Tokyo Tony

I haven't yet, but I definitely want to get into that this year. Maybe moreso on little lakes, but I have a couple spots on the Farmington River, CT, where the smallies are just waiting for me to get my fly gear together ;D

Cheap beer, and what I drink 90% of the time: Miller Lite, bottle. Otherwise it's usually a variety of Sam Adams (Octoberfest, Winter, Summer, or just the standard Boston), or whatever the house brew is. I like to experiment. With beer, that is. If I could find it in the States all I would drink would be Imperial, the Costa Rican national beer. Man is that stuff delicious.

To add to the great list above... This year I've been messing around with inline spinners a lot, and it's a heck of a lot of fun when you're just going shorefishing for an hour or two. Buy a variety pack of Blue Fox flash inline spinners, size 1 (I prefer the flat body, not the round body) - they come out to about a buck a piece, and are easily the best inline spinners I've used. They cast amazingly well, and you won't get any line twist at all, I promise. Don't expect to catch huge bass, but don't think you won't either - I've caught some unexpectedly large fish on this tiny lure You'll catch anything and everything in the pond from big bluegills to crappies to perch to bass and anything else. They're a tremendous bait for rivers too if you have any in the area. For even more fun, use them with a light or ultralite setup.

This has become one of my go-to baits when I'm fishing lily pads (the others being hollow body frogs, plastic toads, flukes, senkos and kreatures). I'm talking about the largest size blade dancer that has a skirt and weedguard. I don't think it's too well-suited for open water fishing only because you have to work it too slowly to be able to cover much water. In the pads (and slop) though, it's a fantastic bait. You can work it over them and when you hit a gap, just let it flutter down, then work it up to the pads, over them, and let it flutter once you reach the edge. It's very weedless and also casts well. You guys are right though, pay attention to the hook.

That's a great color, but the paint chips off so fast it's ridiculous. I have two in that color, and there's almost no blue/black left on the sides. They still work, and I still use them, but I just think they could do much much better with durability.

Check out Ghost Minnow too - that's one of my favorites, if not my very favorite. It's very subtle, and my go-to color pattern on tough days. (awesome color for trout too)

That's a great achievement there, congratulations!

Wait until around the full moon periods in June and July. August is ok but they usually kill the grass by then. Fish late afternoon and as long through the night as you can. Thanks man, I will do that. I absolutely love night fishing, so I can go out, catch the dusk bite, and fish til like midnight or something. Sounds like a good Friday night Especially with my super secret magic night fishing bait.

Beatiful fish Mike (I finally visited this site from home where photobucket isn't restricted ) That was a tough day for us, couldn't find anything really. Did you guys have electronics on your rig or were you just estimating? I really want to go back there and give the place a fair shot. Congrats

It's a HUGE reservoir, and no inflatables allowed. $30 to rent a jonboat. Do a google search, you'll find everything you need. To fish it well you'll need a depthfinder. I fished it a week ago with cigarlover, definitely not an easy body of water to fish, especially without electronics. I can confirm that there are big smallies in there - ask Mass Hole Mike or cigarlover Good luck!

any of you guys fish Colbrook River Lake up in that general area? It looks like there could be some prime smallie fishing there, but I only fished it from shore on Saturday. I was trout fishing the Farmington and decided to head up to take a few casts. 10 trout in about an hour on a little jerkbait, but no bass to be seen. Still need to get out on East Twin :-/

If you try this on your pond, I guarantee you'll catch some fish, although I can't promise any size to them: Yamamoto mini craw (I think it's like 3 inches long), pumpkinseed, 2/0 or 3/0 EWG hook, t-rigged. Cast it onto the edge of the pad field (outside, deeper edge if possible), pull it off the pads and let it sink. If nothing hits it on the fall, reel in and repeat. Do this on any of the different contours of the pad bed if possible (points, coves, openings, holes, etc.). Good luck!

I like fishing alone because I always catch tons of huge fish, as far as anyone else knows

When I shorefish (which is often - almost everyday after work) I usually take one spinning rig (braid - longer casts, stronger, more sensitive, etc.) and a backpack. In the backpack I have one tacklebox with hooks, weights, and an assortment of lures for that particular body of water during that particular time of year, and in the outside pocket I have several bags of plastics (and a scale, camera, pliers, leader material, etc.). From one pond to another, and during different times of the year, the lures in my shorefishing backpack change a lot. For example, on one body of water in early spring I'll never be caught without a clown color X-Rap, but wouldn't even consider a toad. Two months later, the X-Rap is at home and the backpack is full of toads I think for the beginner shorefisherman, always have Senkos, a variety of other plastics, some inline spinners, maybe a Jitterbug or two, and some other stuff, depending on the body of water. More important than lure selection, I think, is to keep it simple and don't take too much crap 8-)

That's how I bought mine - Gambler had a deal: buy a swim jig, as they called it, get two bags of plastics free, so I bought a few. I like their plastics, but their chatterbait imitation leaves a lot to be desired (why do you think it was on clearance?). And I respectfully disagree with you about being able to fish it more slowly with better action.

That is a Gambler head, and I don't think that will work. The Gambler heads are poorly designed and you have to use a steady retrieve at a certain speed to keep the blade working. I tried putting a superfluke on the back of one of their heads and it just didn't work - couldn't even get a consistent action. By far the best heads designed are still the original Chatterbaits. You can work them more slowly and also faster than any other brand, and they're the most weedless. Although I have to admit I haven't tried the Karu brand yet...they look good. The strike king brand is pretty good, but still not as good as the original.

I think the wide spools look kind of silly. I would stay away from the ones made by U.S Reel Company. There was one on display at Cabela's and it was all out of whack - gears grinding etc. I told the rep they should take it off display because it was a huge turnoff...and it would cause posts like this :

It's more expensive Seriously though, I'm not sure. I can't imagine the Cumara or the Carrot are as nice, but I'm sure it's a matter of opinion. I have read posts on here saying the Carrot is lighter and more sensitive than the GLX, so I'm sure whoever wrote that would say the Carrot is better than the IMX.

Cool thanks for the info. I don't think the north end of the lake should be too choppy unless it's blowing from the south, and I'll just be shorefishing. Definitely first on the list is jerkbaits. I have a feeling I won't need much else, but of course, I'll be equipped 8-) It would be cool to catch trout, smallies, largies, and pike in the same place.

Wow, great report and fish bassectomy ;D Like Mike said, you should try to make it to the Quabbin Saturday.

I'll be there! Sharing a rental boat with cigarlover, we've figured out the details, but we just need to know what time to be there. Holy crap, I can't freakin' wait 8-)

I agree, they're tremendous baits. My brother used them pretty much non-stop this spring and had a lot of luck. One technique you might want to try, especially on windless days, is fishing it kind of like a frog. Cast it out and work it really slowly with twitches, pauses, cranks, etc. Sometimes if nothing else works, that is too much for the fish to resist. On an almost unrelated note: my brother lost a Mann's in a small pond we fish and we couldn't retrieve it. Two weeks later I was messing around with a Blue Fox inline spinner, blind casting, and I snagged it - now it's in my tackle box ;D . What are the chances?

My favorite search bait is a jerkbait (X-Rap or Lucky Craft Pointer), but you could also try a lipless crankbait, a regular crankbait, or a spinnerbait. Early and late you could use a topwater too.

Fished that pond right across from Wheeler Dam on Saturday from shore and got 7 smallies over about 3 hours. It was slow at times, but I found a school and caught 6 fish in less than an hour. Man, it was awesome to finally catch smallies again ;D All were caught on jerkbaits - I'll post a report in the smallie section once I get the pictures developed. Oh, and 4 of the fish were females full of eggs.

Hey guys, a buddy of mine is getting married July 26th, so I'll be staying at a hotel right on Seneca Lake (NW corner) for a few days. Anyone know anything about the lake? From what I've found online, it seems like a great fishery, both for trout (Rainbow and Lake), and bass (SMB and LMB). I'm wondering if it is at all possible to fish the lake from shore. It looks like there are some great spots around the hotel, and the smallies should be up in the shallows. There are some rocky breakwalls/piers (can't tell which from the images), and it looks like I can walk all the way out to the end. The north end of the lake should be pretty calm as long as there's not a southerly wind. Trolling for trout doesn't appeal to me at all, and all of the charters I've found seem like their target is lake trout. Any and all info is appreciated