thunderstruck

Very nice fish! I have never tried fishing with sunfish fry in my neighborhoods private pond, but I have been hearing that it works well. I live in CT, and here there is no minimum length or daily creel limit for panfish (yellow perch, bullhead, and sunfish). My dad has a minnow trap and I assume it's legal to use fish caught in there, so I went to the DEP (Dept. of Envi. Protection) and I can use any of the fish I catch in there as long as they are within the regulation limits. Well, I'm off to use some sunfish, glad to hear you caught you biggest bass yet, too. Recently, on my 4 acre pond I caught a 16 inch smallie =D.

How was the fight? I've never caught a koi, but I really want to at least see on in real life some day. Try some pet stores, that is a valuable fish.

I have never gone fishing for pike, but my dad has. I asked him what typed of poles he used and I was astonished with his answer. He used his ocean fishing poles, and even caught a northern pike on a deep sea pole. He has a picture with a 54 in. pike he caught once, if I find the picture, I'll post it. But most likely it is packed away in a suitcase full of them.

Hey Islanndbass, my mom would LOVE to have that in the fish tank! Haha, what did he catch it on. I'd most likely guess worm, but I cought a .5 lb bluegill on a tiny torpedo.

I live on a small pond too, but not that small. When I go fishing, I usually bring an extra pole and put a worm and a bobber on it. After an hour, I see what hit the worms, and what hit the other bait I used (senkos in your case). Then I would use that to see where fish seem to be hanging out at that time of day and be prepared tomorrow!

Put my sunglasses on, turn my iPod on, put a worm on a bobber, wish myself some luck, and be glad I didn't catch a sunfish 8-). "Better a bad day of fishing than a good day of work"

I'm not very experienced, but by far my most successfull bait is slug-go's. Single tail 3-4" grubs do well for me, too. I live on a smallie pond, so my situation might be a little different, but if you findlily pads, they are perfect spots for smallies. Tiny Torpedoes and hula poppers also trigger the smallies here. I use Trilene 10 lb test because I can't stand losing lures and smallies seem more aggressive than attemptive. Hope I helped and good luck!

Wow, I have a couple of those baits in my tacklebox that my dad handed down to me. And I have that exact black and yellow one. Never figured out how to fish it right, but now that I hear that it works, I am going to go play around in my neighborhood pond.

With four years of having to fish for either smallies or sunfish, my favorite bait has been Slug-go minnows. The hook size varies by the size of the bait, but I find a hook that is 1/3 the length of most rubber minnows is fine. You don't really need to use a Texas rig, because you most likely won't be casting very far. My best advice is to look in the soft plastics section when fishing for smallies. They aren't extremely precautious, but they aren't stupid either. Anything that is showy and moves like an injured minnow/grub/snake etc. is fine. But be careful not to have too much action. Phoebes also work but I tend to get more pickerel than smallies with those. Spinnerbaits also work well, and there is a lot of customization to do with them, too. Soft plastics are the best, in my opion though. I feel like I outsmarted the fish when I customize baits.

I am very accustomed to bass fishing and know what to use and when to use it for smallies at my pond and cor calico's (even though they strike, for me, pretty randomly). I live near a pond called Bull Pond, so I can only assume that it's got Bullheads. I really want to know the technique, time of day, bait, scent of bait, display of bait, area casted in (weeds, etc), waiting time (even though I am patient, I want to make sure something stole my bait and I'm sitting there looking stupid), and sun position. I found that they come out at night and like chicken livers, but that's it. I'm not really familiar with fishing lingo because I only just started to take fishing a little seriously. Any help would be appreciated!