beardown34

The 2.5" slim swimz are awesome. And when you get bored fishing it finesse style, just steady reel it and you have a tiny swim bait with the tail paddling away. Has really re-ignited my interest in finesse fishing. The TRD Craw I had high hopes for, but the claws will frequently get caught in the hook, requiring you to fix it before the next cast. It's like the claw appendages are just too flappy.

Thanks for your input TOXIC, cgolf, and Oregon Native! TOXIC -- that's hilarious, you're right, in my mind this family trip is a fishing trip! I'm just the only person who thinks that! I decided to bring two spinning reels + two spincast reels. In all honesty the non-fishing folk will probably not fish at all, but at least this gives them the option. I think presentation-wise I'll lean heavily on things that either allow the bass to hook themselves or will be relatively easy to set the hook -- ned rigs, drop shots, wacky rigs, and inline spinners. And my 8 year olds love them some whopper ploppers I hope I can find a bait shop nearby to buy a mess of nightcrawlers and set up the spincast rods for slip bobber fishing. Come to think of it, maybe I'll just go to Walmart and see if they have live bait. (Anyone know in the Chicago western suburb area?)

Maybe I should just rig up a nightcrawler on a dropshot rig, grab some beers and call it a day

We will be on Lake Petenwell. You're right. Looks like I'll be kind of near the Dells but not in them.

Hey all, I do mostly bass fishing in small (1-3 acre) residential ponds. Next week we are headed up past the Wisconsin Dells to a rental home that backs up to Lake Petenwell (the second largest lake in Wisconsin apparently?). The group consists of 3 families -- one set of grandparents, and my family and my sister-in-law's family. None of the adults fish except me. The kids are aged 8 (three of them), 6, 5, and 4. My 8 year olds have gotten on some fish with ned rigs and in-line spinners, and can cast spinning reels on their own. The other kids have not fished at all. I have no idea if we're even going to do any significant fishing, so I'm just making what-if type arrangements. Meaning, I have extra spinning reels so that's what I'm going to bring. I'm not going to go out and get spincast reels because all the younger kids are going to need an adult helping them cast anyways so I am choosing not to spend money on more reels. Again, to be clear, this is not a fishing trip. This is a trip to the Dells-adjacent (water parks, pontoons, etc) where there might be fishing. I'm not bringing my one-piece rods due to packing purposes so I'm probably going to go to BPS and get some Berkley Cherrywood 2 piece M and MH rods for $25 each. I already have a couple 2 piece L/ML rods I can setup. Just curious on some of your tips regarding: 1) Lures to prepare I'm thinking 1/32 to 1/10 oz ned rigs In-line spinners Mini/micro chatterbaits Whopper plopper 75s for my kids (so they can fish topwater and just chuck/wind without having to set a hook like horny toading) Wacky rig 2) Line I'd like to buy one big spool of mono to supply all the reels, since after this week, the reels probably won't be used. What weight would you think --- 8-10lb mono would be a reasonable compromise for all the presentations about? Doesn't look like my local BPS has any Yozuri hybrid 6/8/10 # in stock 3) If bobber / nightcrawler fishing, what kind of hook do I use? Like a long shank #2? Targeting bass ideally. I have tiny #8-12 hooks for sunfish. Thanks! Any other tips appreciated. I'll probably make a run out to BPS tomorrow.

Started seeing bass on beds last week. Western suburbs

I excitedly tried mine today. Unfortunately, mine consistently backlashes unless the spool tension is tightened way beyond what I need for my other reels. Plus after 1 or 2 casts (non-vigorous roll casting), my spool tension would noticeably loosen. Also, the level wind stacks line on the right of the spool. Clearly others have had good luck with their speed demons. Mine is going back though.

If you've seen my recent posts on wacky rig and chicken rig modifications, you'll see that I've been accused of making things too complicated. But this discussion is barreling off the rails! I agree with MickD, you're probably overthinking it. Practice with the braided line reel first. If I need to unwind and respool some line, I usually just sit down while watching tv and do it during commercials. Takes a couple minutes.

All he's saying is if you're going to strip the line off yourself, do it by loosening the drag until you can pull the line off easily by hand, as opposed to pushing the thumb bar and causing 125 yards of fluoro to go springing off. All he's saying is if you're going to strip the line off yourself, do it by loosening the drag until you can pull the line off easily by hand, as opposed to pushing the thumb bar and causing 125 yards of fluoro to go springing off.

Brett is it braid/superline? Or something with memory like mono or fluoro. It sounds like you're not terribly comfortable respooling yourself. If it's braid there's nothing to worry about. But if it's line with memory, and you're not comfortable spooling a reel, you can definitely end up wasting a bunch of line. In general i agree that it will be well worth it in the long haul to learn to spool your reels on your own.

The wiggle wog tail will leave a wake but it doesn't spin and plop

While my buzzbaits and traditional hollow body frogs have stopped working for whatever reason, I have been able to catch a couple on the Sprinker this past week. It plops nicely and must look different enough from the other traditional topwaters to be attractive to the fish. Two things so far I'm not in love with -- I hooked a 2# bass and dragged it in with a fair amount of algae. I'm guessing due to the weight of the fish + algae, the underside of the Sprinker tore about 1cm -- where the hooks come out of the body. I guess that's one of the things the Teckel frogs are known for -- soft bodies. The second thing is that when fishing the Sprinker through/over algae mats, the algae will get caught in the hooks and occasionally pull the hooks slightly downward -- so the hooks are kinda hanging over the side/butt of the frog. Obviously can't really compare this effect to traditional hollow bodies because those aren't retrieved quickly across algae like the Sprinker is. Oh, there's one more thing I don't like about my first Sprinker -- the fact that it is now floating away somewhere in my pond because my line snapped

Tie the mono, fluoro, or copolymer leader directly to your braid, with a double uni, albright, or FG knot. I use 15# fluoro with my 30lb power pro, but when I'm fishing topwater or moving baits I just go straight braid.

I tried it out at a local pond today. The tail does a good job spinning or plopping, as opposed to my whopper plopper 90 which requires a quick jerk to get it going. Also the tail has the same action regardless of whether my rod tip is high or low (as opposed to my WP90 which needs the rod tip high). Got 2 hookups in an hour with windy water.

Not to wish any ill deeds on you, but there is a lot of value to birds nests while you're learning. It will force you to learn why you birds nested and how to better avoid it. It also teaches you the limits of exactly how light you can go with each reel/rod combo. And probably most importantly, backlashing a bunch (and then picking them out) teaches you that most birds nests really aren't that bad, and you can finally get over your fears.

i don't understand ... i tried the flat dawg and the thing is so soft and fragile. a bluegill straight up ripped off half the worm without me setting the hook. maybe i have a bad batch.

Tried out the chicken rig for the first time today. A couple thoughts. The part of the worm that is pierced by the hook eye gets torn up pretty quickly even without any strikes. Just by jigging the rig up and down. Last week I posted about how I made my own wacky saddle out of vinyl tubing with 2 holes drilled through it. That has been working out great for me with wacky rigging and I have not lost a worm due to wear and tear so far since the hook never goes through the worm. Turns out, I can use that same vinyl tubing saddle for the chicken rig. So that area of the worm where the line and hook eye start to tear through the worm when rigged like above -- now my line and hook eye just travel under the vinyl tubing but above the worm, so the worm never gets pierced anymore. Of course the hook end has to pierce the worm to complete the texas rig, so that part will eventually wear out. Makes it nice/convenient when fishing from the bank to be able to carry worms pre-rigged with a saddle, but then be able to fish it wacky or chicken (or Neko for that matter) without anything other than an appropriate hook size/style. Minus the nail weight, it's a texas rigged wacky worm, rigged parallel to the worm. I'm not sure why no one bats an eye about the hook being parallel to the worm in this presentation, but the parallel orientation gets brought up with a traditional wacky rig. Minus the nail weight, this is essentially Wayne P's wacky setup right? Except with an EWG or straight shank hook instead of a circle hook?

OK, there have been over 2,000 prior posts about wacky rig so no more posts on it. I appreciate everyone's input.

WRB -- I could have sworn I came across some largely negative reviews of the Wacky Saddle, but now that I check out the item description on TW, the reviews aren't that bad. Maybe I'll add it to my next TW order and check it out. RoLo -- Cool idea! I can't say I've ever come across the twist-tie idea. Zip ties yeah but not twist ties. I'll have to go on a pantRy-raid for some of them.

Yeah I bought shrink wrap of various diameters from Home Depot. I know they work. I was just losing worms on tail bites -- not sure if the worms were just being stolen from the ends, or if the worm was splitting in the middle.

For me, at the end of the day it's cutting a 1/2" long strip of vinyl tubing and drilling 2 holes in it. How long each piece of tubing lasts me and can be re-used is to be determined, but I'm anticipating a long time. Worth it for me to at least try it out. As of this morning I now have about 30 minutes of experience with this experiment. It's not as much about saving money on baits. It's more about not having to stop to re-rig a worm when I only have 30-45 minutes to fish usually. Heh, negative. I just nerd-out hard sometimes. I need to find productive ways to channel my OCD.

Fishballer -- I've seen those but never tried. What's the eventual mechanism of failure on the senko, tearing in the middle? Do you usually end up being able to detect the worm about to rip, allowing you to remove and mend the senko? And when the worm tears, do you ever lose the weight?

I know o rings and zip ties are cheap. I've used both and they work. My personal problem with o rings is they're either too tight or too loose. If too loose (even a tiny bit) a fish is going to only bite the end of the worm and steal it. I don't know if the vinyl tubing will fix that yet, but I'm more confident because it's 1/2" worth of friction, not just the 1/16" width of an o ring. If too tight (and this is the same concern with zip ties), the amount of constricting pressure on that 1/16" of space will begin to rip the bait. My problems with the heat shrink tubing is it's a little tricky trying to shrink the tubing without melting the worm a little bit, and it's clunky trying to heat shrink one on the fly when fishing from the bank. These are 5 this morning on the same trick worm. The worm is still in good shape. I'm not trying to convince anyone that one way is better than another. Just sharing some ideas.

Grumpy -- You're right, I'm sure for some it's not worth the time. Aside from breaking off, each one of these little tubing segments should last a really long time. Also, you could drill the holes perpendicular to the way I did, and use it for a Neko rig (although I just use a zip tie for that since the hook is supposed to be parallel to the worm anyways). It's been fun and rewarding for me to learn what can and can't be done, especially when I can identify and achieve my personal objectives for this presentation.

I posted a different thread about my experience trying out Wayne P's wacky rigging method. For whatever reason it just didn't work for me -- I'm certain the error is on my end. I would get a ton of bites but never hook the fish. So I tried experimenting (as many of you have) with different ways to achieve the things I wanted to achieve in a wacky rig. * Bait preservation -- I don't need a worm to last 10 years (like theBig1 from this old post), but I would like it to reliably last 1 fishing trip for me * Minimal to zero hook penetration through the worm itself (again, for bait preservation) * Hook oriented perpendicular to the worm (I know plenty of people stick'em just fine with the hook parallel) * Weedless * Easy to re-rig a new worm while fishing -------- I found the Revenge Flipping Wacker jig and I love it. The lightest it comes in is 1/16oz, and I'd be eager to find a similar small jig with a fiber weedguard but 1/32 oz. Maybe something like this but with better/more reliable components. In any case, the Revenge jig takes care of my weedless concern, and I've pitched it into lily pads with no problems at all. I don't have any really gnarly timber to test it out on. -------- Here is creation #1 and completed product. Appropriately sized o-ring with a small size 2-3 split ring to create the perpendicular orientation. Something has to be done to prevent the hook from pulling back out through the o-ring, so I just used a hole puncher and punched out a bunch of circular plastic discs from that I then threaded onto the hook. It works well and has great hookup ratio. If your worm tears or a fish steals it, it's quick and easy to thread another worm right through the o-ring. Some things I don't like about this setup: - the o-ring needs to be tight enough or the worm will get pulled out - problem is, the tighter the o-ring, the sooner the worm begins to tear in the middle - getting the plastic circular discs on and off the barbed end of the hook can be a little fussy ----------- Here is creation #2 and completed product and another completed product. Find appropriately sized vinyl tubing. I ended up with 5/16" ID for 4" yum dingers, and 1/4" ID for trick worms and havoc money makers. I'm guessing I will need 3/8" ID for 5" yum dingers and swimming dingers as they don't fit with 5/16" ID. I cut about 1/2" length of the vinyl tubing. The thread I linked earlier recommends a 3/4" length but that seems a little long for a 4" worm. I may go a little longer with a 5" worm. I use a drill with 1/8" drill bit and drill two holes about 5mm apart. Then just thread vinyl tubing over your worm of choice, and thread a wacky hook of your choice in and back out of those 2 holes. With the holes 5mm apart, there is minimal (if any) piercing of the plastic with your hook. The 1/8" drill bit makes a hole big enough for the hook point + barb to pass through, but still too small for the hook/barb to easily back out through the hole. I tried pre-rigging the hook through the holes in the vinyl tubing, and then putting the vinyl tubing over a worm, but it was hard to get the vinyl tubing over the worm this way. This looks much less prone to fish pulling the worm on one end and stealing it. It also looks much more resistant to a worm tearing in the middle, and even if it does start to tear, it's quick and easy to detect, allowing you to remove the worm and mend-it up. Short of breaking off, the vinyl tubing should be easily re-usable and I don't imagine much (if any) breaking down of the tubing. Not within any reasonable amount of time anyways. The final product looks pretty sweet to me but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. To be determined how well it works, but I'm pretty optimistic about it. ---------- After creating the vinyl tubing version, I found a retail product online that is pretty much this exact idea. I can't remember the name or site. But regardless, it's certainly cheaper and pretty easy to buy the vinyl tubing (10 feet for ~ $3, and you're only cutting 1/2-3/4" at a time) and drill the holes yourself.