Fishingintheweeds

Let's give it a shot.

And this one from last year, that I have a pretty good estimate of length in, outside of the internet asking, yeah, but how do you know? Believe me, I would ask someone the same thing! Well, the file for the next picture is too large and I can't reduce it enough. Anyways, the one I was going to show was a pretty good sized (according to only my length estimate) fish and I was going to show that this one above was significantly larger. But because if my bad camera skills and difficulty estimating size from pictures, you'd never be able to tell. In Michigan, even! For the past several years, I'd only caught a bunch of 12-14" at this lake. I guess maybe they're growing up. But I did get the right spot at the right time of day at the right time of year. I had gone to another lake just before that I knew bigger fish were in but I'd never caught anything there myself. Well, 3 guys dropped a boat in right before I got there. They talked about going to spots and headed off. This was a good sized lake, so, I figured no problem. Ha, wouldn't you know it, they decided to open her up and do laps around the lake, for the whole 30-40 minutes I was there. I left and went to the spot I caught that one.

This guy...er, gal, here, until it jumped, had me wondering how big the pike get in this lake or if one of the big carp grabbed my chatterbait. I didn't have a scale, nothing that I could put it next to for reference. So, I just grabbed my phone and clicked a bunch of pictures. When I realized she was staying curled and all my pictures probably sucked, I went for the shot from above. I didn't want to lay her on the ground and like to get the fish back in the water as quickly as I can. Ha, I only know a few people who would care, besides the internet, but having at least something as a record is nice. The best I can do is reasonable length estimates based on my height or how. I held the fish by my leg, arm angle etc. The sad part is, again, the fish doesn't look that big here. Ha, but I've also caught teeny tiny ones that people saw the picture if and thought were good sized. What can ya do?! This was another attempt at the same fish. Looks preeeetttty average.

White SEEMS like a good choice...and OTHER people in my area seem to like it but in all of the different water colors and conditions I've fished, green pumpkin or bluegill has been what I've caught everything on. And I haven't really had any trouble getting them on this either. Lots of people have success with other trailers, but again, all of mine has been with paddletail type trailers, usually some shade of dark green also. Sometimes with the two-tone type deals (in my mind, I think the contrast when moving attracts more attention...I could be wrong).

I switched out trebles for some of the Owner replacement hooks. But haven't gotten a chance to try them out yet. Are they similar? If so, do they hook up as well? Dah! I KNEW IT!!!

I bought some jigs way back when, before I'd ever gotten anything in them or had any idea exactly what to do with them and so didn't payattention to any of the details. A few of the football heads have O'Shaughnessy hooks on them. I haven't tied these on in...hmmm, years now, based on my experiences with good jigs with good round bend hooks and what I've heard others say about getting good hook sets. I look at them and just don't feel right or confident about the hook. To me, bites are something you have to work to get and so, I'm all for trying a lure out to see if it works but the idea of trying out a lure that I know works but has a hook that might lose the fish isn't as appealing to me. Am I being dramatic or are these hooks fine? What is the purpose for this hook on a jig?

I learned that I can throw a jig in a pit, and with patience, catch an awful lot of good sized fish there if you can figure out what's going on at the bottom. As the legend goes, in any weather conditions...from calm, sunny and 85, to very windy, cloudy and 50. Even at noon. Oh, and I learned today, that my feeling that I should NOT be sharing my spots and tricks was probably correct. Thanks, @Topwaterdude for the confirmation. My favorite things to do are: 1. Fish places that look like they would never have fish and are extremely inconvenient. 2. At those tough places, deny ever seeing fish there and just say I'm seeing how my lure works in the water or practicing casting. 3. Say that I've heard they're there and I've seen a couple but it's tough! I may also say I saw fish jump but I'm not sure what they are. I'm torn between that and being a really good guy and giving away everything I've learned. But...I hate fishing in a crowd. And I already fish from the banks.

I was thinking leaders. I know people say in certain waters you can't do straight braid and I'm not saying I know more than them...but that's what I HAD been doing. The earlier part of the year I decided to tie on mono or flourocarbon leaders, for specific setups. My fishing situation is, I have a ton of water, lakes, rivers, pit lakes, all very close to my house...and some of these can be very different from the others. I also fish from the bank. Sometime around a couple months ago, I gave up on the leaders because I didn't do better and I didn't do worse. In fact, I've done even better since the end of August than maybe I waver have. Just straight braid. But that leads me to this...I was walking the deep side of a river and pitched a short cast through the trees. I had 40 or 50 lb braid on the setup. The chatterbait and worm that I'd put over the hook point were instantly snatched up by something very large. It was on for...5 seconds? And that was that. There are a lot of pike in this river and that was much larger than the 20-24 inchers (on braid) I'd caught before. So, IS THERE a braid that pike and musky guys will confidently use without a leader? My experience has been that they can slice right through it. Before that, that's what I'd always been told and seeing is believing. I guess I don't know about 80 lb because I've never needed anything over 50!

Ha, I saw claims of people using or suggesting mono or flourocarbon and anecdotal evidence of years of no "bite" offs, on other forums. I don't know anything about the people making these posts, or their experience or skill. So, ha, I'm definitely skeptical...and no, I'm not very interested in starting a donation program. Thanks for the second recommendation ?

Dah! Stop saying that! Ha, ha, that enough people say it isn't what's compelling about solving something like this, it's the believable experiences of people with decades of experience and visual proof and logical reasons related to bass behavior. I don't know about anybody else but I fish from the bank and don't use any kind of electronics. To me, putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together and catching the fish that are supposed to be in a specific spot, with a specific technique, in specific conditions is the best part of fishing for me, any more. Jigs do get bigger bites, you can use them any where, any time and you will never have it mastered. There's still a challenge with a big payoff to it. All that said, I've been beating up all my @Siebert Outdoors jigs and jig heads this fall and catching good numbers of good fish. Their colors are great, the hooks stick 'em and I never feel like I'm wondering if I will have a good hook up. Yes, I've read all 22 pages of this post, the cited posts in this one and every page of the other years-long threads on this subject. Mostly because of the "what if?" I guess I've been turned into a little kid a week before Christmas thinking about throwing some jigs around. You can catch a few fish if you read a few pages but you're missing out if you stop there. I've gotten pretty decent at catching fish nearly any where I decide to go but I have to say, that since I've really decided to throw only jigs, the size of my average fish have gone up considerably. And for ME, this fall, I haven't gotten fewer bites that were bigger, I've actually gotten more.

YouTube has been helpful also but supplemental to this thread. I have watched videos or even experienced certain things fishing and not fully understood them, or they didn't stand out, and after a thread like this The light bulb comes on. It can work in reverse but from what I've seen, if you don't understand or haven't heard the things about jigs before, and watch a video, because of the format most of the importance of the detail will be lost on you if you even realize it was anything other than just some words. But yeah, fish, read, watch, read...watch again if you want. Keep fishing.

Exactly what you need to understand for the timing in bites you actually feel. After a couple of fish where I felt that and set it after the second, I had some not hooked well and about as many missed. They were gone. I thought about how they eat for just a minute and decided to set fast on the first feel and the hookups were better and fish not lost. I wanted to confirm this so I asked specifically the other day. Seems this time of year is slow for comments! Luckily, I found this old thread, read every comment on it, 8 pages worth so far, and found exactly the answer I was looking for!

Becoming a grownup, there can start to be fewer and fewer mysteries to think about, including ironically, sasquatch and things like this. The more experts I have been exposed to, the more certain I have become that there's not one...or any! That was a huge bummer for me. Another mystery, destroyed! But this jig fishing topic is something to bring back some mystery. Although a lot if this can't be proven other than anecdotally (video is proof, yes. I'm referring to the idea that maybe you missed something that you didn't know you missed and the only way to know SOMEtimes is to set the hook...whether you actually feel anything or not!) this seems to be a rabbit hole that seems worth going down! For right now, I'm casting jigs, long casts from the bank. "Swim jigs", grass jigs and arky jigs. My football heads and standups have been in their box for a long time because on MOST places I fish, they're less than ideal. I'm using 50lb braid. I'm catching fish. I know for sure that there are parts of the cast where I may not be feeling the other end because I'm doing something that isn't ideal, making these very long casts. This isn't my go-to set up but it's what I'm doing now because of the season change, trying to reach water I can't walk to access and because its a skill I am trying to improve. I have so many places I can fish that I can't even count but one particular spot, an old quarry lake, is where I'm doing this. I usually don't do this on the lakes or rivers but this quarry seems like a no-brainer and it's been working well. I'm mostly dragging an arky jig. Very slow. What other recommendations would you make or change about this setup, given what I'm trying to do? What about trying to drag a jig from the bank, uphill? Does everyone agree that a worm (specifically a big worm?), worked similarly, would be better? Thanks!

So, about the bites...plenty of times, you won't feel that tap-tap. But in the case that you do, it seems like it would be good to understand what the fish is found when you feel that tap-tap. If you do feel that, do you immediately set the hook when you feel the first one? Is that the fish picking up the jig? Is the second tap the fish crushing it? Or, is it the fish spitting it out? For me, I don't know if I could describe what I do or when but I don't think that I'm not the best with a jig. But I was fishing in very windy conditions today, in deep water, on the end of king casts...feeling was really all I had to go on. But later, I started to think about anything that I felt or moments where something was a little different and what the fish was doing when I felt these things and if understanding that would help detect more bites. I'm sure the possibilities of things the fish could be doing are endless but is there anything along these lines that you've found useful to understand?

And a couple on the jig. On longer casts. Half of the fish I've caught now have been where I knew there was still green vegetation, half have not. All of the water has been relatively deep, from feel and what others have said, more than 12 feet. With the exception of the spinnerbait, darker colors seem to work better. The green pumpkin/go candy craws do get bites, the plum "ish" variation of the shaky head trick worm was better than that and the brown jig/trailer seems to be better still. What worked earlier in the summer seems to be what is still working now, in October. The key for working on the bottom seems to be to work slow. Painfully slow.

Well, I have feedback from other people who have fished there that said they know the fish are suspended pretty often and they've had good luck with crankbaits. I had two on, on bottom craw deals (jig head and a jika type rig), they both got off. I've had two on a shaky head that I reacted badly in and lost. One landed on the shaky head. One landed on a spinnerbait about 1/4 under the surface in pretty deep water. I think the takeaway is that most of the advice and suggestions given here seems to be pretty good for this place too. I haven't made errors like this anywhere else probably because I wasn't really expecting much action the first few times I went there. But I think I'm starting to get the place figured out now. Ha, I could probably have even more fun if I had more than a part of my lunch break to fish there. Thanks for the suggestions!

I have the same experience. We live right in the middle of a chain of lakes with lots of river access and more additional lakes within 30 minutes of us than I can count. There are easy ones that the DNR has cleaned up and put docks at and are easier to get to and even have close parking! I've learned my lesson about these places though and there are very specific times when you can catch fish there and with very specific tactics...and none of them are very convenient to a tight schedule. You can't pay me to go there outside of the times I've found work but even then, it can be tough. I guess what I'm getting at is sometimes I get this idea in my head that today will be the day I can figure out the magic and I go there first. Ha, 20 minutes in, I feel I've wasted my time. and since my trips are short because of my schedule, that 20 minutes is a valuable chunk of time. Like others have said, I start thinking about what else I could've done with my time instead and all of the other things I he's to do at home. And I really feel kinda bad about going out. My fishing is all from the bank But guys in boats and kayaks all day the same thing. The lake LOOKS the past but it's extremely tough. To me, going there has ruined my feeling about how I spent my time that day. If I go other places or bounce around and only catch one or two, or nothing, at places I know are better, it doesn't have that affect on me. I guess I'm echoing what others are saying, that sometimes continuing to go to that impossible spot can really take it out of you!

Wow. For being so simple these sure can be kinda complicated to use. I will have to try a couple of these things. It seemed like I was having some success on showing the retrieve but it was not something that seemed for sure and consistent. And I'm not sure if it matters if that is the cause but I have been trying to use braid for these.

Huh...I never even considered that there would be ant spots up here. I'm in Michigan but if that's possible, that would make a ton of sense, given what I've experienced with the fish in this quarry. This is the only one that I've had on and touched but all the ones that got off seemed pretty wild in their reactions to being hooked! Now, I don't know 100% how those fish got there and there is no other water that connects to it. Since I'm in Michigan, I feel like I'd need another look at one. But that would be an interesting explanation.

I don't really have much interesting background for this post. My buzzbaits come back on their sides. I've tried different things with different kinds of trailers...no change. I understand the whole idea of something being misaligned but can't quite get it right. It seems like this would be the right place to come to get a clearer explanation of what can cause this and what to do to fix it. Can anybody help?

So after you do the knot under, pull both and instead of ONLY PULLING the main line, pull the tag line, THEN the main to pull it snug but do NOT cinch it...is this correct? I had my first knot ever come out on me the other day. I was using braid and after a number of casts, I made another cast, noticed something felt a little different, then watched watched that spinnerbait make its final flight, no line attached. I haven't had problems ever before with braid but it did make me wonder about my knots.

Is there anything you can add to this, situations/conditions, etc. or, do toy just find these things out about colors, blades and that through trial and error, kinda the way you would for color with plastics?

By the way, how big is the fish in the second picture? You caught that thing in Maine?

Well, I I had to run into work for a few hours today to basically push some buttons and let some programs run. Temps were probably 15 degrees cooler than yesterday, overnight and in the morning. Again, still cloudy and very windy. Went out to the pit lake that I'd posted about before. Sure enough, casted around to a few spots and broke the streak. Like with the chatterbaits, and what everyone else had described, when they hit it, they hit it. These fish at this place are strange. Strong and seem kinda wild when you get them on, most of them spit the baits and are hard to catch. He wasn't real big but he sure made a run that I wasn't expecting and put up a good fight. Ha, all I needed to do, I guess was make a post, call myself out for not committing and have everyone agree. The suggestions in the comments are good though and the reinforcement of what I'd started to suspect is appreciated!

I've looked pretty hard at these. How weedless are they? We have no shortage of places that are thick with vegetation. So, I DO like to throw in the nasty stuff. That's one thing that I've come to like about the spinnerbaits since I've left the house with only that as my option twice now.