fishwizzard

I believe the "goal" for the serious mico guys is to catch a fish that fits on a 1 yen coin, which is like 1/2"-3/4", so a very tiny fish, which requires the super tiny hooks. I have caught good old USA creek minnows on little hooks from Walmart. I have a tenkara pole I got from Amazon for like $9 and tie on 3lb mono from a bulk spool. It is really tough to cast without pinching on a little split shot, but it works well enough to fool around with.

I hate messing with leader but I feel far more confident with one. I suspect that this is because I started using a leader right around when bass fishing began to "click" for me and I started catching regularly. A goal for next year (the list is getting long) is to begin to experiment where I, when on a good bite, will remove the leader and fish straight braid to see if I keep catching.

The only time I have had a large hook bend on me was when a snapping turtle grabbed it.

Yea, I have not ordered anything yet, but I am going too. It looks fun as hell and the rods are so small and light that I can just toss them in the water bottle pocket of my hiking pack and be ready for some minnow action at a moments notice. I have a poster from the parks department from the country I fish in a lot listing all the species that live in their parks. Only a handful are game fish, most are small minnows and assorted baitfish. I think next spring I will challenge myself to catch one of every species on the poster, like my on little "wanted" list.

If you are going for tiny fish, get a hook with a very long shank relative to the hook gap. This will keep the fish from swallowing it. As for size, look for an assortment pack, Eagle Claw is an inexpensive brand that should offer them. For small fish you don't need super hooks, but maybe get a small stone to touch them up. If you really get into tiny fish, then check this out: http://microfishing.com/ http://www.tenkarabum.com/micro-fishing.html The Japanese have made a whole sport of it, some of the hooks need a jewelers loop to see the hook points.

When wading for smallies, I will occasionally, when my plastic needs replacing, flip rocks on shore until I find a nice fat worm, then I stick it on my jig and toss it into the the deepest undercut I can find. It always catches something, usually a large sunfish or small cat. Oddly, never a smallie, I think they might be more cautious then the others.

Surely I need red as well? And maybe brown? I started fishing with no one to teach me and I wasted a ton of money buying every lure under the sun, mostly plastics that I didn't really understand how to use. I have just recently got them all organized and anything I don't catch a fish on in the next year is getting sold/traded/given away.

Huh, I have never caught bigger then a ~2lb fish on one, but they tend to just run up the line on the strike, which seems to ruin the nose first. I tried the parasite clips but have never got them rigged to my satisfaction. I am going to look at screw-in nosecones, but even as is, they are only $5 per pack and I am happy with how many fish I get out of them, I just like to travel light and dont want to carry a ton at one time. One of the strengths of them is how versatile they are which helps with with that. A single lure I can fish half a dozen different ways on the same rod is just great.

They do tear up quickly, especially if you use straight shank hooks. I just save the torn ones to trim 1|2" off of and use as trailers.

I am using 6lb 832 currently with a 6lb leader, shortening the leader to 4' solved my issues. I might move to a shorter, thicker leader due to active pickerel in the same waters, lost a very nice one (and a brand new spinner) right at boatside as well last month. Knot stregnth-wise, what do you guys think the thickest diameter leader I could get away with, joining to 6lb 832? Lure action I can work out through trial and error, but I would like to start as thick as possible and work thinner

Yeah, I suspect lighter line would be better, but this is my perch rod and a lot of the year there is the chance of striped bass as bycatch, so I don't want to go too light in line. Got a 16" one last month on my 5' UL, it was a hell of a fight.

What weight lures were you using? I was trying to throw inline spinners between 1/24-1/16oz and felt that the line wasn't coming off the spool with much force.

You win the award for "Funniest Mushroom Joke Made on a Fishing Forum". My landlord forages for mushrooms and is very generous with them. He is a smart guy and I trust him 100% but everything I learned in BoyScouts cries out for me to not eat them. I ignore that little jerk and always accept, sauted mushroom quesadillas are the best thing.

I have access to brackish rivers, so I can fish for pickerel right up until everything freezes up. Even then, last year I got so sick of waiting I went out to a local pond when it was about 35-37 out one day, just hoping for some open water. I got there and it was frozen solid. I threw a jig across the ice a few times and then walked back to my car. On the way I saw a large rock. I picked it up and chucked it as far out into the pond as I could. To my surprise it flew about 20' out and broke a hole. I cast until I got my jig into the hole, then propped my rod against a tree, lit a cigar, and hung out until it was finished. I shook the rod a few times during, then reeled my lure in and went home. It still counted as fishing in my book.

I am confused by what people mean by "grass". It is a catch-all term for any and all SAV, or is it referring to a specific type of SAV? I read here that chatterbaits were good "in grass" and I then spent a day or so throwing them into big fields of hydrilla, which just resulted in me removing dozens of pounds of hydrila from the lake. At least now I know my knots hold well. Around where I live, I never really see anything that looks like an actual grass growing in the water, but watching fishing vids online clearly some parts of the country have the stuff.

Thanks for posting this, I am right around there and this looks like a really cool event. I have not gotten into fly fishing yet, but just received a book about simple fly tying. I am going to get into it this winter and look to pick up a rod in the spring. My wife has expressed an interest in taking a fly fishing class or guided trip, so it could be a fun way to get her hooked on fishing.

I got into fishing in my mid 30's and didn't know a single other person who fished when I started out. I bought a lot of random equipment and lures and just tried every type of fishing one can do where I live, which is a pretty good variety. I gravitated towards bass fishing and began reading everything I could on the subject. I actually began to catch regularly when I started paying attention to figuring out where the fish were likely to be holding rather then just trying to throw my lures as far out into the water as I could.

I tried to use a long leader for a while but I was having an issue where the line would snag on the knot as it was coming off the reel, fouling the cast. Admittedly I was doing this with my UL spinning rod (for reasons you mentioned, I wanted to get my tiny spinners to sink faster and stay down on the retrieve) and I was joining 6lb braid to 6lb floro. I was using an Alberto knot that I bushed crazy glue onto and trimmed the floro tag almost flush. About every third cast or so the line would snag and the lure would whip to a stop and drop straight down. I fussed around with it for a few trips before I gave it up. I guess maybe a heavier lure would help the line flow past the knot, but I have not given it another try.

I have/had a 6' 2-piece L spinning rod made by a company named "Tsunami". They are pretty common around here as inexpensive saltwater/surf rods. It wasn't the most sensitive thing ever but it worked well when I was getting into fishing and was rugged enough to survive a few accidental smacks into tree limbs and such while I was learning to cast. The tip did break on me, but I was dumb and tried to lift a ~2lb smallie about 15' out of a canal lock. I fished it with a new tip for months until it had a run in with the rear door of my car. Now, as a 5'7" rod, it is too stiff for most light lures but I keep it around as a loner rod for perch fishing as it still throws and works 1/8oz spinners well enough. They seem to be available online at around your price range and it will definably be a step up from an Ugly stick.

I have a pack or two and have caught some smallies on them when I fished them last. My plan is to use them in the fall/winter when wading small rivers. The small sized Zman Batwings work well as trailers for them and give a nice slow fall rate. My main concern is how well they will work through rocks, I would like to be able to slowly crawl them along the bottom and would rather not lose too many of them.

The Menace grub has been my top producer this year. After trying A bunch of different rigging methods I found one that works incredibly well. I'm at work but I'll add a picture when I get home. In short, I rig them on a straight shank 3/0 Owner cutting point hook with the tip just below the top surface. I fish them weightless most of the time, but if I need a weight I use a 1/8 steel sinker. I want the greater size sinker to act as sort of a guard for the front of the grub. The straight shank hook, while giving almost 100% hook up ratio, really kills the durability of the grub. The larger weight protects the nose of the grub if you have to work it through weeds or other cover. I fish it with a bunch of different actions, from burning it just subsurface to a slow lift and drag. In my opinion the menace has the almost perfect balance of weight, action, and durability. I use either a M/XF spinning rod or a L/MF casting rod and get almost perfect hookups with both. The Menace has a bunch of other uses as the other guys have already stated, even when the nose gets too torn up to t-rig anymore, you could just nip a quarter inch off and use it as a trailer. I started the spring with a firm plan to fish senkos until I became proficient with them, but outing after outing the weightless Menace Frub out preformed them by a shocking margin to the point where it's become my go to plastic bait. EDIT: Here is a picture of how I have it rigged: EWG hooks were much harder to set the hook on. The Owner screwlock lightwires were better, but the Stright Shank is almost 100%. My only wish is if they had a more robust keeper, I might try to add a bit of heat shrink tubing at some point or something like that. I tried parasite clips but they never seem to sit correctly and both mess up the action and grab a ton of weeds/muck.

I got one in bone, caught a dink on my first cast. Caught an other dink on my third cast. I got a little cocky and snagged and lost it on my fifth or sixth cast. I just picked up an other one, this time in Loon, but have yet to fish it. I very much prefer them to buzzbaits, being able to pause and retrieve it slowly seem huge and the WP felt a lot easier to steer around snags.

All my used senkos are in the car currently, so here is an old hawg, but the idea is the same. For nose damage, I split the nose inline with the direction of the tare. For damage in the middle of the bait, I will make a clean diagonal cut to let the glue work on a greater surface area. You need to find some way to support the cut while the glue sets for the long cuts. The worm will not be as strong as new but seems to last for a few dozen casts or a fish or two. I keep my used and repaired senkos in a small pencil case tucked in my tackle bag. They get used for skipping or throwing into snaggy looking cover.

I generally cut the worm at the point of the rip. I find that to repair a torn middle a maybe 3/4" diagonal cut gives a good bond and to repair a torn nose, a cut maybe 1/16" past the tear works well. I also have a plastic bait tray from a pack of Keitech stick baits that I use as a splint/cradle to hold the senkos while the glue does it's thing.

I don't mind if they wear fast if I am catching on them, but it drives me nuts to have to retire one that wore out just being cast and retrieved. I do save broken ones to repair with Mendit, I found that turning a rip into a clean cut with a razor really helps the stuff make a good bond. I also save badly damaged ones that are >4' to nose hook and throw them when fishing in small rivers.