osummerer23

Not fishing in general, but what and how I fish yes. Used to be bass only, then that went completely away for 4 years. Was only doing saltwater and some creek adventures. It doesn't help almost all of the lakes around me, the very few suck (yay NJ). My saving grace is I had a major attitude change, and trying to have more fun. Lake Champlain is my saving grace trip I take every year.

Great lure to give a newer fisherman. 1/4oz black, far cast, let it hit bottom and then a slow steady retrieve. Small mouth love it. I'd guess closest thing is a leech. I also drift these in 1/8oz for river smallies and have caught a lot of trout on accident too.

With all the cold water talk, I highly recommend doing a controlled swim when water is below 40. I also duck hunt and i'm on the water as much as during the warmer months. You do not want your first time in cold water to be at 5am in the dark wading, paddling, boating in. Having the exposure in a controlled environment and being able to tread, breathe and react will add minutes. Check your local charities, lots of polar plunges going on now. I'd also recommend keeping a dry bag handy. Sweat pants, sweat shirt, water bottle/protein bar, fire starter/matches, survival blanket and paracord.

I usually follow tournament rules and if the big motors on, life jacket is on, and always connected to the kill switch. NJ recently added 2 laws. 1. Kill switch must be attached if on plane. Makes sense, i like it. 2. Life jackets must be worn from Nov 1 - May 1. That I don't like, and I feel is a huge over reach.

Launching in salt water, the ramp sees lots of bigger boats, and bigger brain moments. Especially when the tide and wind are moving also. My favorite story is I pull up to the ramp, 3 stereotypical new yorker guys with a brand new truck and 30ft center console are staging their boat. They can barely hear each other over the music. I launch my boat, park the truck and get back to the boat. Do my last check, engine's idling nice and pull away. They start driving towards the ramp. I get out in the bay after a 3 mile drive, start fluke fishing. Time goes buy, i finish my limit with a 3rd keeper fluke and start prepping the boat to go back in. I Can hear the music coming, and the engines roaring, here come the guys from the ramp, doing 55mph through a slow speed zone under a train bridge. Took them over an hour and a half to launch and get out to the bay. I've had the displeasure of watching them trying to load the same boat also on other days. They sure do give boating licenses to anyone.

I have some old rebel lures when the confederate flag was on box. I still use them for stripers in early march. But that's about it.

I agree with all the above. Ratings are a guide, and differ from company to company. Personally, I prefer slower rods. I use a MM for jerkbaits and crankbaits. I think fast action for jerkbaits doesn't bend enough, i throw them on 10lb test. If going finesse, i'll throw smaller 1/4oz jerkbaits on 6 or 8lb fluro leader on spinning gear. Rod is an xfast wallye rod, but has a good give to it. Setting drag properly also greatly helps. Even saltwater, I like slow surf rods, and I use MM or MH Mod for bucktailing for fluke in < 20fow.

I need some more chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, and some megabass mag drafts. Going to give musky fishing a try, but going to use my striper gear. I have 8 plano boxes, I thought I was getting out of hand.

Second outing after nicely rigging my portable jon boat panoptix, shocked to see how much pan fish are around in lakes, found some bigger marks and bounced a blade bait off bottom to my first largemouth of the year.

I just spent $1540 out the door and got a brand new garmin 93sv and pantoptix lvs32 kit from cabelas on Monday. I think the best deals come in the off season, not when demand is high.

They seem very fragile lately, I had a st croix break below the reel seat cork. How does a rod break 7" from the butt? when casting no less?

I get made fun of sometimes, but I throw a lot of them. And they do suck, same with 'jawbone' that dicks sells. But I only buy certain types. Those hollow body frogs are great, it's a frog, it floats (sometimes), bend out the hooks a tad for better hook up. When they start to sink or the skirt rips out, just throw it away. I also buy the jawbone red squarebills, I throw them deep into cover and dont care if I loose 5 in a day. There are plenty of lures that you can't skimp on, IMHO. Spooks either heddon or yo zuri. The kvd and bomber do not work right. Jerkbaits being another one. Some rat L traps dont run true. In line spinners that dont spin unless you reel very fast (usually the small 1/32 or 1/16 trout ones).

Not from shore, but from boat, I haven't put the jig rod down this summer. I've caught fish on jigs, but never consistent. Most times it was on a 1/8 or 3/16 bitsy bug, spinning finesse presentation. Never had good luck with 1/2-1oz jigs and bait caster. Could fish with brush hogs or christie critters, but add a jig head and skirt and I never got bit. Spinner bait too. Last year I caught 99% of my fish on jerkbait, ned, and spooks.

Lots of regulars at the docks must think im the worst fisherman to exists, especially for how often im out. The answer is always, a slow day with very little bites. And I never ask what they are using. Then you get a vibe from the same type of people and ask, shallow or deep? Moving or dragging bottom. 2 sentence reports are worth more than dock talk most days. Always friendly and willing to take their advice on great spots they used to fish, 20-40 years ago, followed by, what's the limit now a days. And being shocked it so low and then 'back in my day we would keep 100 a day'. Gee... thanks mister. (regards to eating fish, saltwater, walleye, crappie etc.)

I brought one, threw it for < 10 casts and had a pike tear it up. Shoved a bunch of super glue in the teeth wounds. Only to catch another pike shortly after. At this point, I might as well throw it in my saltwater box for blue fish.

Well... fished thrusday, friday saturday. Wednesday was supposed to arrive at 9am but showed up at 9pm due to truck issues. Never found the mega wad, and was a slow consistent pick. Thrusday was Dillenback bay - city ledge - province point ledge and all areas inbetween. Saw water temps around 58-60, was excited and threw a jerkbait till my arm was going to fall off, long story short, never caught a fish on it. Ned in green pumpking and 2.8 keitchs, and 2 smallies on a spook at 9pm. Friday was east side of Missisquoi bay, check spots from previous years, but water wasn't high enough, fished the point in the middle chatterbaits, keitechs, spinner baits, and it only produced pike, but kept the rods bent with cookie cutter 27-30" fish. Saw bait getting worked, produced 2 smallies and then fished shallow warm mud and dabbled with the largemouth for a while. Saturday, started in missisquoi shallow again, then caught a few pike when things got slow, and then ledge on the east side had smallmouth eating a keitech, turned out to be on beds, messed with them for a little and then headed back for dinner and then went out to carry bay to finish up. Not the numbers Im used to catching at champlain, but fish were of decent size. Dad got pb largemouth at 5.4lb and I may have broke 5lb on smallmouth... batteries were dead on the scale, should have changed them before the trip, so im assuming being excited it and no scale it was probably 4 and change. A great trip non the less, and I may stick to summer time fishing there, it's hard to breakdown the lake for 3-5 days in the spring when they can be doing a whole number of things or even just moody. Summer time, deep water and hungry fish seems more consistent.

Becoming a good angler ruined fishing for me. Went from a bobber and a worm happy with whatever bit, to throwing lures (you'll never catch on that was a common thing heard) and then actually understanding why fish do things. . . somedays. . . Then I wasn't satisfied if I caught 10 fish and none weighed over 2 lbs, or a slow day with 2 bites. I wouldn't even bring plastics with me because it's a boring way to fish. (Or throw shads, jigging spoons, or troll for saltwater stripers, or use SP minnows unless to salvage a skunk). Im trying to back down and fish for fun this year is my goal. Doing more freshwater, tossing a ned rig, or using a cheater spoon for stripers, taking more newbies and sharing the experience than fishing solo. Last week we were fishing gin clear deep water around 60* and the ned was working, but every 20 minutes I found myself picking up the jerkbait and using it for 10-20 min with no bites, then going back to the ned and catching fish. 12 fish on ned, and a few missed bites, 1 missed bite on a jerkbait and I was disappointed they weren't crushing a jerkbait. Like most on this forum, we probably catch way more fish that the average joe, the old saying 10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish, and were excited enough to be on a forum reading, writing, sharing, when we aren't on the water. Im trying to fish the moment and fish what the fish want, not what I want them to bite on, barring swim shads and trolling for stripers.

Just what I was hoping to hear. Boat is getting a once over this weekend and packed and will be driving up Wednesday morning. Weather looks good, fresh assortment of jerkbaits ready for war.

Super glue and barrel type plastic holders. I dont like the "L" type plastic holders.

If your running zman elaztec, my friends and I hate the thin wire zman neds with the L weed guard on the back. We prefer thicker wire ned hooks and barrel lure keepers (and a dab of super glue). Trokar 3/0 flipping hooks and honeslty what ever is on sale 5/0 and 3/0 ewg plastic hooks. I think I have mostly Bass pro, $4.99 for 25 pack, price year round. I also use the 5/0 for salt water stripers sluggos and I dont have them bend out on fish up to 35#. 30# leader, 40#braid. Owner mosquito hook size 1 for waky and drop shot

Not the single wire weed guards, but on jigs with multi plastic one, I cut on an angle to the barb of the hook. When I get snagged, it seems to wrap around the stick instead of the hook getting stuck.

Hey everyone, Anyone have any insight on Lake Champlain's water temps and how it's fishing? I cant find any research buoys tracking water temp or wind speed anymore. I'm interested in the inland sea and Missisquoi bay areas in particular. Or if anyone has a link to water temp monitoring, it would be greatly appreciated. I heard it was a late ice out this year.

Technically that's what Vermont says too, but on their eregulations. . . Im a person who uses steel shot for small game, and I guess it time to transition from lead to tungsten, just very expensive for things I purposely toss into cover with light line. Good thing I don't use many sinkers anyway. Not worth the hassle if I get check by a warden. regulation book Lead Sinkers It is illegal to sell, offer for sale, or use a lead sinker in Vermont. “Sinker” means any device that weighs one-half ounce or less and is attached to a fishing line for the purpose of sinking the line, and does not include other lead fishing-related items such as weighted fly line, lead-core fishing line, downrigger cannonballs, weighted flies, lures, spoons, or jig heads. VS law (Cite as: 10 V.S.A. § 4615) § 4615. Lead sinkers; sales prohibited It is unlawful to sell or offer for sale a lead sinker in the State of Vermont. In this section, “sinker” means any device which weighs one-half ounce or less and is attached to a fishing line for the purpose of sinking the line, and does not include other lead fishing-related items such as weighted fly line, lead-core fishing line, downrigger cannon balls, weighted flies, lures, spoons, or jig heads. (Added 2003, No. 137 (Adj. Sess.), § 2, eff. Jan. 1, 2006.)

I only recently started using tungsten, as Vermont doesn't allow lead under 1/2oz. I use bullet's in 3/16. That's it. Did have to buy 3/16 drop shot weights, which I feel are a waste, but I only bought 1 pack of 10 for the 1 week I fish VT a year. I hardly ever fish plastics that's not on a jig, ned, chatterbait.

My goal started early in February before saltwater stripers started on March 1... Have more fun. I was getting to tied up in catching fish a certain way, a certain size/amount/pattern or it wasn't fun. I have invited more people out to have a good time on the water, I still catch fish, still wont throw a shad for stripers or live bait. Fresh water, I have fished the lakes I hate near by, impromptu trolled for stocked trout, had a fun day with crappie in a kayak with 2 buddies in their kayaks (I dislike kayak fishing very much). Things I would not have done last year. Headed to Champlain in a month, I swore I had a 100 fish day last year, I need to buy a counter, but this year, id like a whole mess of smallies with my dad.