Big Hands

That is BRUTAL

UPDATE: So, I made a few changes that were suggested and the situation seems to have gotten much better. I did three things: 1) Straight braid to leader (not sure this affected my result, but simplified things for certain) 2) Shortened the leader length a bit now using about 36" to 48". 3) Cranking down on them soon after detecting a strike. 4) Using a sideways sweeping hookset. I think #3 and especially #4 made the biggest difference. Today, and Monday, only missed one strike, and the rest came into the boat for a brief cameo. Thanks all for the suggestions. It's the little details that can make a significant difference.

Supposed to blow hard tomorrow, so I got mine done today. Beautiful morning, caught a couple right away and then blank for three hours, and then three decent fish right around 11, just before the wind arrived. . My jaw will be hanging correctly for tomorrow's activities.

Thanks for joining in gentlemen, that was fun.

Hi Robert. Fellow Castaic angler here. I'm making a return to fishing recently too. The smallmouth have become quite common over the years and they have some pretty good fight in them.

I find lots of variation with the length of a bass. I have had three bass that weighed the same, but were 16.5", 17" and 18" long caught from the same spot on the same day. Some are chunks, and some are hollowed out submarines. If I don't have a scale (I don't have one in my boat), and it's worth measuring, I just measure the length and get it back in the water.

I don't think there is a law in California that says you can't catch a bluegill and reel him in v e r y s l o w l y ?

Been using 'Hot Sauce' for several decades. One bottle lasts for years. I put it on plastics mainly. Certainly doesn't seem to hurt and just a dab'll do ya.

He's a witch, BURN HIM!!!

40 seconds to work a Texas rig per cast is slow? I am probably 2 levels more deliberate than that. I fished a Pro/Am at Lake Mead many years ago as a co-angler, and the thing I remember most about my first day partner was that he was going so fast down the shoreline that my bait didn't have time to get to the 20' to 40' depths we were fishing before my bait hit bottom, it was already behind the boat and dragging through the water. I have no idea how he expected either of us to catch a fish like that, so it was no surprise we blanked. My other recollection of that day was that we were blasting across the lake at 60 mph and my genuine authentic Ranger Boats hat blew off of my head. He saw it out of the corner of his eye and said "Was that your hat?" I said "Yep", and I thought, oh cool, we'll circle around to get it. NOPE, he just kept it matted and headed to wherever he was going. Lesson learned, LOL. At any rate, I would call my style 'deliberate'. If I am going to fish an area, then I am going to work the area. I may or may not be working the bait slowly/quickly, but I am going to work the area deliberately and somewhat thoroughly.

I hope I can start to get on some fish that would warrant that type of rig. Here's a shot of what this 180 surface acre "lake" is capable of. No, that's not me, LOL.

Dick would know as much as anyone. Seemed like his little red/white boat was always out there ;-D Thinking back, I fished for trout in the lagoon back in the 80's using Power Bait with 4' to 5' leaders on 2 lb and 4 lb test to keep the bait up above the weeds and in front of the fish. Do you know if those weed beds die off a bit in the winter, or are they just as tall all year round? I put a little Z-Man TRD on the Carolina rig just for s&g, and caught a bass on the first cast with it. Then nothing for a while. It will work, just not sure it will be better than those Keitech Swing Impact baits. I think the swimming action of the Keitech is a winner.

I remember when I thought a 24" leader on a slipshot/Mojo rig was a loooooong leader. I have become aware that several locals have been using 4' to 5' leaders on the Carolina rigs, and I can't argue that they don't work. Maybe I'll try gradually shortening my leader length to see where the point of diminishing returns lies.

@ WRB: "6# Max is stronger than 6# XL!" Always has been, always will be! I like that the tungsten weights are of a smaller profile for a given weight. Makes me feel like they would pull through the weeds easier. I read or heard somewhere of a guy putting fish attractant on his Carolina sinker to make it pull through weeds easier. I am currently 6'4" (I hope I don't keep shrinking too much more) and even though I am not up on a casting deck, I can still cast a 4'+ leader without it dipping into the water behind me. I do have to watch out for the boat itself if casting parallel to the keel though. @ BlakeMolone: I do have a 7' MH extra fast taper rod that may work a little better. I'll bring it on my next trip and compare. @ papajoe222: Braid to the swivel is as good as done. I think your description of to set the hook, as well as how not to set the hook (I was doing exactly that) are spot on.

@ Mbirdsley: I think that the straight braid to the swivel may be the lowest hanging fruit, and it will simplify the rig. It also eliminates a knot going through the guides. A few times I have had to fight the knot when trying to get fish close enough to net, not to mention the possibilities when casting. @ TnRiver46: Thanks, memes are fun! LOL, I'm older than many grandpas. . . . chronologically speaking anyway. I tried 1/2 ounce weights, and the contact with bottom was much more vague and it felt like I was going up and over the weeds where I think it was better to go though them. I really find (so far) that the 3/4 oz to 1 oz sinkers are working better for me, as I like that they keep my line straighter to where I feel subtle bites and they cast a country mile. @ roadwarrior: Since I am using 3" to 3.5" finesse baits, I'm pretty sure a 3/0 to 5/0 EWG will overwhelm the tiny plastics. I do have a tinier version of an EWG tied up to a backup rig in case I wanted to give it a go, but didn't throw it last time out. I'm honestly kinda shocked that a bass will mouth and play with a plastic bait as long as they have been. It reminds me of fishing with live crawdads where they might smack it against a rock, come back and gum it for a bit, then swim a little ways, pause, and then finally start moving steadily away from the scene of the crime. I will be trying the sweeping hookset, rather than cranking down and trying to cross their eyes :-O @ WRB: Not dragging. Shutting off the electronics and sliding into the spot, and quietly dropping an anchor, and literally not moving again until I'm ready to go home. Fan casting in about a 180° arc and fish are coming from all directions within that arc. Been using a Spro swivel with Trilene XL, in 8 lb and some 6 lb Maxima. Will check out the Sunline Defier. And I'll see if I can set the drag more accurately. I've been 'experimenting' with it and haven't settled on a setting that I like. Could be crappie, but in four trips to the same spot, I haven't hooked one yet. I'll try the immediate reel down and sweep as it seems to be a consensus on that one. @ jbrew73: That's more like my summer night time 10' Power Worm setup. Definitely in on the reel and sweep hookset. Thanks all for the input. The thoughtfulness of the comments is appreciated.

To me, the Sierras feel noticeably better/lighter than the Fury rods and aren't that much more. Great choice IMHO!

If details aren't your thing, you may have stumbled across the wrong thread. I'm more of a 'details matter' type and I don't know how to put this into a 'TL/DR' format, so here goes. . . . I've fished a mojo/slipshot rig for decades and never had this issue. Since I have had pretty good success using that rig for finesse fishing, I never saw the point in going with a Carolina rig as it is a little more complex and not as stealthy. But I recently started fishing the forebay to our local lake, and it's a different animal compared to the upper lake with a general bowl shaped bottom (with some dips and humps) and a fair amount of vegetation (almost all of which doesn't reach the surface) scattered around different portions of the 180 surface acres and is . The upper lake that I have fished for 35+ years is a deep canyon reservoir and completely different. Since I now have a small aluminum boat with a bow mounted trolling motor, I have dedicated myself to learning how to fish this body of water because it is home to a good population of bass, some of which are huge (bigger than most state records). And since it has vegetation present and bait/fish present in the vegetation, I have committed to embracing the vegetation rather than trying to avoid it. A recent pattern that has emerged this fall for me is to fish a Carolina rig with a long leader and smallish minnow/shad type plastics in 25 feet of water. I have experimented with different weights, and have found that a 3/4 to 1 oz weight seems to work best for me. I think that maybe because it tends to keep the bait down rather than crawling up and down the vegetation. So far, my rod/reel of choice has been a baitcaster on a 7'1" heavy (but toward the light side of heavy IMHO) fast taper rod with #30 braid to a short section of 10 lb fluoro where the weight and a bead resides, and a 4' leader of 8 lb mono connected to the main line by a swivel. A 7/7 alberto knot connects the braid, and Palomar knots connect the rest eventually terminating with a #1 or #2 texas rigged Cover Shot hook (nose hooking dropshot style and reeling up into them had even fewer hookups). I am open to going with straight braid to the swivel if tungsten weights don't abrade the line too quickly, or maybe a mono or fluoro main line, but I do love the sensitivity of the braid for feeling my way through the vegetation and detecting bites. And I like the Heavy action rod for popping the bait free from the weeds, but admittedly I could be missing something here too. The issue is that if I don't let the bass run off with a LOT of line, they aren't getting hooked. Very few are being hooked deep, and the few that are, I have been able to get the hook out without damaging the fish (thanks to the 'BR method'). I'm not talking about letting them have a few feet of line, we're talking about 10' to 20' of line and up to 30 seconds or more of them fiddling around with the bait. These are not small fish per se as yesterday I boated 11 fish with the smallest being 13.5" with two 18" fish and two 17" fish, and last week I boated a healthy 22" fish among others. But yesterday, I had nearly twice as many bites that I didn't convert into hookups. And on several of my recent fish, the hook falls out or is barely stuck. Additionally, when I reel down the slack to set the hook, I think the fish are going somewhere other than directly away from me because after I crank down and bust them, it often feel like I missed them until I reel in some more line and find out that they are still there. So, I'm not sure if some part of the rigging/gear is part of the issue, or if it's technique, or both. What could be done to increase the hookup ratio of such a rig? Is this just one of the downsides of fishing a Carolina rig is these conditions?

Straight up H for me (1st liar doesn't stand a chance)

I especially like the Whopper Plopper 90 . It doesn't have a rattle in it, and the prop is relatively small so the disturbance it creates is also relatively small. Seems to be what they prefer when I fish them. The body shapes also vary, some being more streamlined and others with a plumper profile. As for why you are addicted to topwater, that's because it's very exciting to see the strike as well as feel it. If the fish are eating topwater baits, then I would rather fish that way if possible.

The first bass I ever hooked was on one of these in the early 70's. I was fishing at a local golf course lake in the suburbs of Los Angeles. There was a clearing in the reeds about 10 feet wide. I was walking by (taking a break from bluegill fishing) and saw a HUGE bass sunning just a few feet from shore. I ran back to my tackle box and tied on that Creme Scoundrel propeller worm and and ran back to the clearing in the reeds, but the fish was gone. I flung the worm out in the water about ten feet from shore because I didn't know what else to do. As it sat there suspended, the mammoth bass emerged from the tules and slowly swam over to a position just behind the worm and sat there for several seconds. All of a sudden her gills started to flutter and her mouth slowly opened a little. The worm started to vibrate, and then, in a flash, she sucked in so fast, I couldn't believe my eyes. I yanked back on the rod, and I had an angry bass thrashing on the end of a very short leash. The battle lasted about 15 seconds, and she broke both the line, and my heart, but my love of all things fishing immediately had a much narrower focus . I still love all kinds of fishing, but bass fishing is my true passion above all others.

How'd it go today with the guide?

If you're throwing Dark Sleepers, Megabass makes a P-5 model for throwing that bait. If I was going for a high end rig, I would rather it was designed for the type of fishing I do most. Spending big money on a high end 'do-it-all' rig frankly doesn't make sense. Are you going to fish with 10-25 lb test line (with the X-Bites) in park lakes and ponds? Seems like overkill to me.

I had carpal tunnel and tendonitis in the elbow from carrying heavy stuff around improperly as a carpenter. Hurt like hell to cast those silly pistol grip rods we used to fish with. I got 8 cortisone shots before finally going under the knife. Had surgery for both in 1993, and it has been pretty good since then.

The Black Max is still listed on the ABU Garcia website, but is shown to be "out of stock". The Silver Max appears to essentially be a silver colored Black Max with a "rocket cast" button. If you don't care about the "rocket cast" button, you might as well save $10 and get a Black Max. I have recently seen a baitcasting reel listed as a MaxPro that is white that has similar specs to the Pro Max 3, but has white sideplates and knobs, and it is not listed on their website. They do show a MaxPro spinning reel that has a white color scheme. It's possible that they have not recently updated their website to reflect all of the changes to their lineup going forward.