MGF

I have a Zman elazteck paddletail on a rubber skirted archy head jig. It's been on there for weeks and hasn't melted anything yet. BTW, I've caught a lot of small mouth on it which is why it's still tied on.

I'm in norther Indiana and I only catch a hand full of 20+ inch bass in a season. I'm mostly catching small mouth in the Tippecanoe but the lake large mouth I catch locally aren't any bigger. So far this year I've caught only one bass over 20 and it was a little over 21. I don't carry a scale so I can't say for certain what it weighed. My PB is about 22 for large mouth and small mouth. Over the course of a year I catch a bunch that are 18 ish. Yesterday I got 4 that were all about 16. It looked like I was catching the same fish over and over. That's not a really big fish but in the warming river they sure do fight.

I've been fishing a weightless TR trick work without a swivel and I haven't had any line twist issues. I tie hooks into creme worms and I usually use a snap swivel on those.

I've only used the Rapala line and I came to them by accident. When I fist moved here and started fishing my river I lost a lot of tackle to the rocks. I had some floating Rapalas so I tried them and I caught a lot of fish. I used to use a lot of count-downs in the Arkansas rivers for trout so I gave them a try to get below the surface and I caught lots of fish on them. My wife went to the store to restock and came home with some x-raps. We've caught a lot of fish on a-raps and husky jerks since then but I kind of got away from them because I lost so many to pike.

I know that I can't predict when they'll work and when they won't. One sunny hot day last August my son and I took a river trip. I started with a whopper plopper and figure I'd switch when they quit hitting it. I caught fish on it all day and never did throw anything else. I've picked one up a few times this year and not a single bite so far. Now that the river is comming down and clearing up I think that'll change, I should have tried it yesterday but I got on a tube bite and I couldn't put it down. LOL

I've used the 1 or 1/0 mosquito, drop shot and even circle hooks. Hook-up percentage is about perfect. I bought some of those 1/0 VMC weedless wacky hooks and I think I lost just about every single fish that ever hit it. The two packs I have are sitting right here on the end table where I tossed them 2 or 3 years back. I'll never use them again. If the cover is too heavy for an exposed hook I just go to a different presentation.

Black has been one of my best jig colors. A little bit of blue in the skirt doesn't seem to hurt anything. If it has too much blue?...forget it.

Yes. I mostly fish a river that doesn't have too much in the way of weeds. My favorite "swim" jig is an archy head. I swim it, bounce it, drag it or whatever else seems like it will work. I don't know if it's better for swimming but it's more versatile.

I've been fishing the ned rig a bunch for a couple of years but I don't know what I know. LOL I mostly fish the river for small mouth. I do catch more fish on it when the water is clear and low...but I catch more fish on everything when the water is clear and low. I want to say that I do better with baits that displace more water when it's high and dark...a swim type jig or even a bladed jig or even a tube. The two baits that saved my earlier season outings were a Texas rigged tube and an archy head jig with a paddle or structure bug trailer. On those outings I didn't catch anything on the ned but I wouldn't claim my "test" to be statistically valid. In the last week or so the water has been dropping like a rock and clearing up. The other afternoon I did real well on a ned, a "tiny child" and...a 2 1/2 inch tube with a little ball head stuffed inside of it.

I've used the circle hooks quite a bit mostly because that's what I started finding in the store. They work well enough but I started snelling them. I caught fish on them both ways but I think they work better with a snell knot.

Hey a question from a northern Indiana guy. What type of lakes/rivers are you fishing that you can see so many bass? I guess I've done very little "sight fishing".

Me too. I've had my best frog fishing in the heat of the day when the fish are under matted weeds. If you're walking a frog in open water it might be best during low light.

The thread kind of died. Too bad because I was to talk about the rig. So yesterday I finally gave it a good shot on the river. My wife was throwing the 1/20 oz ned and I started with the IKE vmc neko hok, a trd and a screw in weight. It was 1/16 but I cut off the pointy nose. I was getting a lot of bites but not hooking much. We had a bit of a cold front and they were biting funny...some nice bass felt like little bluegill bites or something and most of the time they were just balling the trd up on the bottom of the hook. After a while I swapped the neko hook out for a size 1 Gamakatsu EWG. I got more bites and caught more fish than my wife (with the ned) but I fish harder than she does and I usually catch more. I'd say that it produces at least as well as the ned (at least on that day) but I couldn't get along with the neko hook. Maybe I was doing something wrong? I was using a 2 1/2 inch tube as a pinch hitter and that produced about as well. I didn't feel so many of those really "light" bites but I caught as many fish. For what it's worth I think my biggest bass (not very big) came on the tube.

I haven't really tried it yet. I bought some size 1 VMC Ike approved neko hooks cuz Ike said that's the right hook. LOL. I also got some size 1 Gamakatsu worm hooks (didn't have any that small). Last week I fished some different ned jigs. We caught the fish on the zman 1/20 oz. and it didn't hang up bad at all. I also had some Flatlands 1/16 oz ned...the wide gap hook job. Believe it or not I was getting hung pretty bad. I didn't lose it but it was grabbing weeds or something and I bent it up pretty good. I didn't catch any fish either. My wife hit a couple on the 1/20 zman so I switched. I thought it was going to be the cats meow but it didn't work that way. In our river the 1/20 usually seems just about right. It slides down with the current just ticking the bottom lightly here and there...and catches fish. But they do get hung some and the hooks don't stand up to much bending before they break. So here's a related question. Do you think that size 1 neko hook is ridiculously small for a 6" zoom trick worm? If so what about the smaller zoom finesse worm? I've seen guys put a larger worm on a small ned jig. I just don't know how well it actually works.

Yes. I experiment with new methods and baits in order to expand the number of things that I have confidence in. Once I have some success with a technique, I have another tool in the box that I can deploy with confidence. I don't have a bait that's a "crutch" bait but I do have some that I have more fun throwing than others...especially when I can't get bit on anything. I can have lots of fun throwing and skipping a jig even without the fish. LOL

I used to do a lot of cave diving in Florida. There are a lot of eels in some of the cave systems (and associated springs). They would come out into the spring basin at night and the recreational divers would hand feed them hot dogs and stuff.

You can also just use some fairly heavy mono or flouro and tie a uni-knot around the hook shank and slide it up tight under the trailer. I'm a skipping fanatic and I have a bunch of jigs that don't have any keeper at all. The uni-knot trick keeps the trailer on while I skip and bounce that jig all over the place. I almost like it better than the wire keepers because it doesn't tear the plastic up.

I've been trying to fall in love with night fishing my whole life...which is getting to be a fairly long time. So far no luck.

I've gone into the water for lures more times than I can count. Money doesn't have much to do with it. I don't do anything that I'd consider dangerous and I don't want to blow out a spot that's producing. Given the right situation and conditions, I go get it. Oh, somebody mentioned swim goggles. Don't dive below the surface while wearing them. You'll get your eye squeezed. Probably just a blood shot eye but if you go too deep it could be a serious injury. You have to use a mask that allows you to blow air into it as you dive deeper (your nose has to be in the mask). As the air in the mask compresses and the mask is sucked into your face, you simply blow some air into it through your nose. That keeps your eyeballs from being sucked out of your head. LOL

They're doing the same thing is cars. I'm convinced that we're living through the zombie Apocalypse. Folks have their phones constantly in their face and they know what's going on all over the world via social media. They just don't know where they are or what they're doing.

I think a "finesse" bait is one designed to be presented with finesse. A nearly do-nothing presentation of a NED or a wacky rigged stick bait is certainly what I would consider finesse. But, if it bothers you, I'm sorry. LOL Oh and I would be fishing except for my wife has me working...but I got a moment to check in here because I sent her to the hardware store.

LOL, I wouldn't know.

Me too...I don't know but I've caught a bunch of carp on jigs. For whatever reason the jigs I caught the most on were the old yellow marabou jigs I used to get. I found one of those jigs with a really dull hook the other day in an old tackle box. I kept it for a pattern. I might try my hand at tying some.

I've only fished the river so far this year. It's been high, fast and a little dirty. The fishing has been tough but I caught a few really nice small mouth...for here. Everything has come on a jig or a t-rigged tube. The jig that's done the best is an old archy head with just the right combination of black and blue with a little z-man paddle-tail for a trailer. It's a silver/black with blue flake kind of color. That archy head jig with the z-man plastic stands up perfectly every time. Sometimes I swim it and sometimes I put it on the bottom. When I get convinced that the fish want it on the bottom, I switch to the t-rig tube because it's easier to keep down. My wife and I have thrown other things but it didn't do us any good though I'm sure there are lots of things that would catch fish if you stuck with it.

Just goes to show...different strokes for different folks. I've caught an awful lot of fish on the dingers. Every place I fish is heavily pressured. I tried some senkos because I heard how much better they were. I don't think I caught anything on the whole pack...fight the stupid 0-rings and having baits fall off the hook. I went back to the dingers.