Leaderboard

Hey if you like us here, please like us on Facebook! Click the Facebook logo in my sig to go to our Facebook page. Thanks!

Jigs Frogs Buzzbaits / Chatterbaits How I store my plastics An example of what's inside each bin

Don't be silly, you need a variety of sizes.

Alright Shimmy I'll share a little bit about jerkbaits. First of all my jerkbait fishing evolved around pike fishing. Big predators. My favorite jerkbaits were made out of wood or plastic & weighed about an ounce to 2.5 oz. . I would practice jerk bait strokes along side the boat to see what kind of action I could delvelop with each bait. Some baits would dart 90 degrees to either side like a walk the dog motion but under water. Other baits would glide forward or sideways & some rare baits would almost turn around like in your face mr pike. Hard violent jerks or strokes would elevate the motions. Then you have to incorporate a pause period or let the bait rest. Usually the baits will get eaten while your pausing or just as you start your next movement. Remember jerk baits work on all species. Now to jerkbaits for smallies. Typically when you first start fishing you use a search bait until you find fish unless you know exactly where they are. Then once you find fish you switch to your favorite presentation. I fish big water with lots of suspended fish spread over lots of rock structure. I seldom find lots of big fish in a small area. So my approach is to cover water with a jerkbait as my search bait until I find some big girls. Once we find them we work over the area. We put in waypoints when we get bit so we can revist each spot. When drifting on lake erie the waves cause the boat to surge & pause just like a jerked bait does when you are working it. Boat motion adds motion to your baits. I always prefer to drift downwind with the wind hitting my stern. I work one rod while i dead stick a second rod in a rod holder. When my forward progress is between .3 to 1.0 mile an hour drifting with the wind at my back it all works. Most of the time my worked rod out fishes the dead stick 3 to 1. But sometimes the dead stick rod is extremely effective all by its self because the boat is working the bait. This tells me to slow down the worked rod. This approach also allows you to run a deep diver suspending jerkbait while you are running a shallow suspending bait. Then you can decide to use all deep or all shallow baits depending upon the conditions. My prespawn smallie fishing is between upper 30 degrees to 65 degrrees surface temps. The colder the water the more subtle the action. As the water warms I use more erratic movements. I also select baits with more subtle action for cold water & more erratic action for warming water. You have to learn the action of each style bait you use and develop an understanding of what works best for the conditions you are facing. Colder water with poor visibility finds me using loud colors with subtle action & loud rattles. Warmer water with good visibility finds me using subtle natural colors with more erratic action and softer rattles. Smallmouth bass are extremely curious about noise & erratic action. Remember that statement. Your jerkbait represents a dying bait fish to a smallie if properly worked. Smallies will come up thru the water column to hit a jerkbait. How far they will travel depends upon water visibility & sound. When I can see the bottom in 15 feet of water I will not hesitate to work jerkbaits out to 30 feet. I try to use a bait that will get down to the depth I want to fish based on overall water depth & visibility. If your marking fish or marking bait you can key into that depth. My jerkbait inventory covers baits that run from 2 feet down to baits that run 20-22 feet down. Now I can fish jerkbaits effectively in forty feet of water with good visibility. Since i'm fishing relatively open waters I use ten pound braid with a leader on spinning tackle. And I use ten or twenty pound braid with a leader on casting tackle. The thin braid adds up to five feet of extra depth on the baits. Now when casting jerkbaits your depth is based on the bait, line diameter & the length of your cast. Maximum depth on most baits is increased by letting out more line up to around 200 some feet with diving bills. So I run my baits back from the boat about two to three cast lengths to achieve more depth when needed. This also allows you a more stealthy approach. I find that smallies move during the day between deeper water to shallower water based upon changing conditions. So I try to target different depths until I can observe a pattern of where they will be. I do not limit myself to just one manufacture of jerkbaits. I find that on some days a particular bait from one manufcture will out preform all others. Especially on a tough bite day. So I carry about four different manufactures jerkbaits. Now within just one manufactures line of jerkbaits there can be five or six completely different baits by action, size, depth, sound, suspending, floating or slow sink & tilt. They can all shine based on changing conditions. Generally I prefer suspending jerkbaits with rattles. Then I look for level suspenders, nose down or tail down attitudes. Lucky craft probably covers the most diverse offerings of all jerkbaits manufactures in my experience. Just remember when fishing a jerkbait that you are trying to excite a neutral fish into striking it because it mimics a dying baitfish. The more action you can impart to the bait the more fired up that big smallie gets. It is very similar to teasing a cat with a mouse on a string. Some times they want it barely moving and other times they want it fast and erratic.

Last year I was dock fishing on the Potomac and I slipped off the dock into the shallows, By chance my shin landed on a cement slab underwater. The cement had pencil thick rebar protruding out of it and one of them impaled my shin about an inch and a half deep. I was thrashing underwater as I could not get my leg off the rebar, it must have taken me 15 seconds to rip my shin off the rebar. Adrenaline kept the pain down but it wouldn't stop bleeding. Fixed it up and I kept fishing, now a week later it was healing fine, a nurse looked at it and gave me the thumbs up. Fast forward 3 weeks my left leg ( the one that got injured by rebar ) was 3 times the size of my other leg, I knew something was wrong, I could not stand and when I tried I felt liquid in my entire leg, I went to the ER and it turned out I had gotten MRSA, luckily they were able to save my leg but man.. That was scary.

It's not a scam...they just need your SS#, DOB, address, and your checking/savings account numbers in order to process your prize. Respond with all that info and I'm sure they'll send your gift card right away.

Start with any natural colors. I know people like the blue a lot but for me its always green, brown, green-pumpkin (personal fav) maybe occasional purple. Always like a little red spec in my soft plastics. As for cranks I like the same deal, anything natural. My favorite cranks are ones that resemble sunfish. I may be wrong on some lakes as my boat stays on my dock in Winni all summer but thats just my 2.0. If you go online you can look for ponds that don't allow gas motors if you want to avoid the traffic. If they do allow motors/jetskis/watersports then get out early and beat the rush. You'll have a blast either way. Good Luck

Go for the Gamakatsu value assortment pack. 25 hooks from 1/0 all the way to 5/0. Budget it. Justify spending a few extra dollars to put yourself into a much better position to bring in a lot more fish.

I fish c-rigs a lot. One of my favorite methods to catch fish. I use mostly what are called "walking sinkers". I picked that up from reading forums on C-rigging in very rocky areas. I fish mostly Ozark Mt lakes, which are extremely rocky with no grass, weeds, pads, etc at all. The bullet sinkers get wedged into rock crevices all the time, forcing break offs. That gets time consuming when tying c-rigs. And expensive if you're using tungsten. The walking sinkers still get hung up some, but not as much as bullet sinkers. And they seem to come out much more often. I do use bullet sinkers on weedy lakes, though. Another great thing for c-rigging is these "tackle tamers", so that you can pre-rig a few leaders. I tried to paste in some pictures, but it would not let me "in this community". Don't know why, but you can find both of those items at Cabela's.

Keep the rod you have and spend your money on a baitcasting reel this year, upgrade your rod next year. The Shimano Citica is a great reel in your target pricing range. You should find one NIB for less than $100.

Hmmm Quantum Smoke 7.2:1?

Lol Hun I'm not that smart with reels and rods! Hehehe.

Well, I got to try out the rod for a little bit on Wednesday. It handled all the jerkbaits from a Pointer 78 up to a DD Pointer 100 quite well and paired with the Core 50, I could cast all those baits a mile. What I really like is the recovery the GLX has over some of the other jerkbait rods I have used. Unfortunately, I didn't catch a lot of fish, but there was one 3 pounder that really emphasized why I wanted this rod. I was throwing a DD Pointer 100 in about 11 ft. of water. I had just jerked the bait a few times and was letting it just suspend (I was varying the pause time). I felt the very slightest little tick while pausing the bait and I set the hook. Fish on! This fish fought like crazy (those 2 and 3 pounders think they are 5 pounders) and when I got him close to the boat, I noticed that he was hooked under the jaw with just one hook of the rear treble hooks. I backed off the drag and let him make his explosive runs by the boat that smallmouth are famous for. After a few small runs, I was able to get him into the net. I realized that without the sensitivity in that rod, I would have never felt that really slight tick, which I assume was the fish just lightly mouthing the bait like sluggish and weary smallmouth like to do. Also, with the way that fish fought by the boat and with how barely hooked the fish was, I like to think that the soft action of the rod really helped keeping the fish hooked up. Though it was only one fish (out of the half dozen I caught) that really utilized the features in this rod, I felt a sense of satisfaction and pride in knowing that I probably wouldn't have caught (or even felt) that fish if I hadn't taken the time and money to get what I feel maybe the perfect Lake Erie Prespawn Jerkbait rod. Hopefully, one day that very slight "tick" will turn out to be that 7 pound Smallmouth! Thanks again, Scott! The rod performed better than I expected and it was really comfortable to fish with. I am hoping to get up there one day this week to give it another run and I hope I achieve a little more success than I did last time (those post frontal conditions really tests ones confidence and patience).

Clear lake CA is 38'57" latitude the Mason-Dixon line is 36'30" latitude, making Clear lake over 150 miles north of the north/south dividing line; it's your best choice by far!!......for a northern lake. Tom

No osborn, it's typical But how many did you see who said > live lining a crawler ? If you fish like everyone else, you will catch the kind of fish, that everyone else catches. If that's good enough for you, then by all means. Personally speaking, I've had my best successes, doing what everyone else is not...... Peace, Fish

Fishing IS a blood sport plain and simple. If one cannot handle it,I suggest taking up golf or bowling. Fishing isn't for everyone....plain and simple. 1. Do fish have feelings? The Nirvana song, Something In The Way comes to mind when the songwriter sings: "it's ok to eat fish, cause they don't have feelings". No,they might feel pain,but no feeling. 2. Have you ever had it happen where you were fishing and a fish took your bait AND hook? Yes,it's called a break off. You probably tied a bad knot or had a weak kink in your line. 3. Has anyone ever found out what happens to a fish (any fish) when they take your bait and hook? some survive,some don't. 4. Have you ever been fishing, caught a fish, reeled it in, and could not get the hook out of its mouth? What happened to the fish, assuming your intent was to catch and release? Yes,"gut hooked" this is where your hook is so deep it's almost impossible to remove. This lessen the survival rate. There is a way to remove those deep hooked fish here safely,but even that's tricky and you'll need to gain some experience of doing it. 5. Be objective with this question like I'm trying to be: Is there anything wrong with fishing to where you fish for the fun of it? I know in modern times, people aren't going to fish for sustenance, so is it wrong (by anyone's standards that you know of) to fish for the sport of just fishing alone, while practicing catch and release? Nope,I see nothing wrong with it..assuming you educate yourself in releasing the fish as quickly and carefully as possible. 6. What is animal cruelty, is there a universal definition, and even if there isn't, have you ever been accused of animal cruelty for simply having a nice time fishing while practicing catch and release? What were the reasons behind the person(s) claim that what fishing, while practicing catch and release, is animal cruelty? Some people will say yes, they are just sensitive to all living things. I have another name for them...but I'll refrain from that word and just call them "sensitive people". Catch and keep can also be healthy for a lot of lakes and rivers.You don't want overpopulation to happen either. So in my eyes,Us fishermen are just doing what nature is intended. Afterall we are on top of the food chain. 7. How much time do you have from reeling the fish out of the water until you have to release it so that it can live, and not die while being out of the water? Does it differe from fish to fish? It can differ from fish to fish. but a good rule of thumb is hold your breathe. You want to release the fish as quickly as possible.

2 of the Shimano Sellus, 6'8" medium, fast action dropshot rods. Beautiful looking rod! Well built and it feels great! Have them paired up with presidents.

Well since your new to fishing what I would have in my box to start would be some 3/0 skip gap or EWG hooks and some 5" senkos (rubber worms) black or black/blue. Flip them in the pads or around docks. I also world pick up some crank baits try few different sizes and colors. I could go on about different lures,but this would be a start for you. Try lake potanipo in Brookline NH for a decent place to fish,but go early as the boaters/jet skiers tend to invade that place. Fish the front part first as it gets the most sun. Be very patient as well as the water is still cool and that causes them to be sluggish. Do some research online on how to fish different lures as well. It will help alot. Good luck and welcome to the forums.

Most of my biggest bass have been caught between 10:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. on the hottest, brightest days of the summer. The bass are VERY active during this period, but it's tough to be out there in 100+ temperatures. If you are going to fish during the heat of the day, drink plenty of water!

Better give your gear a rest

same here! Haha.

I practice flipping in my kayak, it can be pretty scary if you panic.

I have seen them up to 12" out of Erie.

Beauties so far. Here a few of my favorites.

Last year i bought a small lure called a Rebel Tad Fry. its a floater/diver and has one small treble hook on it. i must say i had a blast throwing this lure and catching bream. they will hit it on top and will hit it while reeling it in. also caught a few bass on it when i tried it in a pond. its designed to imitate a tadpole...