nboucher

I recently spent some time fishing a large NH lake for smallies and found the Carolina rig to be especially effective, particularly if you don't have a lot of experience with a lake and are dealing with deeper water. It's a technique that allows you to cover considerable area yet imho I think it gives the fish more reaction time to your lure than a spinnerbait or crankbait, for example. Every lake is different, obviously, which makes CJ's advice particularly important, but in this lake, which has some holes more than 100 feet deep, I had my best success in 15-25 feet of water c-rigging, using a three-quarter-ounce bullet weight, a couple of red glass beads, and a baby brush hog in a natural color (I forget which one) on a #3 Gammy hook. Disclaimer: I'm still a newbie at smallie fishing, so I offer this as a starting point only. Experiment and see what works on your water.

Welcome, Michelle. You've found a great community. I'm also Mass-based, in Sharon, and fish primarily from the kayak you see in my avatar. Hope to see you continuing to share your experiences on the boards, which have a growing New England contigent. Oh, and ignore whatever Muddy Man says about the Sox. Norman

Good luck, Avid. It hasn't been an easy year for you. If it wasn't for the bad luck, you wouldn't have no luck at all. Speedy recovery.

It's true that it's hard to draw too many conclusion from such numbers. As advocates for all kinds of causes know, if you pick the time range correctly, you can come up with stats to support your agenda. Also, the population of the U.S. is getting older, thanks to the number of baby boomers around, so it would be more suprising if the population of anglers was getting younger. Having said that, I suspect the drop in anglers is probably more or less accurate and significant. As a culture, we are getting farther and farther away from nature with each generation. Kids have so many more choices on how to spend their time now, and more and more people seem to feel that being outdoors is somehow dangerous (murderers, coyote scares, etc.). To most adolescents, a trip outdoors means a trip to the local mall. Let's hope that the quality of anglers is on the rise, if not the quantity.

Classic, Avid! Russ, happy birthday a little late. Thanks for your leadership, generosity, and good cheer.

[quote author=Fish Chris link=1186118465/10#19 date=1186549210 Point being, every fishery is different, and should be treated on an individual basis. Peace, Fish

Not to make jig fishing too Zen, but one of the things I like best about this kind of fishingand I've come to love jig fishingis that it has really forced me to learn how to fish by feel. There's obviously a lot of truth to watching your line, etc., but I do that anyway, whatever the bait. In fact, I often find that jig bites happen so quickly that afterward I'm hard pressed to tell you what I reacted to. Something triggered my hookset, but it happens so instinctively that I often don't know whether I responded to sight, feel, or just some kind of jig mojo that doesn't have a name. I'm convinced that the key to jig fishing is to do it a lot and then to do it some more, even if it's sometimes frustrating. Analyze it if it helps, but above all, try to just feel it.

Generally, I'll weigh only larger fish, but once in a while for fun I'll do a couple of random spot checks to see how close my estimates are. From these I've learned that I tend to underestimate weight. But I won't go public with a weight unless it's from the scale.

Careful, Muddy, you don't want the whole state of Nebraska angry at you.

1. Learn how to die with grace & dignity. 2. See my daughter settled into a happy & strong life. 3. Make something, using words or wood, that is truly beautiful. 4. Travel the world with my wife. 5. See the Red Sox win another World Series. 6. Figure out how to use my cell phone.

My second biggest LMB everjust under 7 lbscame on horny toad just after noon on a sunny, hot July day. Every truism has its exceptions; otherwise, wouldn't fishing be boring?

Well done, Russ. Sorry to hear about trouble in paradise. Nature can rebound quickly, though, if we let it.

Ah, kayaks: people love 'em or hate 'em. I'm in the love 'em camp. But a kayak will never do what a motorized boat costing at least ten times as much can do. Ideally, it's a complement to a bass boat, not a replacement. If you fish mostly big lakes, a kayak is pretty useless. If, like me, you enjoy looking at maps and finding small and often unnamed ponds and fishing & exploring them, then a kayak is perfect. I've caught some tremendous fish in places I've carried my yak into and, except for the occasional shore angler, I've had the ponds all to myself. (I'm a solitude junkie.) The yak is also ideal for days when I come home from work and have only an hour or so to fish. Throw it on the car then throw it in the water and get to it. Like Hoosier, I have a O.T. Loon with an open cockpit and have no trouble at all changing lures and rods. I've got a rod holder, paddle clips, and Eagle fishfinder on my yak, as well as wind socks for controlling drift. Great fun.

Congrats on the purchase, Carl. I know from experience you're a fine captain.

Hey, Muddy, John Prine was on Austin City Limits a couple of weeks ago. Check the PBS site. It may be repeated sometime. He did just about all new songs, which were pretty good. He overcame cancerI think it was throat cancerten or fifteen years ago, couldn't sing, and when he could sing again, he couldn't get his voice as high. He says it caused him to change the key to all his old songs, which made him interpret them freshly . Avid, I like Leonard Cohen, but my wife is a bigger fan of his. His early song, Suzanne, has become a popular cover for jazz singers. Jane Monheit and Diane Reeves cover it on CDs I have. Slightly off topic, but related in the grizzled-voice category, anybody listen to Last of the Breed, the new CD by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price? I defer to RW on the subject of country music, but this is one terrific session. These guys are at the end of the road, looking back and singing old-time country that has an authenticity the newer, slicker stuff can't touch. --N

Carl, the headline on the NY Post this morning: STRAY-ROD I am certainly enjoying the Red Sox lead. Was at Fenway last night, as a matter of fact, and watched Beckett pick up where he left off before going on the DL. Being a lifer Sox fan, I keep pinching myself, hoping it's not just a dream. Getting rid of Torre isn't going to help much. And I'm undecided about Cashman, Muddy. In retrospect, getting rid of Sheffield may have been a mistake, and I do think Abreu, though not as bad as he's playing now, is certainly an overrated player. Doug M. at a power position like first base is certainly questionable, and what's with Cano? On paper the Yankees are a decent team, but the veterans they have are not realy clubhouse leaders, and without real mentors, the young guys don't know how to handle the adversity the team is facing. The result is a flat, disjointed team, I think. I gotta say this about my fellow Sox fans, though: forget the Yankees and start focusing on teams like the Angels and Tigers. Last night at Fenway a Yankees suck cheer went up after the final Yankees score was posted, and while I was driving in listening to sports radio, a Sox fan called in saying the team should juggle its rotation so our best starters face the Yanks this weekend. Give me a break!!! It's as if the Sox were only a half-game ahead. The whole Yankees obsession thing has really gotten out of hand. Lots of baseball yet to play. . .

WAIT TIL NEXT YEAR......THE HARDER WE PUSH THE WORSER IT GETS!!!! Carl, I feel your pain. Well, actually, I don't, but I'm trying to say something nice here . . .

I'm a loner by nature, so fish alone most of the time. I can honestly say that I have never been bored for a minute while fishing, alone or not. Like Fish Chris, I love the intensity and focus of fishing alone. Yes, I'm particularly conscious of safety when I'm out alone, but, without sounding too morbid, dying while fishing, or anyplace in nature, sure beats dying in a hospital room or on an interstate mashed in a twisted bunch of metalas long as the dying doesn't happen too soon. My second favorite to fishing alone is fishing with a kid who's never caught a fish before.

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Every year I seem to have a new favorite. This year it's Mann's Stone jigs.

If you're counting casts, you're not concentrating enough on fishing, i.e., on what your lure is doing down there, how and where it's moving, how you're working it, etc.

Bassman, you've gotten a ton of advice here, but mine is: DON'T OVERTHINK IT. Just keep your senses sharp while fishing. It ain't brain surgery. When I started jig fishing, I'd try a jig for fifteen minutes at a time, then just give up. For some reason, more than any other type of lure, jigs just don't feel like they would catch anything to someone first using them. They don't look like a worm or a bluegill; they just don't look real. Then you catch a fish or two on them and your confidence skyrockets. Seems every fish I catch on a jig is hooked beautifully right in the roof of the mouth in textbook fashion. And, yes, on average, the fish I catch on jigs tend to be bigger fish. This will happen to you, too. Just get out there and fish them with your senses of sight and touch in tune with what's happening. Feeling the bite will come naturally over time.

I keep a journal that I set up in FileMaker Pro. It's an electronic form that I fill out after every fishing trip and includes a space for comments, where I include whatever additional details I want to record. In addition to the criteria you listed, my journal form includes date, fishing partners, air temp, surface water temp, cover and structure fished, tackle used, moon phase, and water level (normal, below normal, above normal). It also includes boxes to check off for different species of fish caught. Because FileMaker is a database, I've set it up to tally total number of fish caught for each species during any time range I specifiy, and because the program is searchable, I can easily find out how many fish I caught in May during a full moon, for example, or any other combination of criteria from the checklist. I know not many people use FileMaker, but if anyone does and wants this journal, just PM me.

Beautiful daughter, ib. Looks like she loves her dad.

I prefer lip-gripping scales such as X-Tools. Also, if you're putting a fish in a plastic bag to weigh it, make sure you wet the inside of the bag first. You don't want to abrade the fish's protective coating, which is important to keeping it disease- and infection-free.