fishwizzard

Hah, I have been accused of that before! Ok, I am going to buy a 275y spool of 6lb Hybrid. I will waste 50y of it messing with my little egg-reel, and save the rest to use on a 3000 spinning reel.

I fish a lot of salt/brackish water, so my reels all get a good rinse off with the hose pretty often. They are all also in dire need of a breakdown, clean, and lube, but I am somewhat leery of really stripping them down. I was wondering about the Okuma, that thing is smaller then an egg. I love it though, it punches far above it's weight and catching tiny 12" bluefish on it is just too much fun, it's like miniature tuna fishing.

The two reels I am interested in spooling up are a Shimino 1000 and an Okuma 50, so yes, very small reels. I am going to order some 6# Yo-Zuri Hybrid and some 4# Sunline FC Sniper. I looked at the Tatsu, but that might be a little rich for my blood right now. Also picking up some KVD line conditioner. I have a 200y spool of 10# Stren I was going to put on the spare spool of the Lew's 3000 I picked up today, but it sounds like I would be better off using that as leader. Thanks again for all the advice guys.

I would advise you to just freak the hell out, buy a ton of stuff with no idea what it really is, then slowly do some reading and figure out what you actually need. This is what I did and it worked out great! Joking aside, my advice as a pretty new fisherman is to work on casting skill and technique as much as you can and avoid jumping from style to style. Learn to work a given lure/presentation well before you move to something else. No lure is going to catch you fish if you can't get it to them in a efficient manner. I spent months slamming lures into the water and loosing them to trees before I figured out that a pro with a rusty hook and a gummy worm will out fish an unskilled guy with a tackle store in his truck. Build up casting skill, then go crazy with lures and gear.

Interesting responses, thanks guys. I have tried Spiderwire, Suffix, and Stren floro so far. I am using such small reels that it's a reasonable expense to try some of the more pricy brands. The hotwater trick sounds interesting and at the very least cant hurt so long as I dry and relube the reel spool after. How "hot" do you mean, like, near boiling or just bathwater hot? I have a new reel sitting at a UPS store waiting for me to grab it tonight on the way home, I might give the hot water soak a try. I did come across line conditioner and honestly my first instinct was to disregard it as snake oil, but I didn't realize how porous floro/mono line is, I assumed that it was much less so and any conditioner would just sit on the surface. It also pretty inexpensive so I will be sure to pick some up. I am not married to the idea of floro, just having a clear line for use with small/finesse lures. I do a lot of small stream/pond panfishing and joining 4lb braid to 4lb floro in any wind is quite a pain. Ideally I would just use green/white braid for everything but I have a lot of confidence in using a leader now. It is silly, as fish seem willing to bite an metal spinner but somehow I have convinced myself that they are put off by a string.

When I started fishing a few years ago I started with braided line as I found it more rope-like and easier to tie knots in. I have moved on to using braid+floro leaders, but now I would like to try spooling up with straight floro for some of my L and UL rigs. However, the three or four times I have tried it has ended poorly. Every time I end up with a huge snarl of line whenever the line gets any slack in it. The line just seems to jump off the spool and knot up. I used to work as a rigger and would pull aircraft cable off of spools daily, so I understand the importance of unspooling the correct way, I have watched numerous videos, bought a spooling assist tool, nothing seems to work. I have tried under filling the reel by 25%, tried running the entire reel out under light tension and cranking it back in, nothing is working. It is driving me nuts and I would love any insight into the matter.

I fish with a lot of thin (6-15lb) braid and keep going back and forth about leaders. I would love to not use them, as it is one more thing to carry and I don't like how the knot hitting the guides seems to throw off soft casts to close cover. But at the same time, I feel like I have been catching more fish when I use a leader. I am going to spool up some white braid this spring on my UL rod and see how it goes.

We gave up on cable maybe 4-5 years ago and subscribed to all the streaming services available, it comes out to maybe $30-40 per month. However, right now the programing on most streaming services are becoming less and less desirable, if you are into new stuff. I suspect the content producers are realizing at last that streaming/on demand is the future and are charging more and more for streaming rights. Netflix especially has gotten much "emptier" in the last year or two. Even so, I will never go back to cable, the cost is just insane, even if you end up, like us, upgrading your internet service to make streaming multiple shows at once smoother.

That thing is a monster. Also it never occurred to me to use a ribbon worm as a spinner bait trailer....

That is an amazingly neat room. I am working towards a small version of that, but I am still in the "drowning in plastic boxes" phase while I figure out what to do about shelving.

I got a Lews reel in the mail today, a TLP3000 spinning reel. Spooled it up with 10lb floro, then discovered that the anti reverse was busted Getting the line back off the reel on to the spool was a huge pain and I am cranky as hell about it. In happier news, I got my first order from Gopher Tackle in: I have been fishing a ned rig for some time and decided to give the Gopher jigs a go. So far I am impressed, they are far easier to get the worm on to then the BPS version and have a much much smaller head profile then the z-man ones. I also got some of their Prowler Heads, and I have very high hopes for them: I am going to try them on pickerel tomorrow.

I am a relatively new fisherman and I found it very helpful to just sit down with some plastics and tackle and work out rigging while watching a movie. By sacrificing a plastic or two out of each new bag I can try out a bunch of different rigging methods to see what works and doesn't before I hit the water. When I find something that looks promising I take a picture with my phone so I can reference it later. If you are not fishing with it then even a fragile plastic will last through dozens of rigging trys before they totally fail. Hell, I have some z-man worms that have had hundreds of hooks and such shoved through them. I keep all the "practice" lures in a box, so when I get a new hook or jig I can fire up a movie and work through my box looking for a good fit.

My big purchase this winter was a Native Slayer 10 fishing kayak, some rod holders and some other junk. I am trying to hold off going crazy until I have a bunch of hours in it. I have only had it out twice so far and am loving it. It is small, nimble, but feels plenty stable and the seat is just amazingly comfortable. I am also working on getting rid of all the lures and tackle that I have impulsively bought, and focusing down on a couple of lure types/styles per rod. I fish both fresh and salt so I am trying to find equipment and lures that can do double duty. I would like to limit myself to a max of 4-5 rods per outing, so this year will be about experimenting and learning how minimal I can go without overly limiting myself. So of course this means near weekly small orders, as I have explained to my girlfriend, you have to spend money and buy more stuff to eventually have less stuff. At least I have found a local charity that takes used/open fishing gear, so I don't feel too bad about upgrading my rods/reels and culling through the piles of lures that I will never use. I would love to hear how these rods work out for you. I looked at them hard before deciding to go with a Smallie Stix for my first custom rod. I love the idea of the adjustable butt, but I have a strong desire to not make my rigs any heavier, so that a float has a chance to save them in the eventual turtle/snag event.

This is good info, thanks. I have used those hooks for panfish plastics but never considered them for larger stuff. I use a lot of z-man baits and twist on keepers don't work well for them, these hooks look like a good fit.

I had some free time Monday afternoon and stopped by Daniel's Dam. I wanted to test some wader boots a friend loaned me. Low and behold about ten minuets after I arrive the state trout stocking truck pulls up. You would think that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, but between the very high and fast water, my inexperience in working spinners in fast current, and the fish being pre-spooked, I only managed to catch four fish. With my rod that is, after loosing my sixth spinner and getting an amazing wind knot, I switched to carefully netting the fish as they were stacking up behind rocks. I didn't even have to look, just slowly move my net up to a rock from behind and lift, maybe 3/4 of the time I would have a trout in it. If I stood still long enough they would stack up in the slack behind my legs. It was thoroughly ridiculous but kind of fun.

Although I am mostly a spinning fisherman, over the summer I bought a casting rig to see how I like it and to maybe use to troll for stripers in my kayak. I got to a point where I could use it without much backlash trouble, but never felt as comfortable with it as I did with spinning rigs. Having spent a lot of time over the last month or so reading this forum, I believe that a lot of my troubles come from using lures that are a poor match for my rig. The rig is a Abu Vendetta 6'6" M-F (VNTC66-5) with a Lews BB1 Inshore Speed Spool, currently spooled with 20lb powerpro. I have a wide, if shallow, assortment of hard baits in the 1/4-3/4oz range, mostly 3/8oz spinnerbaits with maybe a dozen assorted cranks. I also have a couple of chatterbaits in 3/8oz and a small collection of larger soft plastics. My only freshwater success on this rig have come from using soft frogs in the summer and the occasional fish on 4.8" Fat Impacts on a 1/8oz bladed swimbait hook. For salt/brackish I generally only throw paddletails/BDKs on 1/4-3/8oz jigheads and inline spinners in the same weigh range. I would love any advice or guidance on what bass lures this rod is suited for. I would like to pick up a second identical one so I can troll two lines at once, but would also like my rigs to be duel-use, so I would love to find some solid freshwater uses for this rig.

You joke but I was once given two boxes of 30-30 shells and ended up buying a rifle to shoot them with. I have also been looking at getting a fly rod for panfishing and tiny bass. However, I am leaning towards getting a tankara set up. The though of a small rod that I can collapse down and keep rigged in the waterbottle holder in my pack is very attractive. I bought a $6 rod off of Amazon and have made a crude (very crude) fly line, leader, and tippit out of random scraps from my fishing supplies. The cheap rod and cheaper line don't cast very well, but I have caught a few tiny bulegills on it. I keep waiting for a deal on a proper rig, but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

What tube is that on the right? Hell, I might bite that thing if you dangled it in-front of me.

If the water level is up, the entire C&O has bass in it. I don't have a way to post a picture now, but I caught a very decent SM right by mile 0, where the canal meets rock creek. It is in the main MD thread, maybe 2-3 pages back. I realty wish there was a legal spot to camp between G-town and Swains, it would make an excellent weekend trip. I have done a few singe night trips, starting around mile 5-7 and camping at Swains, it is always a blast. There are a ton of great spots, both canal and river, that are not very close to any parking.

You are giving out my spot man Assuming we are talking about the same pool that is. I have had some luck in the old quarry pond just north of Riley's Lock. It is a huge pain (literally, with all the thorns) to bank fish most of the year. This spring I plan to drag my yak out there and really give it a good once over. As it stands now my B2LT (Bass to Lost Tackle) ratio is way too high there. No idea what is under the water there but it is snag city. There are maybe 3-4 decent spots on the towpath side to fish from and a few more on the back side, but a small pair of pruning shears is pretty essential gear to fish there.

I am not much of a crank-guy, but I have had good luck with the teeny wee craws. Caught a decent number of panfish and, surprisingly, some larger white perch. However, I have decide that those little trebles hurt the fish too much so I haven't replaced the last one I lost. I wish they either offered them in single hook or I could figure out a way to give them a single, slightly larger barbless treble. I also have a bunch of their single barbless hook lures, and when they work I get a real kick out of them, but it seems like only maybe 1 in 4 runs right and I haven't figured out a way to tune them yet.

A lot of stuff to think about, thanks guys. One thing I am working on this year is severely limiting how much tackle I bring out with me. When I am on foot I will have a single rod and whatever will fit into a small flyfishing chest pack. When in my yak, only a single 3600 per rod. As a relatively new fisherman I suffer from a lack of focus, which leads to a lack of practice. In addition to bass I fish a good deal of brackish/salt water and am getting into wading small streams for panfish and trout, so I have a lot of different styles competing for my attention. Part of the grand clean-up/organization is to help me focus to making each trip about working on a single (ok maybe two or three) presentation(s). A huge part is going to be sorting all my gack out into stuff I want to try and learn, and then donating the rest to a local fishing-based charity. I don't see a reason to have twelve different styles of stick baits if I don't have the skill to fish them well.

I have had more luck with the Hula Stickz then with either the TRD or half of a zlinker. I also don't usually glue mine to the jig so that while fishing I can remove it and rig it wacky on the same jig. The HS has a insanely life like action when wacky rigged on a light jig, exactly like a flashing minnow. This spring I am going to try some of the zman finesse shads (caught a few nice pickerel with them last fall) and the small sized batwing craws. I am also going to keep my second finesse rod rigged up with a slider head/finesse worm on it. I haven't had much luck trying to make a weedless Ned so I am going to see if the slider works.

No, but I did just buy a fancy fishing kayak. Being able to carry more then one or two rods easily is really blowing my mind.

I am embarking on a compete reorganization of my fishing stuff. It is an unholy mess and I am getting to the point where I loose track of stuff as fast as I buy it. I have bought a pile of storage boxes and have made decent progress. However, I cannot make up my mind how to sort and box my tackle and lures. I can think of a few different, and seemingly equal, systems to employ, they are, briefly; 1) Terminal tackle and other non-lure items are boxed by type, then by specific product. Lures and plastics are the same way, less popular categories in larger groups, more popular ones split into more subgroups. This will likely take the least number of boxes. 2) Terminal tackle is the same as #1, Lures and plastics are sorted by style of fishing, so all my LMB stuff is in one box, all my saltwater stuff in one, etc. Some styles I fish often will be split again, for example I fish finesse lures for bass the huge majority of the time, so those lures will be in a separate box from the heavier/larger stuff. In each box things will be broadly broken up into categories and smaller boxes/bags, so like it will not just be a 30L Tupperware with stuff piled in it. This will take more boxes then #1 but will make packing for any specific outing faster and the focused boxes will make it less likely I will omit something I wanted to bring. 3) Going further then #2, everything is split into style and sub-style large boxes. These are then filled with smaller boxes and bags of tackle and lures. This has the advantage of letting me see everything for an trip every quickly and let me monitor stock levels to prevent running out of something, or the more likely "buying something because I forgot I already owned three bags of them". In addition there is obviously going to be a ton of overlap, in hooks and plastics especially so. I am not sure how to deal with that, either by splitting stuff up and trying to keep track of two stocks, or by putting stuff where it will see the most use and having to remember what is where. This will obviously take a ton of boxes and a lot of storage space. I am leaning towards #2, but I could go either way. I would love any input on how you guys do it, based on some of the stuff I have read here, a lot of you must have whole rooms full of gear. EDIT: All these boxes will not leave the house, I will have a separate "car kit" of commonly used stuff, changing as the seasons do. I will add to this stuff from the main stash as needed. The building of this car kit is an other kettle of fish, and will likely take longer to figure out.