies greatly on where and how you fish.

I never use 2 fingers. It's always 3 or a full grip. If a bait has little drag or resistance I probably will full grip and use 3 fingers for baits that put some torque on the rod so I have better grip.

I know but I think people's perceptions them is different then reality if you actually add up all the ponds and not just the few you fished. There are thousands of ponds and the majority of them are actually tuff. I literally know places that have probably never been fished or if they have its been a decade and you can't hardly buy a bite. I also though fish ponds people don't that acially require some work. Like stuff that's wild back I some woods or wy buid some building in the middle of nowhere or stuff that is like a swamp or marsh type places. It's work and actually makes it more rewarding to me. Lots of them though I "KNOW" there are giants in places but they are in places you can't reach. Or I make to his little spot but can't even badly get casts off lol. I can't stress enough how much of a game changer a machete is for getting to a spot or clearing one so you can cast.

All braid digs somewhat. When your originally spool your reel you want it rock hard on there. Backing off your drag will also make a huge difference on digging. Any time I use braid any more no matter the diameter after I catch a fish or do a decent hook set you shod expect it to jerk a little on the next cast. But what 21farms said is actually spot on and the biggest digging on casting gear. They actually make some reels that sorta cross the wraps so there is not place for the braid to slip in. I wouldn't really go less then 30 on casting gear personally as that is 8# diameter.

I like fishing whatever I have time for or feel like doing that day. They both have there moments. I do my fair share of ponds since we really don't have big inland lakes and the decent size ones are a drive. With a pond I can spur of the moment just pick up and go and make a adventure out of it. Lakes are more involved and tome consuming. I wouldn't say one is easier then another really. You can catch tons of fish out of either and it just depends on the lake/pond and day. Lake might be harder to find fish in but on the other hand you can pattern them better and you can get on schools in lakes. Ponds will have minimal structure/cover to relate to or you simply can't reach it. Lakes can be fine tuned like that. Lakes usually have a better average size but a smaller max size where a pond is opposite. I would say if I lived on a lake or it was like right around the corner I would probably almost always be fishing it. I would still be going on my pond adventures though. Trying to find new hidden places or treck through the woods trying to get places people have never been looking for that 1 big fish is something I really like. I think when people talk about pond fishing it's in a field somewhere and maybe mowed around or somewhat maintained and never fished and people say its easy. I actually fish 0 places places like that and those are in someone's yard and I don't have permission to fish there any ways.

LOL what? You bite duolocks to get them open? That's hardcore. I took a tiny chip out of a tooth biting my line before. That tooth is actually had a big chip in it already from fighting when I was younger though. Even so you really shouldn't bite you line and even more so once you start getting into the heavier stuff.

As for the ripple shads. I suggested those because they are easily obtainable and DSG sells them and some walmarts I think. Also yes I cut the heads off to shorten them up a bit since I buy the biggest ones i think and have been doing it for years. I did see some at my tackle shop that actually come with no heads so I guess I can buy them as trailers now. They are also like indestructible. You can catch 30 fish all day on one unless u loose a tail but that has rarely happened to me. Yes there are things about swimjigs that have been adapter to make them "better" but I wouldn't say it is night and day or a mandatory thing. One tinny that is fairly important to me souls stiff the weed guard is. Lots of swimjigs seem to have a skinny one that easily bends and get fouled a lot. I have tons of diff kinds of swimjigs but don't really like them to much. There is one I like but forget the rand right now but it has a wire keeper that is flexible and a long pointy head. Those ones work well and come through cover nicely. I also usually glue my trailers on since I fish ones that will last more then a couple fish and the keeper is not super important to me. I never just straight reel one. I am always changing speeds or adding pauses. Throw in a little pop or a jig or a pull till you figure out what they want. Little pauses and changing speed usually are the ticket as is popping it when u tick some grass.