fin

Actually, I do have one lipless story, @WaterOtter. I may have told this one before. I was walking the bank when a guy in a boat just off shore asked me if I saw a lure laying around on the ground where I was. He said it was a big gold lipless. His line had snapped or his knot slipped, I don’t remember which, and the lure went flying into the woods. He said he thought he saw where it landed and he pointed me to the area, but I couldn’t find it. It didn’t help that it was in the fall and the ground was covered with gold leaves. I passed through that area pretty often, and every single time I had to look for that lure. Sometimes it was just glancing around as I walked by, sometimes I would stop and look around. I was haunted with finding that ‘golden’ lure. I don’t remember exactly how long it was before I found it, at least more than a year before I found it laying right about where he said it was. It must have been covered with leaves. It was a gold Booyah 3/4 ounce lipless in perfect condition. I still have it, I hardly ever throw it, partly because gold has never been a productive color for me, and partly because I just don’t want to lose it.

Academy had all their H2O lures on sale the other day when I was there. I think their sales run through Tuesday (tomorrow). Some Big Bait stuff was on sale too, and it looked like they are discontinuing some Zoom colors, because some colors are on clearance.

The only times I find lipless crank baits is during low water or when they're hanging in trees. There's a few pretty ones there, @Bluebasser86. I envy you. My lake has quit producing lures for some reason. Maybe because of other people lure-searching.

Man, I thought I had a problem. You got it bad. There’s been many times I’ve looked back after retrieving a lure, thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I just did all that for this stupid lure”. There’s no way I would consider messing with those wires over the water. Even though that wire is probably not carrying power, there are lots of things that could go wrong, and you might not foresee one of them. Just think how stupid you would feel in the ER, or how embarrassed your family would be at the funeral.

Pretty simple - pearl white on bottom, gray/blue shimmer on top. That style of skirt seems to make a difference too. I've played around with a lot of different colors on spinnerbaits making my own skirts, and this works way better than anything I ever came up with, at least on the lake I fish.

Looks like a Lucky 13, but it doesn't have the normal hardware like most (all?) of their lures, like a spook, torpedo, etc. I think they've always used that. Line tie is in wrong spot too.

Maybe it's the type of rattle that was working for you. I've thrown a Jackall Mikey Jr. until my arm falls off and can't get a bite off it. It makes all kinds of noise, a rattle and a clickety clack noise from the joints, plus a huge wake. I've tried several different brands of wake baits, but I don't know if I've tried the KVD2.5. I'll have to check that out.

Did you try any other topwater in the same place? I have very limited success with wake baits and feel like I have given them a fair try. I like the way they look, so it's not like I have anything against them besides their track record with me.

The only color I have ever noticed bleeding is red. I think all other colors are safe. It probably doesn't matter to the fish, but it's a control issue for me. It's sort of like an infection, it can bleed from one bait onto another, and then that one bleeds onto another, etc.

Maybe not where you fish. People would be lined up to catch them at the lake where I fish. I don't know how they eat them. They could probably put some fish sauce on some bread and bones and fry it to get the same nutritional quality.

I agree with what you’re saying, but I’ve found that on the internet in general, when people are asking for help, they leave out a lot of necessary info, but that doesn’t stop people from offering advice, anecdotes, etc. In fact, it seems like questions that are unclear get more responses (to a certain extent), and many times if you ask the OP for clarification, they don’t reply. It’s just the way it is, and it won’t change.

Somebody was once telling me that fish can't adjust from light to dark quickly like humans can. Something about their pupils not dilating like humans. I have no idea if there's any truth in that, but if true, that offers some clues on how they react to light.

I don't know if it was the same show, but crows are also very good at recognizing individual humans. Different birds have different strengths, even though some appear stupid.

Those wacky setups crack me up, but if there's one thing I've learned about fishing, it's that just about anything is possible. As long as there's a hook involved, you might catch one. I don't think I've ever caught one without a hook, but I might be forgetting.

I caught a largemouth and found an offset shank worm hook stuck in the roof of its mouth backwards. The hook looked like a snake fang in the fish’s mouth. If I had stuck my fingers inside its mouth without looking first, I would have got stuck good. Anything that fish bit was not getting away. I really wish I had gotten a picture of that, but it took so long to get that hook out, I wanted to get that fish back in the water. It was pretty healthy though, just a lot of redness around the hook. I’ve never caught a live fish and found a hard lure in its mouth. I’ve seen a few dead ones though. I have caught fish and found jigs and hooks and stuff like that in their mouths though.

For soft baits, if you are pointing your rod directly at your lure, aren’t you missing the vibration that your rod picks up? I can’t feel anything with the rod pointed at the lure, it’s got to be just slightly angled off to the side. Maybe the difference is you keep a finger on the line. I can’t do that with a spinning reel.

I hooked a three or four pounder a few days ago. She jumped up out of the water, shook her head, and my lure came flying right back at my face. I’m not going to quit fishing because of it. I have yanked lots of lures, hook/sinkers, and line out of trees, and never got stuck with a hook that came back at me (knock on wood). I just always turn my back before pulling. I’m not saying you can’t get stuck, and I’m sure when it happens, if it sticks past the barb, it’s a very serious problem, but I think it’s one of those things where you have to just weigh the consequences. Fishing can be a little dangerous.

We have those at this lake too, only the pvc pipe is not near as wide as yours. I don't think they have been emptied in many years though, and people stuff anything they can in them. And I don't think the ones we have have a removable bottom like that. Those are really nice.

I don't think I'd stress too much over a couple of feet of line, unless the bare hook was dangling at the end of the line. I mean, it might not look good, but I don't think it's much of a danger to anything. Today I managed to get the new line out of that tree using a branch I found that was about ten feet long, wrapping the line like I described above. That was about 15-20 feet of line that was hanging.

Like @TnRiver46 said, find a good sturdy piece of wood laying around, something like a half inch thick and a foot long. Wrap the bit of line you can reach around the wood, and then keep on twisting the piece of wood so that line keeps wrapping around it. As you keep turning the piece of wood, the line will get tighter and tighter. You want to turn your face away from your lure or whatever as the line gets really tight, so it doesn't come back and hit you in the eye. Update to the story: There's now a new piece of fishing line hanging in the same dang place, but now the water is up so I can't reach it to get it down ?

I wasn't debating it, just getting clarification and saying I was doubtful. I will definitely give it a try. I've read the advice here many times before, and I always assumed it was for mono and fluoro, and that being dragged in the water was part of it. I'm going to have to wait for my line to get twisted again though. I had just finished untwisting it using my method before I made this post. That's what gave me the incentive ?

When he said "under pressure", I assumed he meant like with the line tied to something while reeling in. So you guys are saying you've done this successfully with braid?

That makes no sense to me. Not saying you're wrong, but I don't see the difference between that and say, casting out a really heavy lure and retrieving it, like a big spinnerbait. The same goes for holding the line between your fingers while reeling in. It helps, but it's not going to undo the twist. At least in my mind anyway. I could be wrong, because I've never tried it. And I've never tried it because it doesn't make sense to me.

My understanding is line always twists in the same direction. According to the link that @georgeyew provided, that direction is clockwise. I'm using braid, and when it gets twisted enough, you can actually see it. When I start getting wind knots, it's obviously twisted. Sometimes the line will twist up when slack. So when it doesn't do those things, it's untwisted. I guess there is a danger in that you could go too far counter-twisting, but it's probably something you would learn eventually. But they spin in either direction, so I don't think that would work. Not really a good option when using soft baits.

I don't have a boat, so that's not an option. I have a way to untwist line, but it's time-consuming. It's kind of hard to explain too. It works well though. This seemed like an easy solution, so I figured there's probably a reason it wouldn't work.