Fishes in trees

Back when I had my pond boat ( a 10' Water Buster, traded away in 2002), that a foot control trolling motor was available for my boat I would have had one. Just saying. . . .

Most of my reels that are more than 8 years old are in the "retired" category. I have a couple of Calcutta reels that were new 15 years ago that are still on the traveling team and see regular duty. This past year, my Curado 50's have seen the most use, basically because this year I've focused mostly on jika rig fishing & bubba drop shot fishing.

It must be a great feeling to have a "complete" rod arsenal. My rod arsenal count would be somewhere upwards of 40 and it is no where near "complete" We're just talking bass fishing. If the subject becomes "multi species", then there are some more rigs that must be considered. Quite a bit of my lighter bass tackle can substitute for walleye fishing. But then there is drift fishing for trout on Taneycomo, Pond/ lake catfishing gear. MO river catfishing gear. . .fly rods . . . I personally haven't gotten into snagging gear for spoonbills, but there is another gear area to cover. I know several crappie fishermen, who are as anal about their crappie gear as I am about bass gear. 20 different rods to cover different aspects of crappie fishing isn't out of line. . . . .and then you have to consider all the reels that are totally necessary for all these rods, some overlap is allowed . . . . . I'm just trying to help, so I hope I've helped define what is and what ain't a rod arsenal.

I'm not a big fan of trailer hooks. It seems where I fish the incidence of increased snags versus increased bites isn't worth it. For me, I use a spinner bait in pretty much the same water conditions that I use a square bill. 3 to 7 feet of water, moderate cover/structure and a secchi disc reading of 4 or less. The past few years, I have been choosing a square bill over a spinnerbait. No real reason except I think I have a better chance at bigger fish using a square bill. I agree mostly with the notion that to find a spinner bait bite , you have to commit to a spinnerbait for a period of time, just that over the past few years I've had issues doing that. I come upon an area that I would consider prime spinner bait territory, 4 or 5 casts, if no takers the jika rod or bubba drop shot rod is back in my hand. This has been a year where soft plastics and diligence have caught me more keepers than cover the water search baits.

The go to bait for me this summer was a home made jika rig (roughly 1/2 oz) and a creature bait.

I like spinning gear for jerk baits, basically because when the jerkbait bite is on it is generally windy and for me it is easier to deal with spinning gear in the wind. I am currently using a 6'3" med action spinning rod. I know that a longer rod will give me more distance. A longer rod will also slap the side of the boat every time I jerk, if I'm not careful and I am often not careful. My current line choice is 14 lb Fireline crystal and a 2 or 3 foot fluorocarbon leader, generally 15 lb or so. The cool thing about the Fireline crystal is that once you get to the depth you want, you can let it go slack and it will function kind of like a strike indicator like you'd use for trout fishing. I know dozens of times when I got the pointer down to 5 or 6 feet, let the line go slack, wait 20 seconds or so, the line jumps and you tighten up on a fish. Never felt the strike at all.

I'll use a ball bearing swivel on Carolina rigs & jigging spoons, like a Dixie Jet. Not a big fan of snaps of any sort and as long as I can tie a decent knot, I probably won't be. With my stubby little fingers, I find it harder to close the snap than it is to tie a knot anyway.

I gave up trying to explain my fishing addictions years ago. Over time, it became obvious to me that it was a waste of my time trying to explain my fishing addictions to folks who basically, didn't give a d**n. A nosy psychiatrist would question why you feel the need to explain addictions that are, for the most part, harmless. (this being said, I have numerous friends/ acquaintances who are on their 2nd or 3rd wives and fishing had a part in that) Perhaps the best answer would be one similar to the one Louis Armstrong gave when he was asked "What is jazz?" His reply was, "If you've got to ask, then you'll never know." I think it is just that simple.

I don't throw a carolina rig very much. That being said, there are some times when the Carolina rig presentation is the ticket and I found I got bit more when I used a 7' MH spinning rod and 20 lb Firelline rather than a bait casting set up. Can't explain why, I just do. I can set the hook at the middle of a fairly long cast with reasonable expectations of sticking the fish.

Scratches & scrapes are battle scars, if you want to avoid them, just don't drive your boat where you are likely to get them. If your boat is currently leaking, that is a different story. It occurs to me that 6 months or so ago I read a thread about welding ABS plastic. I couldn't tell you if it was on this forum or on the tin boats forum. From what I recall, it seemed like a pain. Surface preparation was critical and you actually spent more time preparing the surface than you did welding it. Search welding plastic and see what you come up with and if nothing comes up here, go over to the tin boats site.

Speaking of fishing stereotypes, I need a better type of stereo for when I go fishing and want to listen to a ball game or whatever. My current 90's era boom box produces a loud hum whenever I am running the trolling motor, then the instant I get off the motor the hum, disappears. This isn't a major problem, but I am going to solve it before next summer. Sorry I hijacked the thread with a really lame joke.

I don't think that a separate forum for bank fishermen is a bad idea. Granted, you probably don't want to have a forum for every sub-genre out there, but I think that there are enough bank fishermen on this site that have questions pertaining to bank fishing that probably a separate forum would work..

It has been a while since I fished hair jigs very much. When I did fish them quite a bit (early to mid 80's) my favorite trailer was an Uncle Josh pork bait, either a split tail eel or a twin tail. If I were fishing somewhere and hair jigs were the ticket, that is where I'd start as far as trailers go.

Like several others here, I've got several different suits that I wear according to the weather. Warmer weather = Frogg Toggs. Early spring & later fall = Cabelas Guide Wear. I've got an older, more mid-range weather wise suit from 10X that I wear from time to time. I don't wear it that often because it is a jacket & pants suit and I like the bibs & jacket suits better. The important point here though, is to get you a set. Trying to fish when you're cold & wet isn't any fun and you will probably get sick.

I've had several issues with joining a local bass club. One, they can be cliquish. Guys can be more interested in taking a few dollars off of each other than any actual learning going on. In this situation, you are just considered a donator. Secondly, local bass clubs can get stagnant, skill wise. The last time I participated in any local bass club event was 1991 or 92. It was pretty evident after a couple of events, that all that anyone in the club ever did was ride around and throw at the bank. I knew how to throw at the bank. I interested in learning other techniques, fishing open water, using electronics, fishing in "space", so to speak. I quickly found that the local club wasn't the place to learn that. Next there was the finance issue. As a no-boater, I figured out pretty quick that aside from a slightly higher entry fee, travel expenses were the same, be it a local club tournament or a more regional event like BFL So I decided to spend my fishing dollars in a venue where there was more opportunity to learn something - and the potential payout was greater. I hope your club experiences are different. I hope you get in with a great group of guys and experience years of friendship & fishing skills improvement. All I know is that didn't happen for me. The BFL became for me a more regional club, where I saw the same group of guys, more or less a half dozen times per year. I also bought a boat and spent a lot of time learning/experimenting by myself. As a postscript, since I bought the boat I've been invited to rejoin the same bass club several times, my answer has always been the same, .i.e. Thank you, I'm flattered you asked, but I'm really too busy right now to fit that into my schedule. Maybe next year. Let me reiterate that this was a local bass club with no regional or national affiliations. Joining a bass club with BASS or FLW affiliations could be a different experience. Not one available in my immediate area. Just my opinions. . . .

The fish are still in the water, as long as the water isn't frozen over, you can go, in my opinion. You might want to carry several sets of gloves. Me, I have a pair of neoprene gloves, a pair of fingerless neoprene gloves, a pair of polar fleece gloves and a pair of wool fingerless gloves. You might want a heavy duty pair of mittens for when you're driving the boat. Hand warmers come in handy. The point is, a long as the water isn't frozen over, you can fish. Just gear up appropriately.

Not so, especially when you are fishing by yourself, a net can be a challenge to stow & deploy. I carry a hibernet in my boat. It is a handy tool and works great when there are two guys on board. Good luck trying to deploy the hibernet when you've got a decent fish on. Other nets may be easier to deploy, but more of a pain stowing them, yet keeping them available when needed. It is a compromise that every boater has to work out for themselves. Me, I found a gripper, similar to a bota grip only it is 30" long. I use it on all fish that are too large to swing into the boat. Just work the fish to the boat, get it to the surface with its mouth open and then deploy the gripper. Sometimes, the fish are reluctant to cooperate, but once the gripper is locked on to the fish, it isn't going anywhere. The few times I've encountered fish with teeth, ( not a common occurence in Missouri ) the gripper has come in handy.

I have a couple of the US Reels 230 & 240 sized Supercasters spinning reels and they work ok for me. I got them because the price was right (around $40) and I don't demand a whole lot out of my spinning reels. The drags on the US Reels really don't compare to the drags on any of the Shimano reels I own, but that hasn't been a problem. I keep the drags set pretty light most of the time anyway.

No brainer. You should buy both rods. You can't have too many rods.

I have the Cabelas Guidewear Gortex suit and at the time I got it, that suit and the BPS 100 MPH suit were within $20 of each other. The Cabelas suit just jfit me better than the similar sized BPS suit. At the time, Cabelas offered the choice of a parka style jacket or a shorter bomber style. I went with the shorter jacket, because the bibs did an ok job of covering my lower back and I didn't need the extra length that was in the parks. I would really recommend trying them both on and checking the fit. Be sure to wear similar clothes underneath it to what you will be wearing when you are fishing. In reality, I have several different sets of rain wear. A lighter weight, older 10X suit, frogg togs, and the Guidewear. I carry most of them in my truck and make gear decisions based on that the weather will be like that day. Another thing to be aware of in both the BPS 100 MPH suit and the Guidewear is that they have so many pockets that you can forget which pocket you used for what. If you are carrying candy bars in your coat pocket, be sure to put them inside a zip lock bag. Just saying . . . .

Keep the soft plastics in their original packages. Keep similar baits grouped together in gallon zip lock bags (the heavier freezer bags, not the regular ones) Find some kind of bag to keep the different gallon bags in. Walmart sells them, or a gym bag of some kind, or a mesh bag or whatever. If you are really stuck for cash, go to a goodwill/Salvation Army store and find the largest womens purse you can find. That will surely hold 6 or 7 or 10 or more gallon zip lock bags. The womens purse angle had the added advantage of no one else will want to be seen with it, so the odds of it getting stolen go way down.

Just returned yesterday evening from my Truman Lake trip. Hadn't been on Truman since last year. It is a pretty lake this time of year. 3 days of pre- fishing. Didn't catch very many fish, but it was great going fishing and knowing that I didn't have to go to work the next day. All the COE ramps were closed - government shut down - gotta love that. One day i ran from Long Shoal Marina to past Berry Bend & back. A little over 40 miles round trip. When I gassed up at Caseys at the end of the day I had to put 4 3/4 gallons into the tank. More evidence that Yamaha 100 HP 4 stroke motors are gas misers. Anyway, day of tournament I drew a recently retired career army vet who had recently completed PTSD counseling. Didn't have a clue on how to fish other than some distant childhood memories using a Zebco. SE, we turned the day into a casting lesson day. Using good spinning equipment ( provided by me ) he learned to throw deep diving cranks, by the end of the day he was getting similar distance to what I get out of the same equipment. Using a different rig, he learned how to pitch jigs using 30 lb braid. Overhead/side arm casts were ok, pitching was still a work in progress at the end of the day. We spend about an hour drop shot fishiing deeper humps for white bass/wipers, but no luck there. Overall, we caught a few fish here and there, no keepers. The point of this outing isn't really to catch a bunch of fish, it is to give some vet/active duty soldier a day out on the water just to chill out. That got accomplished Overall the event this year had 138 boats, up some from last year, organizers said that they plan to get bigger next year. Overall I drove home feeling that I had spend a few vacation days ( and some gas money & motel room money ) on a good cause, and I most likely will participate in the event next year and I would encourage other area boaters to participate. A fancy bass boat isn't required. A boat that is pretty much safe on Truman Lake is. My LOWE WF 180 worked great. For a complete report, go to the Leavenworth Bass Club pages and look at all the pages they got on Fishing for Freedom. In another aside, after I got down to Truman, on Friday evening, I got invited to a BBQ sponsored by members of a different regional fishing website and around 35 different boaters showed up. Only a handful of them knew each other prior to this event. It was kind of eye opening how after a half an hour or so, guys were talking to each other like they were long time pals. Made me say , "huh?" Anyone who is looking for a fall fishing trip, this event is scheduled for the same time each year, the weekend prior to Columbus Day. I'd recommend it.

Try the Falcon weedless K Wacky hooks. They are available in 3/0 and 6/0 sizes. I mostly use the 3/0 size with a 1/16 oz weight molded on to the hook shank. I am out of the 6/0 or that is what I'd use.

I've done best using fluke style baits on spinning gear. Specifically using 14 or 20 lb Crystal Fireline and a 1 to 2 foot fluorocarbon leader The white color of the line shows up exceptionally well against the water and acts like a strike indicator. You can fish the bait on a totally slack line and instantly know when you get bit. Then tighten up ASAP and set the hook. No matter what you do, you are going to miss fish from time to time fishing dropping baits on a slack line, but this system has worked the best for fluke style baits for me.

You can find football or wedge shaped shakey head jigs that work better in rocks than regular round heads. I like the Chompers ones, but there are others that work also.