Glaucus

The kid was a no show yesterday. I'm going to take that as his parents weren't too happy about a stranger hanging around him. Maybe they will all show up together some day.

With only one treble in it, it's probably already shaken it. I wouldn't worry too much. I've caught bass with old, rusted hooks in their throats. The most egregious case was a smallmouth who not only had a hook in its throat, but like 2-3 feet of line sticking out of its mouth. The line look ancient and the hook was in bad shape. It had been there awhile, but the fish was still feeding and aggressive. Maybe the hook had shifted after so much time, but I easily got it out (I'm talking no effort at all). That made me pretty mad with how easy it was to remove. Even if at one point it was buried in there worse, there's still no excuse for someone having left that much line hanging out of the fishes mouth.

Looks to be exactly this length, but mine was shaped like a football. Smallest, fattest little thing I'd ever seen.

I probably should have always done that. I usually pick them up at Walmart. The idea of taking a lure back to Walmart that has seen the water feels weird to me, but it's probably the easiest place to do so.

Got to thinking, I wonder if I had that Muskie on.

I'm trying to figure out what to do with my bunch. I can't sell them in good conscience and I won't use them.

For one, if you're waiting to feel the bite on a Ned Rig, you're losing fish. Watch the line, don't just rely on feel. I've never gut hooked a big bass with the Ned Rig. And two, there is no need to cut the line on a gut hooked fish except in very rare cases. Almost every gut hook can be removed by going through the gills or sometimes you can go directly to through the mouth and take the hook backwards right away.

Every now and then I get one that doesn't run true. I don't want to say it's frequent or infrequent, or every other, or every few, because it's so variable. It's just that I noticably get a RES that runs on it's side frequently enough to where it's aggravating. I never get a bad Rat-L-Trap or Booyah lipless.

I've never paid any attention to the weight of a rod or a reel, let alone the weight line adds. Cheap feels a little heavier and nice feels a little lighter; that's as far as my thoughts have ever gone on the matter. I'm sure that will all change if God wills for me to become an old man and the age starts to kick in.

Fattest LMB I've caught on this river since a 6 pounder in April 2013. Coincidentally only about 20 yards away from where that 6 pounder came from 6 years ago. I've caught quite a few longer LMB here since then, but not nearly as fat. I wish the photos did the gut justice. Hanging out where the Smallies like to be... Species traitor

75: MH/MF or MH/F, the MF if I have a few rods with me and the F when I'm carrying light. Both do fine. 3/5oz bait 90: M/MF, same setups I use for squarebills and lipless. 3/8oz bait 110: H/F, it's a 1oz bait and it's a bait you chuck. A lot of MH rods can technically handle it but you max it out and that's just not something I'm willing to do. Don't throw bigger than that

I get $1 Zebco mono at Walmart and use it as backing for everything: mono I'll be fishing, Yo-Zuri, and braid, it all gets backing. No reason not to. It saves money and you get more spools.

It's been a ridiculous year. Unseasonably cold so far (getting to be better), and if it's not raining, the winds are 20+ mph. Things look to be turning around, however. Just in time for, like, 4 more months of fishing before it's over for us in the North again. I feel like we have been robbed of valuable time.

Once in a lifetime since you don't fish. Kidding aside I'd still change it every season unless it's braid. I fish almost every single day after ice out and before hard water. My mono and hybrid gets changed twice a month, and my braid gets changed twice a season.

I rarely go above 1/4oz for my Texas Rig fishing, and I prefer 1/8oz when I can get away with it, and 1/16oz on a T-Rigged Trick Worm if I want a little faster fall. So there's that... 1/4oz is the pinnacle for me outside of very deep water or punching.

8lb Yo-Zuri an unnecessarily thick diameter for spinning gear, in my opinion. YZH runs thicker than most lines. 6lb YZH is 8-10lb diameter of most mono line depending on the brand, and it breaks at nearly 12lbs. It's more than enough. 12lb YZH would be the line I would have on my baitcaster if I only had one. It's about 14-15lb mono equivalent diameter and breaks at nearly 20lbs. YZH excels at being an all purpose like and an alternative leader for people who dislike fluoro.

1. Buy reel 2. Take out of box 3. Put on rod 4. Spool up 5. Set brakes, spool tension, and drag 6. Catch a fish If I have to do anything else something probably ain't right and it probably got exchanged

One could argue Senkos are candy. ?

He asked me when I was coming back. I said Tuesday probably, in the evening. That part about strangers has me a bit weary. If it were my kid, I wouldn't like this at first. Some strange man hanging around my kid, helping him, giving him stuff, telling him when he's coming back? I would be sketched out. You just never know. Me being me I know it's all fine, but the parents don't know that. Then again, the stranger is the one helping and giving things away while the parents let a child go to a pond all alone.

The kid showed back up this afternoon while I was fishing. He said he was hoping I would be there. Couldn't have missed me being that I spend hours fishing basically every trip. He had that same bobber and plastic worm rig going on. Bobber, small weight, curled up plastic worm as if it was a real one. No idea how a plastic worm ball ever caught that bass last night. I cut that stuff off and set him up with a 1/0 EWG hook and a 4 inch Senko. With guidance he was able to catch 4 bass and gut hooked only 1. I gave him the needle nose pliers and told him to get to work. Had to help a little bit but he more or less was the one who got it out. He got the hang of it so I sent him off with a pack of 1/0 EWG hooks and a handful of 4 inch Senkos and Finesse Trick Worms. Hammered them myself on a black and blue jig with a blue rage craw.

Depends on if it's a "braid ready" spool. Worst case, I use cheap $1 Zebco mono as backing.

I'm going to try this. My wife's father passed away in January and we inherited a bunch of fishing stuff. He had a bunch of those treble hook covers/guards. I tried them but they were a pain to insert and I've been poked more than once trying to get them back out, so I gave up on them. With a wife and 3 daughters I don't even need to go shopping. There's a ton of these things laying around here. Well, I won't need to go shopping, but after I'm done they probably will.

Yeah we went through the whole process but I don't know how much of it stuck. Who knows. Maybe seeing one fish saved and spending 10 minutes fishing a Senko with a stranger turned his whole fishing career around. They definitely should. That's their audience. Instead of the obnoxious Walmart challenges maybe they could be educational Googans for once.

For probably the 10th~ time in the past few seasons I've been fishing when a kid (under 13) by himself or with another kid (never the same one and hardly the same place) gut hooks a bass and I have to go to the rescue before they just cut the line and toss it back. It happened again last night. I was fishing a popper at a pond as the final 30 minutes of daylight was disappearing and a young boy shows up with a bobber and a plastic worm. I don't know how he rigged it up, but after 15 or so minutes he hooked into a bass and was very excited and I was excited for him from the other side of the pond. He yells across to me, "I don't know where my hook went." I told him to put the fish back in the water until I made my way over there. It was gut hooked. I got it out. Had I not been there it would have been left to die or thrown back with a hook in its throat and line hanging out of its mouth. I've had this happen several times where it's just me and some random kid who gut hooks fish. It's a scary thought thinking about how often I'm NOT there to help. These kids need supervision or an adult in their lives to show them how to fish and feel the bites. I asked the kid where his parents were and he said his dad was at home watching TV. I rigged him up with a Senko and taught him how to fish it and feel a bite. We caught another and it was time for me to leave. He asked if he could have some more but I lied and said I only had the one because I could not trust that on his own he wouldn't gut hook another with the gut-hookiest bait of all time. A 10 minute lesson with me isn't enough time but at least it's something. I wish adults were more involved with kids, both for the kids and for the fish.