jwo1124

I recently bought my first IM 6 graphite rod. Its a MH Berekly Lighting spinning Rod. I like this rod as it casts very well, and was great sensitivity. I opted for the MH becauses it has a lure rating of 1/4-1 oz, which is optimun bass fishing lure size. I figured I could throw smaller 1/4 oz lures as well as 3/4 and 1 oz lures on the same rod. The only problem I have had is that I lost a couple of fish when tossing a crankbait the other week. I have always heard that you want a softer rod action when fishing trebles hooks becasuse its less likely that you will pull the hooks out of the fishes mouth. I'm not sure if it was just a case of a poor hook set on my part or it was the stiffer faster rod action that casued these fish to get off. Does anyone else fish cranks/jerks/topwaters and other treble hookwed baits on fast action rods and are successful more than most of the time? One more question reguarding fast action rods. DO you need to use larger line to make up for the fact that the rod is going to be less forgiving. In other words, softer rods with more bend will take more of the stress put on by the fish sparing the line of the stress. The fact that fast action rods don't give too much, I have heard that more stress is put on the line. I use 10 lb test which I don;t think anything that swims in the Northeastern ponds will break. But I just wanted clarification on this topic. By the way, has anyone else who owned a Lighting Rod have the front grip break off? Cuz this happened to me and i'm kinda PO'ed. The rod is still in fishiable condition but...It still s.u.c.k.s.

I sent that too soon...I feel that the soft tip would help pick up any light bites since even the softest tap would cause the soft tip to move sending vibrations down the rod, into my hand, letting me know I had a fish biting. Then again, I have notcied that when using uglies I seem to look contact with the lure (which I can feel when fishing the same lure on a seperate rod) in other words can't feel the virbation of the lure, so maybe this is due to lack of sensitivity....I'm confused

I'm a 21 year old who loves to fish no matter what species it is. I'm not a die hard bass fisherman who only fishes bass. I enjoy catching trout and salmon also. I also like casting into the big blue after some striped bass. I don;t see the need to go out and buy specialized gear. I have always found an ugly stik to get the job done with most of the fishing applications I do. I started off shiner fishing for bass, but now I use lures more than live bait. I have found that with most lure the ugly stik will preform well, like when I use spinners, spoons, cranks, jerkbaits, or really any horizontal presentation. When I use it for soft plastics though, I feel the soft tip makes it hard to stay in contact with the bait. I don;t think this really effects the fishing of the lures, except in my head, because Ugly Stiks do have good sensitivity when it comes to bite detection, at least as far as i'm concerened. I couldn;t really tell if I missed a fish's light bite because of lack of sensitivity anyway... My question is, any of you guys use jigs and soft plastic applications on Ugly's and find that the soft action of the tip doesn't get in the way of fishing?

I'm no fishing pro, but I do know that I have read a hundred times that predator game fish will "Actively feed", which means they will go out hunting for food, in low light conditions. This means early morning when they sun is low, late in the day when the sun is low, at night, or on overcast days. This is because fish fear predators such as birds or carvivorous mammals, and during high light periods they feel visible and vulnerable to attack. This is why during blue sky sunny days, fishing cover is essential. Bass will seek out wood or vegatation to hide in, or docks, rockpiles, deeper water(the more water above them means the more light that gets filtered out by that water. This doesn;t mean bass won't feed during these high light times, they will just not be swimming around in search of food. Instead they will find a comfortable safe place and wait for an unsuspecting victim to swim by and they will ambush it and return back to their cover. This is why most people find it harder to catch fish onbright sunny day or high pressure days as they are called(the pressure refers to the barometric pressure, look it up if you dont know about this since it is very important in fish behavior) The fishing is tough because unless you present your bait or lure with in a short distance of the fish, they are not going to venture out very far to attack it in fear of being seen by predators. This is more for shallower water or clear water, since a bass residing in fifteen feet of dirty water isn't nearly as visible to predators since the fifteen feet of dirty water filters out the light with the plankston and dirt matter in the water. Most people think fish avoid the bright sun because they have no eye lids and the sun hurts their eyes. I have read this more than a couple of times, and Bill Dance since this is false, at least for bass. Bass have a dark pigment in their eyes that allow them to see during bright light. I'm guessing this dark pigment acts like sunglasses. The other day I knew since the forcast was for weather in the mid 70's and bright sun my best bite to get a bass was during the first few hours of sun, so around 7 am I started casting from shore and noticed about 50 yards off shore that the bass were busting bait fish on top. It looks like a shotgun blast went off under the water when all the bait fish jump up out of the water to avoid the bass. They were out of the reach of my casts so I just admired the sight and sulked. I went fishless that day. But this is a case of the bass schooling up and activley searching out this school of bait and attacking. You would not see this at noon at the same place on surface, maybe suspended over deeper water or on the bottom in 15 feet. I have always read that fish will be most active within the first few hours after sunrise and first few hours before sun set. This is because the sun is low, and the bass feel safer cruising around outside of their cover. This does not mean that a big bass won't stay hidden during low light areas though, they will just to preserve energy. So don't think during these hours or on overcast days that prime cover spots like docks, lilypads grassbeds and timber/wood won't be holding fish because they will be cruising, they are just more apt to be hanging out a little further off the cover instead of tucked way up in it. Sorry for the wicked long post, but I dind't think I could give a quality response without doing so.

I want to say that I saw this rod, and it isn't special...just a regular Ugly Stik(no modifications as far as I know). I believe that it is a Medium power Ugly stik and if you go to either Cabelas' or Bass Pro's web site you can look up the lure weights for the medium power rod. I am almost positive it is 1/8- 5/8. This is a good range for most fishing since you can use smaller lures around 1/8 ounce and also larger 1/2 lures. Don;t quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that info is true.

I had this same problems the other day. I was fishing the last light of the day fishing a Rebel Pop-R and a 1/8 oz. black Strike King buzzbait. I got two nice hits from smaller bass, one on each lure. I think I was spacing out a little when the first bass hit the popper. It shook the bait after a couple of seconds with the first jump. I completely missed the bass that hit the buzzbait, but I was casting it on a slow action fiberglass rod which doesnt have much hook setting power. Best advice is to get in the "zone" while fishing. COncentrate on what your doing and be ready to set that hook at any time. The first pull or tug of the fish when it bites give the reel a couple cranks and use the rod to tighten the line. Its going to happen though, I even see the pros on tv missing fishing at times. So don't sweat it, but if you continue to miss fish, you should work on the hook setting.

I dont like using Ugly Stiks when casting lures. They are good rods when bait fishing since they have sensitive tips that detect bites and the things wont break unless you catch a whale. But they have horrible "lure feel" meaning when working or retrieving a lure you can;t feel the action/ vibration of the lure at all. Hopefully this isnt the case with the Power Plus. I use a ML fiber glass "Whuppin Stick" which is made by cabelas and for a $20 fiberglass rod it is fairly lite and sensitive when it comes to lure feel as well as bite detection. You should be good with the Power Plus. DOnt buy an ugly stik for lures, if using live bait you cant beat the Ugly. You should prob. go for a 7'6" version for more hook setting power and casting distance. I think I may pick up one of these for a stiper rod since msot of the rapala salt water plugs I am looking at getting are all around 1-2 ounces.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Islandbass makes a point that I was worried about and that was working lures with such a long and heavier rod. About the floating apparatus I was thinking about buying one of those inflatable single man pontoons or float tubes. It would sure be a little bit more expensive buying one of those and a good pair of waders and possibly flippers (I'd feel like a big duck out there) but it could be fun. I guess its all about trial and error...

I found this on Cabela's web site. http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20166-cat20374&id=0006768112353a&navCount=21&podId=0006768&parentId=cat20374&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=IH&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat20374&hasJS=true Its an 11' composite rod that holds reasonable lure sizes. It got a 4.9 out of 5 stars through 14 reviews. Those who are interested check it out. I'm definatley getting one.

I posted pretty much the same idea in another post but it's long and I'm afraid people are not reading it because they don't want to read the whole thing. Anyway, has anyone or does anyone use longer than usual rods for shore fishing for bass? I'm talking about 9-11' rods. I know its not umcommon for cat fishermen or salmon fishers to use rods longer than the usual 6'6"-7'6" rods mainly used, but does anyone use these longer 10' rods for shore fishing to reach fish holding further off shore in deeper water when the usual rods and casts just aren't reaching? I am thinking about buying a Medium power 10' rod which casts 1/2 oz - 2 oz. lures in hopes to reach Bass holding off shore in deeper water. The only thing I'm worried about is that the rods will be too big to correctly work lures. Plus the lure weights are kind of heavy for bass fishing, but I'll only use these longer rods when targeting fish when they are holding off shore.

I do most of my fishing from shore as well. And as I stated in my article posted just above this one...it can be tough. Bass aren't always going to be right off the shore within casting range unless there is prime cover/structure. But most coverable water(the water with in the range of your cast) is not too deep, unless there is a fast drop off. But most banks/shorelines taper off slowly. Chances are you'll be casting into water around 5' -8' deep. Once the strong summer sun comes along in mid summer and roasts the surface water temps in the top of the water column heat up fast causing bass to seek cover(most times in the form of deeper water. I like to think of the saying "the cover of darkness" In this case, the deeper the bass goes, or the more water in between the bass and the sun, the less heat gets through to it. Bass are going to try to aim for water around 70 degrees. Now that seems warm but most pools get up to 80 degrees in the summer and thats still kind of cool to the touch. So when you lean down and feel the water off shore and its warm, chances are its around 80-85. This is the optimum temperature for most sunfish, thats why they are usually the only fish you see in shallow water during summer in ponds. Bass have headed out to find cover/structure in deeper cooler water. But during late srpinf-early summer, mid may-early july when the sun hasn't been too strong for too long and the bass are comfortable in the shallows, I killed them with shallow cranks and topwaters the year. That was at night when bass are roaming away from there sun time hding spots during the daylight. But I have also had a lot of luck with spinnerbaits. As far as a method, start off at a spot that looks good i.e. any cover like lily pads, sticks, trees, a place where a bass can hide. Fan cast around that area, and work the area tight trying to cover all the surface water down to the bottom as Grug said. Make sure that if there is a bass where you are, he'll see that lure. This is going to take patience and will probably annoy you as you will most likely want to just make 4 or 5 casts and move if you don;t get a bite. But sometimes, especially on bright sunny days bass will be TIGHT to cover and won't venture out too far to hit a lure so you'll have to bring the lure to it. Plus don't pass over water just because this are no visible signs of cover above the water. You nver know what lurks below. A spot that could look liek a bad spot because there are no vegatation or wood cover doesn't mean there isn;t such things below the surface of the water floor like a brush pile or an underwater weed bed. Just start of with a topwater lure or a floating minnow and work over as much water as you can. If no luck tie on a lure that will cover a little bit deeper water. Liek ashollw crank, spinnerbait, or a soft jerk bait. If still no luck, try a deeper crank to reach the bottom, or a carolina rig which is prob the best on bottom presentation. You can also try a carolina crankbait rig which I saw Al Lindner the old host of Infisherman using one day which is nothing more than a carolina rig with a shallow running crank or floating minnow bait instead of a plastic. This will present your lure as close to bottom as your leader is. Dont try this around heavy cover though since the trebles will surely get snagged. When you are sure you have fished through as much water as you can, then move down the bank or to another spot and repeat. Fishing can be boring and does take patience, but it pays off big when the boredom of bite-less casts gets interupted by a hungry fish.

This post applies mainly to shore fishermen. More specificaly pond shore fisherman. I'll ecplain later. I am one of the many who love to fish but do not own a boat. I am a full time college student and only work part time making peanuts. I own a 12' aluminum row boat I use to bass fish on a small secluded march pond. Its too light to take on bigger ponds, it just gets blow around. Its ok for trolling though. This leads me to shore fish most of the time, and most of the time I come up empty handed or catch 1 or 2 dink fish. This is due to the fact that if the fish aren't there you can't catch them. Anyway, I came to the conclusion that to be a successful fisherman one needs a boat, bottom line. A boat is the fisherman's best tool. It allows you to cover all the water to get to where the fish are. When shore fishing, if the fish aren't close to shore, tough beans. But with a boat you can get out off the shoreline to that weed bed where they are hanging out. You can still have the occaisonal "good day" fishing from shore during the right time of year when bass (or your selcted species) is drawn to the shallow water for a number of reasons be it spawning, food, specifc temperature. Around where I am from(the north shore of Massachusetts) the Largemouth will be in close to shore late spring and early summer when water temps are right. But once the temps are in the 80's for a couple of weeks straight the ponds I fish heat up fast as the water levels start to drop pushing bass even further out off shore in search for cooler, more comfortable, oxygen richer water. (I'm guessing in lakes, I don;t fish them, that this problem isn't as big since it takes alot more heat to heat up a large lake than a small pond.) Now the bass are not going to zoom out to the middle of the body of water but they will probably be twice as far off shore than they are in late spring/early summer. And they will be in deeper water closer to the bottom, hiding away from the hot sun. This is where my problem is. Most fisherman use rods that are 5'6"-7'6". And this is good when fishing from boats or when the fish are right off the shore. But what happens when the fish push off shore during seasonal migrations, and you can;t get out on a boat? Why not implement some "surf casting"? Now salt water fisherman do this when fishing off of the beach, rocks, piers, jetties or other land structure. Surf rods are usually 10'-14'. I have heard of guys throwing plugs and bait as far as 100 yards...thats 300' off shore! Imagine the fish you could reach when you are stuck on shore? I had an idea today that I should search for a longer rod so I can cast further off shore to reach fish out in deeper water. Does or has anybody done this or seen anyone doing this in freshwater? The biggest rods I have seen on Cabela's so far for freshwater spinning rods is 10'. They are Salmon fishing rods and are medium power 3/8 oz. - 1oz. This would be a great tool to chuck out lures to bass holding in deeper water cover or structure. I usually use a 6'6" rod, so if I use a rod with 3 1/2 extra feet I can get about 50% more distance. (this is an estimate of course but if you do the math...) So if I can cast 75' with a 6'6" rod I should be able to cast an extra 30-40 feet. Thats a big help for the shore fisherman. Today I got up early at 5:15 am drove 20 minutes to a local pond and was shore casting a 1/4 oz. Pop-R popper and a Rapala crankbait. At about 7:15, alittle over an hour from sunrise I saw bait fishing busting the surface trying to escape schoolin bass below. (If you've seen this you know what I mean) This was happening in the middle of the cove where I was fishing about 30' away from where casts were maxing out at. So if I could have had an extra 3 1/2' of rod and a 1/2 -3/4 oz. lure I could have reached these fish and probably other fish staging at the same depth/location/distance of shore as these fish. Instead I was left frustrated and fishless. I know that using such long rods in bass fishing is not main stream and many tournaments don't allow rods over 7'6" I read some where. But for the die hard amateur fisherman without a rule book to follow, a longer rod could mean more fish when casting from shore. I am going to try out this freshwater surf casting and see if my luck changes. I know since the past 6 weeks have been mainly in the 80's the shallow waters of these ponds close to shore are too hot and don't have enough exygen for bigger game fish like bass. That's why you'll only see bait fish, fry, and sunfish(all relatively small) in the shallows in the dog days of summer since they are they only ones able to handle the temps/ oxygen levels. Logically speaking, a 2 lb bass will need 8 times the amount of oxygen as a 4 oz. sunfish. I'm not a biologist so I don;t know the truth to that but you know what I'm getting at. Anyway, anyone whos tried this let me know, and anyone who has the means to try go ahead and give it a shot and let me know. Happy Fishing.

Sort of the same thing happened to me last summer. I was fishigh with my brother and we caught two different bass still digesting an earlier meal. One had a crayfish it its throat and the other had a frog. I not only found this very interesting, but I found it very useful. That day was a very productive summer day when everything along and in the pond seemed active. The dragon flys were a buzz, we saw minnows being chased clean out of the water by hungry bass below. And I found out that the bass at that certain pond liked to dine on crayfish and frogs. Now I hope to get lucky throwing topwater hollow bellied frogs and texas rigged soft plastic craws.

I wouldn't give up on a lure because you have never caught a fish on it. There are more variables that can go into that equation other than the lure being unproductive. For one, you may have never casted that SENKO to a bass... I find senkos to be very productive when wacky rigged. Usually thats what me and my bro throw a lot, and those little pond bass love it. I find senkos to be heavier than my other WAVE brand Tiki Sticks. Even tho I caught a nice 4 pounder last summer on one. (Thats good for northern pond bass) The Tiki sticks float and take too long to sink. The senkos fall faster. I suggest anyone who has given up on senkos give them another try and work them slowlys wacky rigged or even texas or weightless rigged near prime cover. I like a darkish green with flake or a red minnow(Black with a dark pink belly)

I actually had this happen to me twice the other day. I was fishing in a local spot from shore and the bass were actively swimming around...these ones were only about a pound. It was sight fishing which is always fun. I had on eturn it nose up at a tube so I threw a Husky Jerk and twitched it by the bass which got his attention and he followed it but them turned off at the last second. My sincere thought is scent. Fish have an extremely strong sense of smell, I remember Bill Dance saying it is about 10 times stronger than a dogs. The fish may have just smelled something foul on the lure you were using. It could just be that the fish wasn'tin an aggressive mood and was weary coming in on the strike then noticed that the lure wasn't a real prey item. This makes more sense since you said that you were getting hits on topwaters. When the lure is on top of the water, the bass can;t get a good look at it to tell if it is fake or not. I'm betting on the fish saw that your lures were in fact only a lure and not anything a bass wants to eat, and the topwaters you were using took the bass' sight away which kept it from seeing that your lure was only a lure. Hope that makes sense to you.

I was watching the Bass Pro fishing show about 3 or 4 weeks ago...may have been a different show but I wanna say it was the Bass Pro show, and the angler said he uses flouro for just about everything except for topwaters. This is because flourocarbon is the same density as water so it sinks, opposed to mono which wil float, which is needed when working topwaters. With flouro the topwater action would be handicapped. I am no veteran fisherman, I'm 21 and have been into fishing passionately for 9-10 years now. I have always used mono and continue to do so. I used flouro once, it was Berkely Vanish, and it SUCKED with a capital S. It had very poor knot strength and I would break off just rod lifting 1 lb dink bass. My bro even lost which would have ben his nicest bass ever because of the poor knot strength of Vanish.(It sucks when you get the bass right to the boat and it breaks off) I have been reccommended Seagar fluorocarbon by a number of anglers on a striper fishing forum I belonged to. I know alot of bass anglers "push" Vanish, mostly because it is a berkely product and being such a big name in fighing a lot of the guys are prob. sponsered by them and they have to advertise it. But I wouldnt buy it if I were you. I know you said you wanted to try it because of the invisibility and sensitivity, but just know that the extra sensitivity comes from no stretch, so you may lose more fish with fluoro than you would with mono because of this. I have had no reason to switch. I think the only time one would need extreme sensitivity is deeper water jigging/worming which I dont need becuase I mostly bank fish or fish shallow shoreline areas when I take out my jon boat. You might as well put it on one rod for no try it a handful of times out fishing and decide if you want to spool your other reel with it since it is more expensive than mono.

welcome to a new world of fishing. I started bass fishing with shiners too, and still occaisionally use them when I want to have a fun day of fishing with my brother who isn't as into fishing as I am. When fishing with lures you have to get in the zone. Really concentrate on what you are doing and what the lure is doing. My best advice to you is to just do your homework...watching fishing shows on TV is where I learned most of what I know from fishing. Its much better than just reading articles on line or in magizines(which are also good tools you should use) but watching the host of the show actually fish a specific technique is much more usefukl than just reading about how to do it from text. Check out the channel Versus, Sat/Sun mornings are when most of the new shows come on, also on weekday mornings/ Also espn2 has some shows on the weekends, as does Fox Sports Network. So...watch the shows, subscribe to some magizines, and read the articles on bassresource and you will learn ALOT. The second best thing you can do is fish as much as possible and practice with different lures. I once read a Bill Dance article that talked about all the different types of bass lures on the market. He said out of all of them, you only need a few to consistently catch bass. Those 4 were, Jigs, spinnerbaits, Topwaters, and plastic worms. SInce your new to lures, I'd suggest going to a Dick's Sporting goods, if theres not one around go to Wal-Mart but there selection will be less, and get a few topwaters(Poppers, walkers like a "Zara Spook", and weedless frogs) some jigs get 3/8 oz. for a happy medium instead of buying a few of wevery weight. a couple spinnerbaits, and a package of plastic worms the ribbon tail kind 4"-7", you'll need some worm hooks too 2/0 Gamakatsu will be good, and get a package of Yamamoto Senkos with a number 1 (not 1/0) livebait hook the smaller hook just presents a more natural presntation instead of a huge worm hook. Try these lures out and catch some fish. Good Luck.