fishwizzard

Yea, I pulled like 10' off the spool and was playing with it after dinner. If I thread a live end through a loop and yank hard it absolutely leaves an indentation in the line at the loop. If I keep using it I will have to be more careful pulling out loose coils to insure I don't yank against an actual backlash. I also found about 100-150' of 10lb Sufix 832 on a spool I thought was empty. I used some of the YZH as backing and refilled my spool. I love the stuff in my finesse spinning reel but was putting off ordering an other spool until Black Friday, so I hadn't tried it on the PX68 yet. I hope it works well. And in my slight defense, I was bombing my lure out there to reach a group of stocker Rainbows that were clustering around a bit of offshore structure. I could see them jumping just out side of my reasonable casting range and couldn't resist trying to get a lure out to them. Managed to get around 12, so I guess it was worth half a spool of line. I really need to start keeping a 1/4oz Kastmaster with me at all times for when I need just a bit more distance.

I have got the BFS bug pretty hard but I am struggling with finding a line that works for me. Right now my combo is a Phenix C682 with a PX68. So far I have used 6lb YZ Hybrid, 10lb Super 8 Slick, and 14lb YGK G-Soul X-8 Braid. None of them are really wowing me, specific gripes below: 1) The Hybrid casts well and is easy to pick out the inevitable backlashes, but it seems really weak. I have been using it for a while now on one of my finesse spinning combos with no issue, but it seems to break all the time when on the casting reel. Strangely, a large number of the breaks are far from the knot, often 30-60' into the line. Yesterday I had maybe 30' break off during a cast and today I bombed a lure maybe 60' out, then when I went to give the line a tug to tighten the spool, it snapped right below where I held it. I suspect that my constant tugging to tighten the spool is weakening the line, but I fish with my break really really loose (trying to train myself to keep my thumb on the spool during the retrieve and hook-set) and I am stop and pick out any time it wants more pressure then I can give with two fingers. Does this sound like the likely cause of my break-offs? 2) The Super 8 cast very well, but seemed like it would fray with the slightest contact with anything and it tangled badly in even the slightest wind. To be fair I was fishing it by Harpers Ferry, so a ton of rocks, but it still seems much more fragile then the Suffix 832 I use on my spinning reels. 3) The G-Soul was just insane, I must have read the diameter info wrong as the 14lb was crazy thin, like hair. It is so thin that if I close my eyes I have a hard time telling if it is between my fingers. While it did let me cast a 1/6oz spinner about a mile, it was predictable awful with tangles and backlashes were impossible to pull or pick out. I quickly moved the line to my UL spinning reel where it works great. So after all this, I ask, what do you use use on your BFS setups? I would like to stick with either Hybrid or a floro line so I don't have to mess with a leader, but I am open to any suggestions. Right now I would prefer something that is easy to pick backlashes out of, rather then going for max casing distance. Hopefully as I get more proficient with this combo and learn it's limits I will backlash it less, but for now I want something I bit forgiving but also tougher/stronger then the lines I have tried. Thanks.

Ended up going to Gilbert Run Lake as 1) I had never been there before, and 2) it has a launch, so wanted to scout it out for yaking in the spring. Didn't catch a single bass, but managed like 15-20 good sized rainbow trout. The first one was quite a surprise, as I had never seen Gilbert on any of the emails the state sends out when they stock. I caught the large majority of them all with in maybe a 30' stretch of bank. All were caught on an assortment of small jerkbaits or tiny lipless cranks. I finally made myself move and caught a few more as I walked the bank a bit. So yea, would love any info about this place, bass-wise. And I guess if anyone wants some trout this weekend, let me know and I will PM you the magic spot.

My plans for tomorrow fell through and I have the whole day free. Want to spend it fishing but am not inspired by any of my usual spots. Anyone care to suggest a place? I am up for anything within an hour of Annapolis and will be beating the bank or wading.

I kinda need that chartreuse one in my life.

Same, but I do everything up to like Fat Ika thickness with either Owner Straight shanks or Twistlocks. I only really use EWGs for flukes (I swear they somehow give the best action) and when I am skipping plastics. I like the Gammy Skip-gaps and the VMC long-shank hooks for EWGs. I wanna give round bend offsets a try next year to see if they can give the same great hookups as straight shanks but maybe be a little easier on the plastics. As for specialty hooks, the Kumho Reaper Keeper hooks have been working out great for weightless Keitech Impacts. The keeper never seem to rip out of the heads.

I agree with everything else but this. I had a ton of luck this last season with small (1/16oz - 1/0) shakyhead jigs and short plastics, fished with most of the Midwest Finesse retrieves. The Keitech Sexy Impact/Keitech shakyhead combo was the real standout, it has almost as good a hook up ration as an exposed hook Ned and seem to get bit about as often. Where it fails hard is the "frugality" of the MWF system. I get maybe two fish per plastic and I feel every lost jighead in my heart. I keep trying to work out a "perfect" weedless Ned, but the elaztec works against this. It is so stretchy, especially a worn-in zlinker, that the hook has trouble popping out. The Owner Ultra Heads work very well, but still have a noticeably lower hook up ratio.

BPS offers their Stick-o in a 3.25" version with a forked tail like the larger Zoom worm. I bought a pack in baby bass at the end of the summer. Only really fished them once, but they were very effective t-rigged in small streams. I haven't stuck on on a jig head yet, but plan to once winter wading season picks up.

Wow, I have never had much luck shore fishing for stripers. I have only ever really caught them on my kayak as bycatch while going after white perch. I have a spot near my house that sometime produces form shore, but it is very very hit or miss.

Right now I have a pair of small Biwaa Seven's, a Savage Gear Glide Swimmer, and a few other's that I got from either MTB or LTB. I have been throwing them on a MH/F rod. It is rated up to 1oz and that is the max lure weight I have in any case. I have mostly been slow swimming them along weedlines but am super gun-shy about tossing them too close to cover or running them through stuff.

That is awesome! I took my BFS combo (PX68/Phenix C682) out for whiter perch and schoolie strippers a few times this fall, it was a blast. As soon as I get unlazy this winter I am going to chase some pickerel with it.

I have little experience in NOVA, but I have heard good things about Roaches Run by the airport. Not really a pond, but there were a bunch of snakehead and bass reports there a year or so ago.

Perfect, through enough "meat" to hold the plastic but short enough to wiggle and twitch. I don't know why they made the Big TRD rather then just re-markering the Hula.

I currently fish small jigheads all the time but was hoping for a way to offer a slow slow moving small lure while keeping it off the bottom. Right now I can only go so slow before I hit bottom. The idea of a floating worm is interesting, I could a lot of the z-man stuff I already own, just t-rigged on a weightless hook. Thanks for the idea!

Sorry to bump this thread months later, but I have been dipping my toe into smaller jointed swimbaits lately and have been looking for some info about them. This thread has good ideas on lures to try, but I have not found good advice about how and where to fish them, especially in smaller ponds and lakes. Most of the swimbait stuff online is guys with huge ones fishing in large lakes or bays. This guy just smashed my first ever cast with one, I was just running it in the open to see the action: I have caught a few bass on this one and others but I have yet to see a pattern to it. I also get a lot of hits that I can't seem to set, I am mainly a plastics guy so it might be inexperience with hard lures in general. I would love any info or even where to look for it. thanks.

That might be true, I will give that a shot. I keep a bunch of 3600 cases loaded with little "kits" I can garb and go, so like a senko kit, a shakyhead kit, etc. I have started squirting a glob of MS onto the plastics in the trays. Mostly to keep them from sticking but it seems to sink in after a while as well. I might try adding it to them in the bags I keep in my stash.

How do trailing bottom contact styles like this work in mucky soft bottoms? I fish a lot of places with thick decaying plant bottoms and have trouble with anything light weight touching bottom. A heavier jig I can get enough force to clean it off when I pop it but the finesse stuff just sticks and drags up a huge lump. From a kayak I have had some luck with the split shot and light C-rigs but from the bank it is just snag after snag.

I bought a tube of Megastrike and came around to believing that it did help in getting bass to hold on to a plastic for at least a split second longer. I fish lighter then usual tackle a lot of the time so every bit of extra hookset time helps. I only really noticed an effect on soft or worn plastics, a half zlinker ned rig specifically is where I noticed the biggest difference. Ribbed plastics as well, I firmly believe that a weightless 4" Keitech Impact covered in scent is the best numbers lure out there.

I took a bike trip south of Hancock this weekend. Didn't get to fish much but caught a few smallies in the river by Dam 5. Saw a ton of great water both in the river and the canal and really need to head up there with my kayak this winter. Anyone have the lowdown on Little and Big Pools? The look promising but the wind was up when we passed.

Any chance of a picture of where the hook lands on the plastic? A Hula on a VMC halfmoon was the first lure that I really started catching on but the week hooks eventually broke my heart too often and I moved to the Gopher heads and smaller lures and then to the wide world of bass tackle addiction, but I would like to give the uncut Hula some time this winter.

God too hear, #1 is about as big as I like, but I am really becoming convinced the smaller #2-4 hooks get me more hits and more hookups.

Bickering aside, did I miss info about the hook size? I am coming around to preferring smaller hooks on my nedheads but really dislike the keep on the Gopher jigs.

Yea, a CI4+ is in no way a necessity at this stage. But do write down a list of the weights of whatever reels you want to look at when you go to the store. A few grams here and there is hard to judge well but say an ounce or so could really make or break a reel you are on the fence over. Really look at the Okuma AV-10b, at $40 and 6 ounces, it is a lot of reel and can another site if you use the drag well.

That boat looks amazing. I have been idly thinking about buying a boat and have been reading a few threads, this one especially has been an inspiration. I need another project like I need a hole in my head, but your $400 boat is given me the itch really badly!

Oh man I got to handle a new Stradic Ci4 1000 the other day. Come black friday I am replacing my two main spinning reels with them.