Fishes in trees

Before you sink a lot of money into different rigs, do your research. There is an abundance of articles on different tactics on this site. That is a place to start. Read Buck Perry, Charlie Brewer, and the various In-Fisherman books on fishing strategies. Then you will have more information to decide on what type of rigs to get for your particular situation, and what you might want as you branch out to different fishing situations.

I don't want to do that again. Back in the day, when I was a meat fishing bush hippie, I only had one rod & reel for a long time. I learned to "make do", but over time, as I acquired different rigs for different purposes, I became convinced that multiple rigs for different fishing approaches was the best & easiest approach for me. Of course, back in the day, I was more of a multi-species fisherman, I wanted whatever I could get to bite, so my second and third rigs that I acquired were catfish rigs and then a couple of pan fish rigs before I ever got a second bass outfit. Of course there was some cross over with these rigs, but not a lot. When I first got access to different boats, one of my first purchases was a heavy duty portable rod holder. The first decent bluegill that I caught would get suspended a foot or so underneath a bobber and dragged behind my boat as I bass fished. There are many farm ponds in Missouri where the apex predator is not a bass, rather it is an 8 to 15 lb channel cat. Boy, do I digress or what? Anyway, to answer the question, I don't want to go fishing with just one rod & reel if I don't have to. I like going in my own boat where I have access to15 or 20 different rigs, so I can fish how I want to that day. If I get to go fish out of somebody else's boat, I will still take 5 or 6 rods.

I recently shipped a rod from my house (outside of Kansas City) to Spirit Lake, Iowa. I didn't have a cardboard tube, so I made a shipping tube out of PVC Pipe. 8' of 3" Schedule 40 pipe wonn't fit in my commuter vehicle, so I had to cut it in half and get a part to mate it back together. Anyway, less than $20 for a heavy duty, nearly uncrushable rod tube. Post office wanted $41 to ship it (insured). They said because it was an odd ball length it cost more. UPS shipped it for $14. It got there OK. Strangely enough, even though I asked them to ship me my new rod back in the same tube, my new rod arrived packaged in a card board tube. Someone in the Fenwick customer service department is the proud owner of an 8' heavy duty rod tube made out of 3" schedule 40 plastic pipe. . . . Oh well. . . . On a positive note, I am now the proud owner of a new Fenwick Aetos 7'9" Heavy Action rod. It is ounces lighter than my current A-rig & Frog rod.

I found a container of Wet Wipes to be more multi-functional than a roll of TP, but there is enough storage in my boat that I carry both, several containers of both, really. When you come across a fellow angler "caught short" you just want to throw him a roll of tp and be done with it, and NOT be worried about running out yourself later.

I can't help it, I'll shop them all, and I'll buy from all of them. I think that here in the KC Metro area we are blessed, with 2 BPS stores, 1 Cabelas, multiple Dicks outlets and an outstanding independent tackle store (Rogers Lures in Liberty, MO). Together they keep each other fairly honest, price wise. At different points during the year, each one of them have decent sales.

There are lots of different ways to fish trees, depending on where in the trees you think that the fish are located. Lots of good suggestions so far. Let me offer some of my own. Where in the trees? On the edges? In the crown? Next to major branches? On the bottom next to the tree? How deep is the water and how much of the tree is under water? How old is the lake? (A middle aged lake or older probably has quite a bit of wood cover strewn along the bottom. What is your water color? ( The most accurate way to determine this is with a secchi disc) Throwing a Timber Tiger DC 16 on fairly stout 12 or 14 lb line is a good way to cover water and maybe get a better idea on where & how exactly the fish were relating to the trees on any particular day. Basically you have just got to start experimenting & finding what you are comfortable with

I always carry both kinds, an extendable pole and a plug knocker. Both have paid for themselves several times over.

Over the past month, my best bait has been my home made jika rigs (roughly + or - 1/2 oz in weight) combined with some soft plastic, ZOOM Brush Hogs and YUM Zellemanders have worked the best.

If you want a Shimano reel that casts great, gets better with age, built like a tank, relatively easy to do minor maintenance on, and will last you a LIFETIME - get a Calcutta.

That issue flares up with me from time to time. Much of the time, it is due to poor mechanics, i.e. a perfectly smooth and executed pitch hurts much less than a herby-jerky, too much of a wrist snap kind of motion. Some of the time, it is due to equipment, i.e. when I have lost a few baits, and cut off some line due to abrasion, and so forth, I have to give pitches a little more muscle to achieve the same distance, and that will occasionally turn on the elbow pain. I've bitched to my doctor about this and he basically said, "tough", you've got other, more pressing health issues. So, when it flares up, I've got a fore arm brace he told me to wear. I keep a bottle of those 12 hour Alieve tablets in the tow vehicle and while driving to the lake, eat one with a cup of coffee and it lasts throughout the day, for the most part. For most reaction bait tactics, like cranks, spinnerbaits, swim baits, I use two hand casting techniques most of the time (when I remember, and it only takes one or two elbow twinges to not forget) For pitching, and other soft plastic techniques, I use the lightest rods and reels that I can afford, I keep the reels topped off with line and I pay alot of attention to smooth technique. I know it sounds weird, but even on days when my elbow is throbbing, perfect technique hurts alot less than a hasty, herby-jerky pitch. Like I said earlier, eating an Alieve first thing in the morning helps a lot. I am pretty certain that icing down your elbow first thing after you were finished fishing for the day would help also, but who does that? Something to consider.

I think that using snap swivels, for bass fishing, is more trouble than it is worth the vast majority of the time. Ball bearing snap swivels, with a locking snap attatched to in-line spinners are a singular exception.

You're not saying what kind of gear you're using. Baitcasting? Spinning? Spin-casting? Makes a difference what kind of answer you're going to get.

Could be technique, maybe a little herky-jerky, not smooth enough. Could be the rod, I've never been a fan of fiberglass crankbait rods, I think that they are too heavy. More than likely though, it is the line, try new line. I use 10 lb Trilene Armor Coated for throwing deep diving cranks. Good luck.

You fish them like you would any other creature bait.. I've had some success lately fishing a Tilapia colored one on a home made jika rig, on deep weedlines 10-15 feet down, slightly above the thermocline.

I use stickers. lb test, brand & date go on the sticker. Sticker goes on the reel. Sticker occasionally falls off. Oh well, try to remember until you can make a new sticker or re-fill the reel, whichever comes first.

I've got a 2002 Lowe W 180. Any Lowe Stinger, from 2000 to 2004 or so (prior to being made out of lighter weight aluminum) will be made like a tank. I routinely drive over/slide off stumps that make buddies who own lesser tin boats cringe. The down side of that series, is that dry storage kind of sucks and nothing is lockable. It is very comparable to an Express in terms of sturdiness, not so much in terms of well thought out storage. New, it was $6000 or so cheaper than a comparable Express.

My current favorite bait is my home made jika rigs/ baited with a brush hog or a zellemander lizard. Month of July stats are as follows. 4 July trips. Jika rig - 17 keepers (15" and up, largest a 21" 5 lb or so fish) and an additional 40 or so slot fish (12" to 15") All other rigs, (deep & shallow cranks, spinner baits, chatter baits, Eakins Jig, tx rigged senko, wacky rigged senko, rattle trap type bait) 40 or so slot fish, 1 keeper (17" on tx rigged senko) My home made jika rigs weigh out from 13 to 17 grams, which is roughly 3.8 to 5/8 oz. All the keeper fish came from 10 to 17 feet of water. The majority of the slot fish were a little shallower.

I'm just thinking that one of those cheap rolling luggage carry on bags would solve your storage/mobility issues. I emphasize cheap because I think that if you are doing any serious bank fishing, hiking back into gnarly stuff, you will tear it up in a season or two.

I would start with whatever color you've got that kind of matches whatever local forage there is. Day in and day out, most of the spinner bait fish I catch happen when I am "slow rolling". I know that phrase means different things to different people, here is what it means to me. I am trying to parallel the bottom, however deep that bottom is. ( I very seldom fish this way more than 7 or 8 feet deep, if the fish are deeper, I feel other presentations are better) When I am slow rolling, I want to occasionally tick whatever cover/structure is on the bottom. If I never touch anything, I am going too fast. If I am frequently getting hung up, I am going too slow. I generally throw half ounce spinner baits on 17 or 20 lb line. It is a touch thing that you have to get dialed in on during any particular day. I will throw a colorado/willow combination or a single spin colorado blade, but I don't think that matters a whole lot, the more stained the water the more likely I am to go with a single colorado blade, but like I said, I don't think blade style matters that much. If the fish are on a slow rolling bite, they will hit whatever bait you present.

Throwing jerkbaits in stained water, which has a considerable amount of snags, from the bank, is asking for it. You are going to lose some baits. It is inevitable. Don't throw $15 pointers, throw cheaper Rogues, or red fins or something similar. Just my opinion. If I had to fish jerkbaits from the bank around snags, I would try to stack the deck in my favor. One, I would use spinning gear with 30 lb braid or so. Two, I would go with stock hooks or down grade to lighter wire trebles, so that when I got stuck I would have a chance of bending the hook and getting my bait back. Three, a cheap set of waders or hip boots would get you off the bank a little bit and make it easier to parallel the shore. Stick to your seasonal patterns, for me, here in Missouri, jerk baits are more of an early spring/fall thing. Middle of summer - not so much. Now that I think of it, I don't think that I would ever fish a hard jerk bait from the bank around cover, because as I think more about it, there are much better alternatives. A sluggo or a tx rigged senko or senko imitation will accomplish pretty much the same presentation with much less opportunities for getting snagged. Now that I've thought some more about it, the only hard bait that I would ever fish from the bank would be a spinner bait, maybe as a last resort a rattle trap type bait with stock, easily bendable hooks. Now, if I absolutely had to throw a crank/jerk bait in snag infested water from the bank, I would at least run a spinner bait through the water a few times to get an idea of where the snags were. Back in the day, when I was a bank bound hippie meat fisherman, my day in, day out, lure of choice was a 1/8 or 3/16 finesse jig with some sort of pork trailer - the split tail eel being my favorite, and the twin tail being a close second. If it is your primary bait, and you are keeping it wet all the time, pork is a great bait. It can dry out, so if you are changing baits often it isn't a good choice. Again, just my opinions.

Everyone has to answer that question for themselves. Me, I bring all the stuff. I bring 20 rods, more or less. I bring "plenty" of hard baits, soft baits & terminal tackle. Too much stuff is when it don't fit in the tow vehicle or boat anymore. If on the rare occasion someone is going fishing with me, I cut down some.

Currently I use a Calcutta GTB for A-rigs / Frogs / swim baits. When I get a spare $250, I am going to get a Curado 300 E, just because I think it is a cooler reel.

First, I don't think that color matters all that much on these baits. I think that with the noise and the action of these baits, fish will feel then long before they see them. I normally fish these baits fairly quickly, pulled over the top of shallow to medium depth (7-8 feet or so) vegetation. OK now, given the notion that I don't think that color matters very much, and given the fact that I've got lots of different colors of these baits, how come I almost always have something shiny tied on? Beats me. Anyway, that's what I think about trap style baits.

I generally throw half ounce spinnerbaits, basically because I get better distance with them, and I don't think that going significantly smaller would increase my getting bit all that much. I generally throw spinnerbaits in and around cover and brush. I like abrasion resistant mono line between 17 and 20 lb, (Walmart line close outs happen every January and I buy enough then to cover me for a year or more) Currently I am using Trilene XL armor coated. It is suspiciously similar to the old Berkley Iron Silk. I primarily use the heavier line just to avoid losing lures and I haven't found that lighter line significantly generates more strikes.

I wouldn't give 2 cents for a worm binder anymore. From experience, I can say that the plastic bags last maybe a year or so and before that they get so that they don't seal totally. Worm binders are more trouble than they are worth. My advice is to keep all your plastics in the bags that they came in. Keep them kind of together by putting them inside a gallon zip lock bag. When the gallon zip lock bag fails (and it will) get another bag, you're out 13 cents or so. Really though, I'm not one to talk about tackle organization, because my approach is to bring everything. I stop when I start tripping over stuff in the boat. I generally carry a couple of gym bags full of soft plastics, kind of organized by type in various zip lock bags.