fishwizzard

Man, I was going to do a half day tomorrow and go wade NW Branch, but you are making me want to hit the canal. How is the water clarity?

I have been meaning to drag my kayak out to Widewater for months but have never done it. I really need to try it sometimes, so much of that area isnt accessible from shore.

If you can fish them on open hooks, then the Zman Minnowz last more or less forever, but I have never gotten them to work well rigged weedless.

This is very interesting. I am dipping my toe into frogging, but as most of the spots I have in mind are more full of duckweed then any thicker cover, I have been messing with smaller/lighter frogs. I also am not super accurate with a casting rig, so being able to use a spinning rig to get baits where I want them has been a big plus. However, my hook up ratio with hollow body frogs is just awful, maybe 1 in 5 or worse. I have been messing with solid frogs using large EWG hooks or smaller flipping hooks, but I think your "small frog/big hook" system might be even better.

Very nice guys. I took my GF out wading by Daniels Dam on Saturday. The smallies were not a bity as they usually are, with only a few tiny ones caught. The Redbreasts were more accommodating, and she caught a couple and more importantly, is now confident in releasing her own fish, which is a good progress. It's ironic, I live right by the Bay, but all my interests are freshwater these days, so I end up driving an hour or more for every serious trip. I gotta get out to the canal/Potomac more often, butt the beltway is a powerful disincentive.

I am trying frogging for the first time and used 30lb braid, but am having huge issues with the line digging in when I make a hookset or have to pull out of weeds. Would moving up to 50lb help with this?

I finally had a chance to hunt up a picture: Man, if these things are half and good as I hope they will be, I am going to buy a million of these suckers.

The Gill shorts look nice, I switched to softshell hiking pants for winter/fall and have yet to find a pair of shorts that I really like. The Trapper hooks look interesting as well, I fish a lot of small, weightless plastics and if these things work they seem perfect for me. The Zman micro-finesse jigs are an instant buy, but I wish they offered one in 1/16oz. And finally, the Zman TRD Tubes. I am going to buy enough to fill my bathtub and swim around in them like Scrooge McDuck. A cut down Hula Stick is my goto lure most days and this looks even better. I was literally pining about something like this just a day or two ago. Excited beyond reason here.

Damm, that is good news. I use the hula sticks almost exclusively now, but cut them down to 3-2.5". I always agonize over what to do with the cut off "stumps". I have tried stretching them out a ton and gluing them to small panfish jigs, but I can't say that they are any more effective then a small grub. I get the power finesse angle, but that new lure is so close to a Hula Stick, it seems like they could have just marketed it in that role without having to get a new mold up and running. I still want my elaztech ribbon-tail worm. Or a small beaver-style bait. Or some a split-belly version of their minnows.

Thanks for this, I picked up a silly rod (PS50ULM) that I have had my eye on for some time. Paired with a 50 series Okuma reel and 2lb braid, a decent sized white perch will feel like a tuna.

That sounds likely. Good on them for making money, but elaztech is such a cool material, I wish they made more lures that took advantage of it. I would just love a version of their current tube, but solid. You could trim both the body and the skirt how ever you liked, giving a super flexible bait.

I do not understand the 4" TRD. It is super close to a Hula Stick and only an inch shorter then a zlinker. The jighead is more or less the same as the several already on the market aimed at hulagrubs.

I am going to do just that this weekend, going after SM in a small river. I expect them to work well. I also expect them to be a one fish lure, as they are very thin. I also think that they could be amazing on a split shot rig.

Hah, yea. But in this case, I am taking my GF wade fishing this weekend, so between the two of us I suspect we will snag and loose most of what I prepped today.

I just glued up a batch of Neds for the weekend. I swear they must have reformulated the TRDs at some point, as some of them feel very soft and stretchy, like a zinker, while some of the newer ones are much more firm and less elastic. In any case, I am giving up both the zinkers and TRDs and moving to cut-down hula stickz. They seem to be the sweet spot in terms of firm/softness for me.

I have been using the Ned for 3/4 of my fishing this year and it has been producing fish in waters that I have worked for the last two summers without success. I have settled on using Hula Stickz cut back to the long side of the "egg sack". I rig them either on a 1/16oz #4 Gopherhead jig or weedless on an 1/16oz #1 Owner Ultrahead jig. After trying different methods, I have settled on rigging them with glue. I thought it would bother me more being unable to swap colors on the fly, but I have discovered it matters less then I thought. In any case on the weedless jig you can get maybe a half dozen fish before it becomes too soft to hold without glue, so I can still swap if I really want too. I fish them both with the various MWF retrieves, but I also do more hop/dragging then most others seem too. I want to add a second plastic to my arsenal, something that produces more water disturbance for use in stained water, which I very often encounter. I am messing with cut-down Zman sawtail worms and Zman Grubs. I have also been using a series of small, 3-4", plastic worms/shads either weightless or on a 1/16oz 2/0 Keitech shakyhead jig. I fish them all the same, like a fluke when rigged weightless and do a slow hop/drag when using the jighead. For plastics, I have been using Z-man 4" finesse worms, Reins Bubbling Shakers, Keitech Sexy/Shad Impacts, and BioSpawn 4" Finesse worms . They have all been producing and are all close enough in size that I can use the same hooks and jigheads for them and swap the plastics without retying.

Good lord, those are some nice fish.

I fish Northwest Branch north of Burnt Mills fairly often and yea, right above the dam is no good. I have managed to catch decent numbers of small LBMs maybe 1/2 north of the dam, the fishing getting better the further up you go. There is so much run off from the surrounding developments that it isn't really worth going if it has rained recently.

I have some of the Keitech non-lead jigs that I am trying out. One of them has a single strand weedguard and one has the tiniest brush weedguard I have ever seen. I have only tried them out once so far, but they seem to work well and hold the lures unglued as well as most other jigs, which is to say not well at all.

Hah, it seems the divided opinion is still going strong. I think I am going to pull the trigger on the Ex-fast. I am getting this rod from a custom builder who made me an ML this spring that I am pretty in love with, and he suggests that a M/ExF will be a good complement to it. I also believe that I want the extra stiffness to help with hooksets. Thanks for the imput guys.

Thanks for this, my dentist is up that way and I can't wait to check it out.

Hi, I did some searches and it seems like opinion here is split on which speed (Fast or ExFast) is best for a Medium fluke rod. While the rod's primary role will be to cast flukes, mostly Zoom Supers and GYCB D-Shads, I also will use it for weightless senkos and other weightless plastics. It will also likely become my tube rod and the occasional small spinnerbaits. I am leaning towards the ExFast as I already have a ML/F rod that will have some overlapping uses with this new one, so having a rod that is both heavier and stiffer might be nice. I would love anyone's thoughts on this.

Flukes are becoming my goto "fast fishing" lure when it is too weedy to use something with an open hook. I usually start with slow pops and then dead sticking it for 4-5 seconds, then gradually speeding the retrieve up with subsequent casts. My last cast or two at a spot I usually rip them back to the bank just under the surface.

Actually, the fashion in men's shorts has been creeping shorter for a while now, the new fashion "standard" is around a 9-10" inseam. So really you are just being very fashion forward and can look down on the less bold crowd.

The pool on the far side of the tunnel sometimes holds bass, so I spent a few moments casting down it, no hits sadly.