papajoe222

I like hi-viz braid for bite detection. I'll camo the last foot or so with a green or black sharpie. If the water is super clear, I'll go with straight fluorocarbon or mono.

If a C-rig isn't working, the active fish are somewhere else in the water column. It's actually the presentation I use to figure out where the active fish are. If they're on the bottom, I'll often switch to a faster, bottom presentation. If the bite dies, I'll go back to the C-rig and up in the water column before leaving the area.

I feel it's a forage issue. Simple enough, the fish start keying in on a different form of food for whatever reason. Usually it's because of availability, bass, or bluegill fry have reached a size that appeals to them, or it can be a dietary need like protein, or fat. However, often times it's just what they do or don't want at any given time. IMO, that's why frogs and lizards work well year round. The fish see them as food when they're feeding and pests when the aren't. Either option is moot to us because we're getting bit. I killed them on paddle tails for two seasons, jig heads, belly weighted hooks, underspins, they just seemed to want that action and profile. This year, I can count the fish on my hands that I've actually boated using them and believe me when I say, there weren't many bites I didn't hook up on. I switched to swimming a curly tail worm and EUREKA, I've been killing 'em most of this year with that presentation.

I've been disappointed with the hook I've been using lately for tube fishing. It's a Gammy EWG worm hook and what I feel is the reason for my disappointment is the lack of bite with this hook. The hook point and line tie are in a direct line with each other. I switched from the Trokar EWG last year, not because I was unhappy with it, but because I like many of the other hooks Gamakatsu offers. Anyway, I'm looking for a hook with more bite and ran across the G-Finesse Hybrid. Plenty of bite and if I'm not mistaken, it's a lighter wire hook which fits perfectly with fishing tubes. Anyone use them for their tube fishing, or for trick worms?

I have a number of Spooks in various sizes that are silent. I also have a couple of store brands that are, too. I don't throw many other walking baits even though I have tried others.

I carry very few black soft plastics. I don't feel I've missed out on anything. My go to dark color is black grape. However, some of my more productive topwaters are black and I've painted a few shallow cranks black. I've never experimented with other dark colors for those baits, although they'd likely work just as well.

I misunderstood the title. I thought you were asking about relationships that only share the one interest, fishing. I do have a number of those and all but one of those relationships was initiated by me. They've lasted for a while, a couple for over two decades and we are all okay with the parameter as we enjoy the sport and each others company. As for your intention, I don't have any one way acquaintances. If I take someone fishing and they ask advice or want to learn a new, to them, technique, I'm always willing to share knowledge. If this happens a few times and I haven't been invited to fish out of his boat, or just go fishing with him, that's where it ends. As I said earlier, I have more than enough acquaintances that share my passion.

Once it's actually dark, I only throw one topwater. my other two rods have a worm and a jig tied on. That topwater is usually a Jitterbug, or an Arbogast Buzz Plug. The worm is always a ribbon tail with a sliding sinker and the jig is a football with rattles and a RageCraw.

No need to go high-end on a reel used solely for C-rigs. Go for something in the 7.3:1-8.1:1 gearing and smooth drag as the reels only purpose is taking in line and giving it out under load. Even with only a 2ft. leader, distance casting will be tricky unless that rod is in the 8ft. range. If you feel you must make long casts, go with a heavier weight. Unlike a Texas rig, a lighter weight is much less important for C-rigs.

Not much information to go on. I'm curious as to why you mentioned the 8ft-15ft area of the water column. I'm with you on targeting points, especially if it's an unfamiliar lake. Regardless of your reasoning on depth choice, look for cover and/or forage. Make your lure choices based on those factors. Keep safety in mind as you'll be a sitting duck for pleasure boaters and jet skiers, both of which let things like what's in the water ahead of them become no where near as important as their enjoyment.

Even though I know it isn't necessary, I do it every time. It forces me to set my drag properly next time out.

I am lucky enough to be retired AND live 15min. from my favorite lake. I can hook up the trailer drive there and launch in less than a half hour. Because I can basically go whenever I want I tend to avoid those times when I think catching will be tough. The days I tend to avoid are those bluebird sky and little to no breeze ones. Those happen most often when the barometer is high. As for moon phase, projected feeding windows, wind from the east, etc. I don't give them anywhere near as much influence on my decision to go. For all you working stiffs, my wish for you is to make it not only to retirement age, but well past it so that you will be able to also go whenever you dang well feel like it.

I got into building rods for two reasons. I wanted a rod with the best performance I could afford and I wanted it to look exactly like what it is, custom. Every rod I've built, either for myself, or friends/family, has decorative guide wraps and most have intricate butt wraps. I still use some of my St.Croix and one of my Quantum Tournament Series rods, but I love breaking those custom rods out when I'm out with someone.

I sort of stumbled into using a punch rig about three years ago. I was fishing an extensive milfoil bed and couldn't buy a bite on my usual offerings. I had a C-rig tied on another rod and cut off the leader, The brass weight was maybe 3/4oz. and the hook was a 4/0 worm hook I tied on with a palomar knot. I pegged the weight, threaded on a big beaver weight and sitting directly over the weeds, just lowered it into them. I missed two solid hits before hooking up with a nice girl and ended up with only three fish from that bed, but I'm sure that was three fish more than I would have gotten if I'd stuck with fishing the tops and edges of those weeds. I've since refined the terminal tackle and was surprised to find the heavy weight/hook/line didn't affect the rig's catchability.

2006 No explanation, just an edgemecated guess.

So, say you're out there on a familiar body of water and you're not getting bit. You know you need to change things up, but where do you start? For the sake of eliminating the obvious answer, changing locations, mine is normally changing where in the water column to try next. I've found that, more often than not, I'm fishing below the fish and unlike fishing above them, bass rarely will go down more than a foot or so to grab a lure. The opposite sometimes holds true, like in the early morning when I'm throwing topwater with no takers.

No shad in he natural lakes I frequent. Do the bass move shallow in the fall? YES They also move shallow in the summer, because that's where the forage is. Remember this, shallow is relative to the body of water. In some lakes here, weeds grow to 15ft-18ft. That depth, to me, is shallow in a lake with 45ft.+ depths. The question you likely want answered is how shallow do they go in the fall.

That Hackney video was an eye opener when it comes to color selection. The thing is, I’ve never seen when a significant color change was needed to get bites. If there were something different, water color, light penetration, etc. I can wrap my head around a color change, but in this instance none of those factors had changed from my previous outing two days earlier. What did change was what color the fish didn’t want. I’m just glad I didn’t try to force feed them something green.

I really think it's more of a favorite, or often used color in the southern, south central states (MO, KS, TN, OK). I know it's used just about everywhere, but it seems to be the green pumpkin of the northern midwest.

Simple question for those in the know; How do you determine when the fish want one color over others? Personally, I'm one that doesn't put much faith in color making a difference, but a recent experience when I couldn't buy a bite with a green pumplin soft plastic, they were downright hammering a different style plastic in purple/red flake. I thought the shape was the difference, but the same bait in GP was ignored. Is there a better way to determine when one color is hot?

No, forTexas rigging the weight is outside/in front of the tube, the same way you'd Texas rig a worm. The way I suggested is with the weight inside the tube, which is the same as a Stupid, the hook with the ball weight, or the specialized internal tube weights. The tube still spirals on the fall. With a Texas rig, it doesn't.

I don't like T-rigging a tube as it kills that action that makes tubes such a great bait. I use a 2/0 or 3/0 Gammy EWG hook and a bass casting sinker pushed into the nose of the tube. I run the hook point into the tube, through the eye of the sinker and out. I finish it up running the hook through the body and skin hooking it on the top of the tube. No need for any thing that you don't already carry, except the weights and they're inexpensive.

This is kind of like asking; What's your favorite bait? In my case, that's a jig and if I were forced to choose one brand it'd likely be SiebertOutdoors. Of course, I always have some sort of trailer on my jigs and RageTails by StrikeKing win that one hands down.

I tend to focus on one or two soft plastics during the course of a season and they're usually not the same from year to year. This season, I don't think I've thrown a wacky worm or one T-rigged since early pre-spawn. I got hooked on longer, finesse worms in their place. I always seem to start the season with them though.

I always have an idea of where the fish will be holding on whatever kind of cover I intend to target. With that in mind, I start out with a horizontal presentation if I can, that will work in that part of the water column. Weeds that don't grow to the surface, rip rap, felled trees, etc. If I'm not getting bit, I change to a vertical presentation like a jig or a tube. I've been using a swim jig and a swimbait on a jig head to accomplish both types of presentations without changing rods. If I get bit fishing vertically, I try to determine where, in relation to the bottom. I may go to something horizontal like a crank that will run at that depth. I also do just the opposite at times, but switching from a horizontal presentation that is working to a vertical one that may also work, I've found, will almost always result in fewer fish.