fishwizzard

Sadly a lot of the smaller rivers I fish have been badly eroded so there are a lot of very deep (relative to the average run depth) but very small pools where a swimming presentation will never get deep enough before the current takes the lure away. Tiny jigs seem to work better for me in these pools then just upping the jighead weight and using a "naked" plastic. I love the Gopher heads once I get the plastic on them, but trying to get a fresh zman plastic on one while standing on a wet rock is pretty frustrating. I really wish they would offer a small-hooked mushroom head jig with either a wire keeper or no keeper at all.

If you are fishing northern MD, then spend some time looking up the next time you are out trout fishing. There is so much overhanging growth that my attempts to use a 7'6" rod were super frustrating. I don't know how the fly guys do it around here, other then having to pass over a lot of water to find a spot with enough head room. I picked up a MajorCraft Trapara 6'6' UL this fall, but have not had much chance to fish it yet. But I am liking what I have seen of it so far, it is way easier to handle then my longer rod, but does throw light lures far better then my 5' St Croix.

The Trout Magnet line of lures was about all I used my first year of fishing and I caught all sorts of panfish and other non-game species on them. I even got a tiny little channel cat once. They make a lure called a Trout Slayer that looks like a little craw and when used with the supplied head has a great gliding action and a slow fall.

I am a big fan of white perch and before I got into bass fishing they were all I wanted to go out for. They are pretty aggressive feeders and if you find a good sized school of them you can get a fish every other cast. My record is 13 perch in 14 casts, it would have been a "perfect" score but I got all excited around fish number 9 and threw my lure into some branches. They pull hard on light tackle and make some decent runs. I have a little 5' UL/M rod and a 10" perch will double it over. I fish for them in brackish rivers so there is also a good chance to get a pickerel or striper as bycatch, which adds some excitement to the day. This summer I was so bass obsessed that I only really spent two days after perch but I am going to devote a lot more time to them in the coming season.

Are you guys casting with your whole hand above the reel seat or do you move it there after?

I have a few of the Kietech and while they are tiny and have great action, they are too expensive to fish agressivly on light line when I will lose them to most any snag I can't wade over too. I am about half as sad to loose $2.50 as I am to loose $5. I like my finesse jigs as light and compact as I can get them and the Zmans are also fairly close to their advertized wights, the 1/8oz ones clocking in at ~.166oz, where most of the other less expensive jigs are either larger, heavier, or both.

Damm, I owe you a beer. I tried etape, hockey tape, and some old self-sealing vinyl tape my dad had and none of it worked.

Can you recomed some? I have really liked the Z-man ones so far. With one of their leech lures or the small Bat wingts as a trailer they have a very slow fall and are inexpensive enough that I don't mind tossing them into like exposed roots or snags. I don't think trying to use any of the MWF retrieves with them would work out well, but as a tiny jig I have liked them well enogh, but will take any excuse to buy some new tackle

The Japanese also put mayo on pizza, so all sorts of odd things go on over there. That does explain the wear on a lot of the used reels I have been looking at on ebay. I would love to come up with a non-permenment, but sturdy way to add a DS keeper to my rods, but so far I have not though up a good methoud.

Here is anyother shocker; I have never really seriosly fished a weighted t-rigged worm. I even have three 3000 boxes made up as little kits for them at three sizes but have never given them their time on the water.

That is literaly it, there is no realy advantage that I can see over just throwing them on a spining combo, but it sure is fun to mess with! So they do, at is it only a reasonble price of 19,000 yen! I do really like my Go Emotion ML, but was not aware that they made any rods with an XF tip and had somehow never stumbed across the Speedstyle line. I am annoyed at the lack of hookkeepers on the pair of MC rods I own. The fuji ones are too fussy and in any case I fish mostly t-rigged plastics, so I strongly perfer rods with dropshot keepers that allow me to keep the hook point buried in the plastic when it is stowed.

I bought a pack of these in the fall but never tried them until last week. They have a great action weightless and I am excited to give them a real go next season. I am less excited to see what the large redbreasts do to that thin tail connection, but we shall see. I love the Menace and it was my best producers last season. They are great t-tigged and when they get torn up you can used them again as a trailer.

I had a grand plan to keep all of my tungsten worm weights color coded by weight, alternating dark green and black, just to keep them all straight. This plan failed when it encountered a good deal on weights in the "wrong" color. I would like to get into painting my own weights, I have an idea to make some compact but heavy inline spinners using tungsten worm weights as the bodies, but I want to be able to paint them bright chartreuse. I don't need a fluid bed rig but they are cool enough it might force my hand.

Hah, that exact knife is what I use to trim down the divider tabs.

That is a good idea if you can live with altering a plano box. I repack so often that I never want to do anything permanent. I use the 3000 boxes with the half open side, as I pack a mix of spinnerbaits and chatterbaits in the same box. I bet your method would work better if got say a cheap steak knife and heated it so that the plastic would soften as you cut through it. I good paint stripping gun should get it hot enough, or your stove if you like danger. I made a small homemade hyroflow box with a heated drill bit and was surprised how little heat it took to melt through.

Hi, I am looking for some input on a blank for a short BFS rod that I am thinking of having made up. My current set up is a PX68 w/DYI spool mounted on a PHX-C682. With the spool and some Air bearings I can make pretty good long and accurate (for me at least) casts with a 4" weightless trick worm. However, the rod is too long for my tastes and needs so I am looking into getting something shorter. I also would like a rod that will cast even better with the lighter lures I want to use. I also own a ML MajorCraft rod that has a lot of overlap with my Recon2 and I think I would like them to have more distinct roles. The lures I want to throw are, at the low end, inline spinners and crappie cranks in the 1/16th range. In the middle, weightless finesse worms and 3" senkos, and at the highend, Ned rigs, 1/8oz spinnerbaits and micro jigs. Below are the blanks I was looking at, with some of my thoughts: 1) PHX-C682L-B Same blank as my current rod. I would like to shorten it down to around 6' to 6'3", but I don't know what that will do to the action of the rod. While I do want a lighter rod, I could also see the appeal of my current rod but in a handier length. This is option depends on how the cutting would affect the blank. 2)CS721-MHX I have a spinning rod built on the next blank up in this series and use it as my finesse spinning rod. I have been really happy with it and the same builder should be able to get me a good rod built on it for well under $200. This would be a good budget option. 3) St Croix PS56LF This is the "go short or go home" option. I have a 6' Premier spinning rod and it does very well with the lure I want to throw on my bfs combo. This option would but the combo on the panfish/bass divide, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I fish a lot of small rivers and catch a mix of small (6"-12") smallies and large sunfish in them. Both my current BFS combo and my finesse spinner combo feel a little heavy for them sometimes. My concern is that it will be too light to get good hooksets on small t-rigged plastics, an issue I had last season. But, in the fall I switched from EWG to straight shank hooks for larger plastics and my hook up ratio shot up. I believe that switching over for my smaller plastics will provide similar results, but have yet to test it. Any comments/advice are welcome. I am still very open to other blanks, but wanted to start my search with ones that I have some experience with. thanks

I have never really fished a senko "correctly". I have tried them t-rigged, but end up working them fastlike a fluke. I have tried them wacky rigged, but never for long enough to really get a sense of what I am doing.

I prefer a bright head because it lets me see the lure further away, which lets me steer it around snags or keep it where I want it in current. I also do keep some black/white heads and natural color neds on hand as well, but I always start bright. The other advantage of the bright head is that it lets you see the hit a lot of the time, which I really enjoy.

Do any of you guys do any surf fishing around here? I have a combo and a small pile of lures that I bought for a vacation a year or so ago, but have not used sense. I have no idea what I am doing, but spent a while watching videos on youtube and now I really want to get into it.

I have one of the small Sevens and one of their trouts. Neither of them cast very well for me, but I am not very skilled to begin with. They both seem to have decent action and I might buy an other trout or two to throw right after DNR's spring rainbow stockings.

I looked up some recipes and the next fat pickerel I catch is going to get eaten. I also hereby call dibs on the name "The Picked Pike" for the dock bar I plan to open in my retirement.

Pickled pike? I have liked every other pickled thing I have tried, but I am not so sure about pickled fish.

Man, they have a ton of senko colors in stock, it works out to like $5 something per bag.

I live by the Chesapeake bay and we just had an insane fall perch season. I fish the the brackish rivers that feed it out of a kayak and my go-to lures are inline and normal spinners in the 1/16-1/8oz range and small cranks around the same weights. I usually replace all the trebles with single hooks as the perch just slam the lures and I don't think I have ever had to actually had to set the hook on one. You can use any color you want to so long as it is chartreuse or white. A few local guys make small spinners specifically for our white perch, I will try and remember to post some pictures when I get home. My plan for next season is to work on a few scheams to get the smallest spinners to cast further and run deeper. I am going to try to make some up using 1/8-3/16oz tungsten worm weights as the bodies and adding a 1/16oz pegged weight in-front of the spinners I already own.

Yep, I have a super small fly fishing chest pack for small rivers/ponds and a larger sling for longer trips or bigger waters. When I have a single rod I usually take whatever lure(s) I am currently working on and then something that is totally opposite. So if I am going to hit up a lake to work on jerkbaits I will throw a small pencil case full of senkos into my bag and maybe a light jig or two. If I am wading a river with my Ned rod then I will have a small box of micro cranks, spinners, and other reaction baits with me. Now, my car usually has a duffel bag with about 4-7 Plano 3600 boxes full of different stuff in it so if I really need something else, I can run back and grab it.