Snakehead Whisperer

I do about half of my jigging on a 7' ML XFast rod. How else am I supposed to throw 1/16oz. jigs? Most other jigging I do is on a 7'3" M XFast rod, and very rarely I'll break out the MH. The ML rod with 10lb. braid can cast a country mile, and if you get a good rod it will have plenty of sensitivity and more than enough hook setting power. My main striper rod is a M action. One thing I've never understood about bass fishing is peoples tendency to totally overdo it on gear. 60-80lb. braid, heavy rod, etc. It's rare that I put anything heavier than 15lb. braid on any of my rods. 14 lb. snakehead in my avatar was caught on 8lb. fluoro.

Every once in a while. The texture of bluefish is unlike any other fish that I know of. I like eating them lightly seared and really rare inside. Smoked sounds good too. Took one home and served it to my cats yesterday. They love it.

Hit the Chesapeake Bay today out of Sandy Point; the ramp was pretty quiet and there really weren't too many people fishing out there compared to what I expected. Did well... caught a few nice striped bass and more bluefish than you can shake a stick at. Saw a few over the top cigarette boats out there too.

Yes sir, those are smallies. Nice work. Pound for pound smallmouth bass will outfight their largemouth cousins any day. Few, if any, will argue with that.

Catfish are pretty aggressive in my experience. They put up a good fight too. This channel cat hit my popper the other day with a strike that was truly incredible. He breached and flew 2' out of the water before grabbing it on the downstroke.

I try to find the most remote areas I can to fish on the holiday weekends. I do like Christmas, and New Year weekends for fishing; usually have the place all to myself. Most years we have soft water at those times. I'm trying to work on my attitude about this. I fish year round here where the winters usually have air temps in the 20-40's, and I tend to get really irritated when Spring comes around and I start finding other boaters in the spots that I've been fishing all winter. I don't confront/crowd them or anything like that, it just makes me really tense and upset. I somehow feel a sense of entitlement because I paid dues braving the elements in Jan-Feb, only to come out in April-Sep and find fair weather fishermen all over the place. It's not healthy for me to get worked up like that, and I am working on finding a better perspective on this. Holiday weekends are pretty much the epitome of this phenomenon.

Agreed, to an extent. But I beg to differ on the technology side of things. For many years the open source software movement has innovated on mundane software, then given away the source code for free. MacOS is a prime example. Built on tried and true POSIX technology. I'd be very surprised if Minnkota and Humminbird developers didn't utilize some of this readily available, free to use source code in the development of their technologies. Shimano on the other hand, kind of hard to argue that one.

Unfortunately that profit does not lead to all that much innovation in the tackle/baits field. The a-rig is a good example of that. Tried and true old school bait that was marketed as the next big thing. It seems to me that the most innovative baits to hit the water are usually developed by some guy in a garage working on a shoestring budget. Big money does usually buy him out, however. There are notable exceptions to this, of course. I'm with you on the promotion of the sport. I just wish that more emphasis was put on conservation of the watershed too. There was a good balance between the 2 in recent times, but conservation of fisheries seems to be on the backburner again.

I wasn't I was really into baseball until the lockout of 1990. I'm one of the fans that was lost, and never came back. Still a huge Nolan Ryan fan though.

This. x2. Was about to write the same thing, then I saw your post. I'll even go one step further and say that if you're not using bright yellow (or some other high-vis braid) you're probably missing fish too.

You make a good point. But there is a major difference in the market around bass fishing compared to that of baseball. While manufacturers of baseball equipment do rely on the marketing/exposure of pros using their gear, the overwhelming amount of revenue generated from baseball (and most other pro sports) comes from memorabilia, tv/advertising and concessions. In bass fishing a good deal of the revenue comes from tackle/boat sales, and pros endorsing the tackle that they use. My point is that sports like baseball can afford to ban things like aluminum bats, pine tar, and steroids. They make up for it with sales of t-shirts, advertising, beer, etc. Bass fishing relies heavily upon the marketing of the latest and greatest tackle to make money, and without the product endorsements most pros couldn't afford the entry fees and equipment to be competitive. Another point that I've seen brought up in other threads is that most who follow pro bass fishing tournaments want to see these guys catch the biggest bag of fish possible (and in turn buy the lures that they caught the fish on.) If tournament bass fishing was regulated to be a strictly "sporting" event, then it would be much slower to watch and much less exciting for the average fan. From this perspective, bass anglers should be allowed to throw anything that will improve their odds of meeting that goal. With all that said, I gave up on competitive fishing a long time ago. There's really no point to it for me. It ruins the whole experience for me personally. I know many anglers who IMHO could outfish top money pros consistently, but they have too much love for the lifestyle to give that up. I know many of you will want to call BS on this, but I believe this so it doesn't matter to me. I'm with Brian Needham on this; I just don't think the commercialization of competitive fishing does much for the sport at all. A lot of the mentality that I see with tournament anglers is that bass rule, everything else is a trash fish wasting my time... off with it's head! So sad. With that said, I do respect many pro anglers and what they do for a living. I'm a member of BASS (not FLW, I know,) I just don't particularly care for pro fishing or what "the pros are throwing." As for the a-rig, they're great when you're trolling for stripers to keep. I don't think I'm qualified to speak for their legality in tournaments though. I personally think they're rediculous, but so am I in many ways.

Whoa man! Nice gar. I caught a large, very spirited channel cat today on a popper. The strike was like nothing I've ever seen before.

I'll just leave this here... http://www.promusky.com/ http://www.professionalmuskieanglercircuit.com/ It's all good man. I just get upset about people hurting fish that aren't being harvested for food.

This is about the most ignorant thing I've read on BR in a long time. Here's a rant... Bass aren't some superfish to be put on a pedestal above all others. Pike and related species (most likely chain pickerel where you're fishing) are an ancient freshwater fish that are found in just about all freshwater in the northern hemisphere (e.g. Russia, Mongolia, Europe, etc.) The pike and related species are crucial to the balance of the ecosystem where they exist, and are a ferocious apex predator above the bass. Don't hate the fish because it's capable of messing you up. It's a creature that should be respected and admired for what it is. Do you also think we should exterminate Orcas because they eat seals? Or all the bees because they sting? Fish are living animals and they all have a place in the world. There are already far too many threats to their habitat without people killing them for no reason. Pike are probably more important to this planet than any of us give them credit for. Show them respect please. Also, your private lake most likely has pickerel in it from natural causes (flooding, birds transporting eggs, etc.) I doubt somebody threw the fish in there. There are pickerel as far south as Florida.

The fact that it was near freezing at the classic didn't hurt. I'd like to see a BASS event come anywhere close to 100% survival during July or August (not going to happen.) BASS and other tournament events held here on the Potomac during summer are usually followed by dozens of dead fish found within a week near the release site.

Read the link, and while unrelated this is what caught my eye. "Trolling as a method of fishing is strictly prohibited. Trolling is defined as operating the combustion engine to extend a cast or lengthen a retrieve … ” This simplified definition of trolling makes it seem as if it is legal to troll in the traditional sense with an electric motor. No opinion really on the a-rig.

For gills/perch I usually just cut off the head, pull out the guts and cook them with the bones in. Not good if you are serving children, but for me it's easier to remove the bones when eating them than before cooking.

I'm not really into scent, period (unless it's winter and the water is below 40.) But there are some garlic scented lures that I use regularly that flat out produce. Chompers drop shot worms for instance. Is this a superstition, is there a story behind this, or do you just not like the smell?

I use Ardent Line Butter and I'm very happy with it. Can't speak for anything else.

Blasphemy! Simple... since it's illegal to possess a live snakehead, it's not lawful to keep them in a livewell. This has been a controversial issue here as folks don't want to mess up the carpets on their bass boats by killing the fish immediately. To compound things it is a federal offence to transport a live snakehead over state lines (e.g. if you live in Virginia and carry a live fish across the river from Maryland you have commited a crime, regardless of the fact that the fish is established in both places.) On a side note, the fish are docile once taken from the water (they won't bite like a pike will.) In Maryland you must dispatch the fish immediately and do what you wish with the carcass. In Virginia you can do this, or you can release the fish back into the water. In DC this is a somewhat grey area. Regardless of where you live it is frowned upon to release a snakehead by most anglers. I have released some when legal to do so, but I've harvested the majority of them that I've caught. Sometimes it is just not realistic to harvest them (no cooler available, no freezer space, etc.) I refuse to kill a fish and throw it on the bank. Snakeheads are quite impressive fish and they did not ask to be put here. They deserve our respect like any other animal. I do, however, advocate harvesting these fish. Eradicating them from the Potomac is impossible. The fish are common, widespread and hearty as well as reproducing well. The main issue is preventing their spread to other areas and mitigating the damage (if any) that they are causing. LMB and SMB are both introduced species to the Potomac, btw.

Not a big fan of the hybrid for most smallmouth techniques... too stretchy for my tastes. I usually use line conditioner, especially with mono/copoly/hybrid. Helps a lot with stiffness and memory.If every rock seemed like a bite with braid I'd suspect the rod, not the line.

Just yesterday I was fishing a 4" Saltwater Assassin swimbait in a color called "hot chicken" which is basically exactly what you describe. I don't often fish flukes for smallies (unless you count Gulp minnows as flukes.) I was getting strikes from 8-10" fish on this bait, and only able to hook up with larger fish as I was fishing it on a 4/O swimbait hook. There were times when the same fish would hit this bait 3-4 times. Here's an image I found of the bait. The one I fished was a paddle tail, but they're also available in fluke style.

This isn't really related, but this thread reminded me of something that I saw last weekend. Last weekend while fishing the river I saw a kid on the shore fly an RC plane straight into some trees about 50' tall on an island. A guy in a kayak was right near the area where the plane crashed; he pulled up on shore and spent at least an hour bushwhacking and climbing the tree to get the kids plane back. Nice guy... I'm not sure how many would go that far to help another.

The one in the top photo looks like it's sustained some sort of injury earlier in life.

x2 75% of the time I'm fishing for smallies I am jigging or fishing a buzzbait/topwater. Most rods are M/ML and strung up with 10-15lb. braid with a 6-8lb. fluoro leader. I tie my lures to the fluorocarbon using a San Diego jam knot, and don't have any issues. When tying fluorocarbon it's very important to lubricate the knot before cinching it down.