Fishes in trees

I have a dedicated fishing truck (98 Ford Explorer) and so I keep most of my fishing gear in the truck most of the time. The truck only comes out of the fishing shed when I go fishing. Number of years ago I got a BUNCH of stuff stolen out of my boat, which doesn't have lockable storage. My insurance agent told me that it all would have been covered had it been stolen out of my truck ( which is lockable ) When I go fishing, it takes 20 minutes or so to transfer gear from the truck to the boat, same for taking out and getting ready to leave. It is a compromise I'm willing to make.

Seeking a rig that seems to be best for each bait isn't a function of fortune. More to the point, it is a function of attention to detail AND addiction to purchasing gear AND wanting to get things "right". If I had an addiction to something else, say, booger sugar, at the end of the day all I'd have to show for it would be a runny nose. As it is, I'm addicted to collection fishing gear. It just bugs me when I miss a decent fish and, IMO, that miss was due to an equipment issue on my part - so I carry a wide variety of assorted rigs. For example your choice of jerk bait rig - good rig - wish I had one - I'll put it on my list, not likely to get it any time soon, for a variety of reasons. However, it has been my experience that jerk baits in general, Lucky Craft Pointers, Staysees, Rogues, Excaliber EE Shads, Husky Jerks, Bomber Long A's and I'm certain there are others that I've forgotten, don't throw real well in the wind. I've never gotten on a decent jerk bait bite when it wasn't either kinda or really windy. So I throw spinning gear for jerk baits. Works for me. In the process of determining that spinning gear works for me, over the years I've acquired half a dozen different spinning rigs, from 6' to 7', various actions, as I tried to work out what works best for me. Obviously, everything is a compromise. Rods that are more flexible, I get a little more distance with. Rods with an extra fast tip, seem to give me an advantage when I get bit on the pause, ( which is when I seem to get bit most ) An extra fast tip makes me feel that I can make more subtle twitches. This is my current thinking on jerk bait rigs, which I admit is subject to change. Changing the subject slightly, another reason why I carry an assortment of rigs in the boat to address a variety of situations is that I've been addicted to collecting fishing gear for quite a while now. I'm not hard on my gear, ( I only break one or two rods per year, more or less, it is MUCH harder to break reels), I'm pretty anal about maintaining said gear and over the years I've accumulated stuff. Hope this helps you understand where I'm coming from. You're from KC, at some point we'll probably run into each other at Rogers.

For me, bait casting reels must say Shimano somewhere on the reel. That seems to solve most of the internal discussions of which reel to buy. Back in the day, when I was co-angling in the BFL a pro who I respected quite a bit told me to match up all my reels. The notion being that when I stopped using one and picked up another, the weight of the reel would be the same. I settled on the Calcutta 250 TEGT, and I had 8 of them. As I've gotten older and the weight of the reel has gotten more important as my wrists got sore at the end of the day, I've went to lighter reels, Curado 50's, Chronarchs, other size Curados, that are all a little lighter than the Calcutta.

My response would be that rod & reel combo would work, more or less, kinda. You can throw nearly any bait on nearly any rod & reel combo, but is that the point? What are you going to do if, after a few moments of throwing a jerk bait, you wonder, "Gee, do you suppose a popper might work here?" A few moments later you do, "I wonder about a buzz bait." Are you going to stop and retie each time? I mean, it is your fishing time and you can waste it any way you want, but me, it sincerely bugs me to have to stop and retie when I don't have to. It is to this end that I carry a jerk bait rod, and a popper rod, maybe a spook rod and whatever else bait I think might work that day. Before you think anything, I 'll write it, I have been accused of wasting fishing time by tripping over all the rods & reels spread out over the front deck of the boat. I have wasted time by picking up the wrong rod and, "OH, darn, I wanted the square bill and I picked up the Minus 1." That is wasting fishing time and I live with it and laugh at myself for not remembering my own arrangement system. I'm pretty sure that as I get older that issue will get more pronounced. Even, 3 decades ago, when I was a bank bound, meat fishing, bush hippie, I generally carried 3 or 4 rigs so I could throw a "feel" bait, and a reaction bait and a top water bait without wasting time retying. So that's my current thoughts on multi purpose rigs. Like many of my thoughts, they are subject to change on a whim.

You must have a great brother-in- law to drop $250 on a reel after you've already bought him a jig/frog rod. First - how does a jig/frog rod work? Throwing frogs, you frequently have to throw them a decent distance, often over a hundred feet to cover mats/pads/whatever. Frogs aren't the most aerodynamic of baits, so you need some tip to load the rod and throw the frog, PLUS should you happen to get bit a ways from the boat, you need plenty of back bone on the rod to get the fish up and drag it over the mats OR you got to drive your trolling motor through the mats/pads to go get the fish. To me, a jig rod isn't the same. I like an extra fast tip for maximum sensitivity, and while backbone is important, do you need as much back bone on a jig rod as you do on a frog rod? Maybe do you need more? I don't know - interesting question. Seems to me that a jig/frog rod is a compromise. Are you going to throw alot of frogs and use it for jigs/soft plastics from time to time, or visa versa. The point of the previous paragraph is to address what kind of reel you're going to get for this super brother-in-law. If I'm primarily throwing frogs, a Curado DC is a great choice that addresses many of your concerns. If you're primarily pitching jigs/soft plastics to objects and seldom throwing over 50 feet the DC s overkill - IMO. For pitching /jigging, a Curado K or a 70 or my personal favorite in the same price range, a 50 size Curado or Chronarch is the ticket. I'd be telling said brother-in- law, "Time to start learning how to use your thumb when you pitch." as I presented him with that reel. If I bought that guy the Curado DC, I'd be saying, this is now your spinnerbait/squarebill/chatterbait reel. Go figure out what kind of reel you need for frogging and/or pitching. Changing the subject, again, does your wife have another sister? I'd make a great potential brother in law, in that I already have a decent boat, I know half a dozen good to great places to fish, and I could use another Curado DC.

I guess they work, mainly because other guys on this board say they use them. I think that the premium spinner baits work as well or better. My current faves are War Eagle and Terminators. A couple of years ago I had a day on the Gasconade River in southern Missouri where every time I threw into a current seam with the War Eagle Screaming Eagle spinnerbait (that is the one that is the size of a quarter ounce bait but actually weighs a little over half an ounce), I got bit by a 12" to 17" smallmouth.

The BANG spray scent made by Gambler is pretty slick. Sort the baits into like shapes & colors, put them in gallon zip lock bags ( I like the freezer bags because the plastic is a little heavier ) and hose them down with the spray scent. There are bottled scents that you can get at Walmart that will do the same thing. In the spray oil section at the grocery store, there used to be garlic scented PAM. Haven't seen that for a while, but I thought that was a decent worm scent. If shove comes to push, use olive oil and granulated garlic.

Overthinking? To get a specific rod & reel combo to fish a specific bait? Who does that? Seriously? Just saying, if I had the room in my boat to have a specific rod & reel set up for each bait in my tackle bag, I'd do it. If I could have 4 or 5 rigs for each bait, then I think I'd be better able to address the issue of what bait works best on what rig, and I'd do it. So, the easy answer to this question is I do overthink the rig/bait issue, often, and here's my current thinking on how this applies to throwing wacky stick worms. If I'm going to throw a wacky stick worm - it is going to be a senko. I understand that there are other brands of stick baits and I throw many of them tx rigged, when the situation calls for that, but wacky rigged, I don't think that any other bait matched the flap of the senko on the drop. I often throw the wacky senko on bait casting gear, but that isn't the question here. My current fave for throwing the wacky senko is a 7'MH Fenwick spinning rod/extra fast tip, a 1000 size reel (generally a Pflueger President) and 20 lb braid. I more often than not use a fluorocarbon leader and for this tactic I like the fluorocarbon leader material rather than just some fluorocarbon line. 15 lb seems to be abrasion resistant enough for me and is relatively easy to tie. These past few years, I've been throwing the spinning rig more than the bait caster presentation because it is easier for me to skip the bait with a spinning rig. I know it would skip kinda better with a more forgiving medium action rod, but when I skip the bait next to shore line bushes and into sunken thorn trees, and I get bit, the MH rig seems to give me a better chance of getting the fish out, so I've adapted to skipping with the MH rig when a Medium action is admittedly easier. I generally use an o-ring on the bait, it doesn't seem to matter to me ( both strike wise and percentage of landed fish to fish that bit) if I use one and the hook point and shank are in line with the bait or if I use 2 o-rings crossed over and hook underneath the x, placing the hook at a 90 degree angle to the bait. I prefer the weedless wire spring hooks, specifically the Falcon K wacky weedless hook. I throw the one with the 1/16 oz weight on the hook shaft, mostly because I think that a slightly faster drop helps more often than it hurts. Hope this isn't overthought too much. I have some time off coming up in a couple of days, I'm likely to spend some time in the fishing shed, overthinking stuff some more. I hope I've overthought this particular issue enough, but, you never know and at the end of the day your fishing thoughts in the shed go where your IPA's lead you. Time might tell.

With the exception of half a Zinker Z on a 1/16 oz or so Mushroom head ( classic Ned Rig), stick baits and shakey head jig heads don't seem to work well for me. Once upon a time several years ago a tackle shop near me had a large soft plastic close out. I acquired ( among lots of other stuff ) a dozen bags of YUM forked tail dingers, which seemed at the time to be a great bait to put on a shakey head, what with it would have a little action, different from the trick worms I generally put on shakey heads. Bu the time summer patterns were established that year, evidence showed that forked tail dingers didn't make good shakey head plastics - 3 different colors - several different times - several different jig head designs - fished in areas where jig heads with a trick worm or the Netbait counterpart were working and I couldn't get bit on the forked tail dinger/shakey head combo. This experience quashed my desire to try different stick worms. To be fair, I have put Brush hogs on shakey heads and caught fish, Paca Craws have worked on jig heads for me, Flukes and other similar baits have worked on shakey heads for me, so have lizards. I'm unlikely to try stick baits on jig heads any time soon. When it comes to throwing stick baits I do better with an appropriate size offset bent hook and the bait fished without any additional weight (weightless) or tail weighted, with a lead nail or Neko weight inserted in the tail or most effectively with a pegged 3/16 oz tungsten. For me the tail weighted stick worm shines pre-spawn through early summer, when the weed lines are beginning to form to where they are mostly formed. I throw the bait into any holes in the weed line I see or any irregular place I notice on the weed line. Shakey heads, per se, and stick worms aren't a decent option for me. Maybe they will work for you - I don't know.

Didn't Gambler quit making the screw in weights and go to a "goop" weight? I haven't seen the screw in weights for a while. Anyway, I think that the bobber stops work better for me.

The best time to try any particular fishing presentation is (A) when you think it might work or (B) when you're not that confident that it will work BUT you want to see what it looks like/feels like in the water. Of the two presentations you mentioned, the Ned rig, is in my mind, more of an attitude thing. You believe in it, keep throwing it, find a retrieve you like, stick with it and you will get bit. If you keep at it there is a chance that you will end up like Ned, i.e. preferring that rig all the time and oblivious of any other options at any time. Me, I just can't do that. I carry a good quality Ned rig all the time in my boat, but I don't use it all the time, just when I think it is a good option. Most of the time, when I'm fishing by myself, I've got many other options as well, ready to go.

It is those Diawa reels. They are harder to learn on. Had you started with a Shimano reel this issue wouldn't exist. I think.

I have a few Kistler rods. I have wondered why they seemed to lose sensitivity over time, enough that they went from the traveling team to being on the bench in my shop. Obviously they haven't been recharged. I just went out to the fishing shed and looked and sure enough, the gas fitting is hidden underneath the end cap. When I bought the rods, I immediately threw away all the literature that came with it. Had I just retained the literature, I'm sure it would have mentioned where the gas fitting was hidden. I feel bad, having sent some literature to the landfill before its time.

When I bought my Cabelas Guide Wear, it came with a storage bag. Same thing with the Frogg Toggs that are my summer rain gear. The advice about never putting stuff away wet or even damp, is right on.

No such thing, really. What I do is just make my best guess depending on seasonal patterns and apparent conditions that day. Water color makes a difference. Water temp makes a difference. Water temp compared to air temp makes a difference. Sun/clouds/ wind /presence or absence of vegetation all make a difference Summertime, I like to put my home made jika rig one the bottom, a foot and a half away from the deepest weed line I can find, next to and amongst where the weed line goes from thick to sparse. Fall, I like throwing a jig, or a jika rig, or a 1/2 oz Biffle bug on 45 degree gravel banks that have the wind blowing into them OR I like to go as far back into the cuts as depth allows and pitch to objects OR throw spinnerbaits/chatterbaits should I see shad. Some days the squarebill has seriously outfitted the spinnerbait/chatterbait option for me, at least on Truman Lake. Spring, I like throwing jerk baits or lipless cranks or soft plastic minnow type baits or Brewer Sliders. Wacky Senko gets thrown from time to time nearly any season.

Academy Sports, Bass Pro, Cabelas & on line have decent selections of skirts to choose from. I prefer the ones that come all put together endnote the ones just held together by a rubber band. War Eagle has a good selection. Be aware that if you're buying pre-fab skirts to use on jigs you're going to have to trim some. Terminator used to make decent skirts but I haven't seen any on the shelves lately. For a good all purpose color for spinner baits, I think the War Eagle Table Rock Shad is a good color, as is Spot Remover or Mouse.

I'm just guessing, but they might be alphabetically listed at other sites as well.

Go to the tool bag section at Harbor Freight right now. Look at the canvas tool bags. They are cheap, zippers designed to hold 20 lb or so of tools, nothing not to like. I've got around a dozen of them. The 12 'canvas bag will hold 20 bag easily and 30 or more if you cram them. Hope your favorite canvas color is black.

I'm guessing that the deck isn't big enough for 2 guys to cast from the front. Perhaps work on your casting/upgrade your gear, so that you can chuck a crank past his shoulder and 70 or 80 feet past that. (If you're going to use this approach, be a good and accurate caster). Throwing to the deeper water off to the side is an option. Is this a friendly club or a tournament trail like the BFL or similar? Once, at a BFL, where the boater I drew was weighing 5 and I wasn't weighing anything and I felt like I'd been back boated all day, I just refused to sign his weigh slip. I got my stuff out of the boat, etc., prior to getting in line for the weigh in, and when the time came told the tournament director what I was doing and why I was doing it and walked away. I continued to fish BFL for a few years after that incident and didn't get any blow back from that incident He got a little steamed, but so what. In a "friendly" club tournament, politics might be different, and I admit there are lots of other ways to approach this issue.

Pull out the " gear bible", i.e. the current Bas Pro Shop Master Catalog and on page 296 there is a whole page of various Gammy hooks. Take your pick.. I own lots of different hooks from lots of different companies and I switch around a lot. I think that if ou stick with the major companies it is hard to go wrong. Gammy hooks that I can't do without might include, hook #P - the Wicked wacky hook ( the best bubba drop shot hook I've come across so far) hook #M - O'Shoughnessy Offset Shank (I just like that style of hook bend better than the round bend) I wouldn't be surprised, if I went through my hook collection, if I didn't have at least a few of most of the hooks on the Gammy page. Same goes for the other pages as well. I went through a period a few years ago where I bought a lot of hooks - all different shapes & sizes - for no good reason other than I wanted an extreme assortment of hooks. I like the newer Berkley Fusion hooks, the offset worm hook, which size wise splits the difference between a standard worm hook and a wide gap hook has worked good for me. There are lots of good hooks out there, I don't think you need to marry yourself to the notion of only getting Gammy hooks. On the subject of treble hooks & replacing them, I get the sizes mixed up pretty easily. I just bring the baits with the messed up hooks to the bait store with me and then try to match them up to the trebles available. I've found that Academy sports has a decent collection of replacement crank bait trebels. On a side note, if. you feel like you have many treble hooks to replace,

Couldn't do it. The last few years that I did BF as a co-angler, I took 7 or 8 rigs. When I fish out of my own boat and I have someone else in the boat with me, I try to pare it down to a dozen more or less and that is a challenge. I would much rather pick up a rig with a bait already tied on than stop to retie and change out to a different bait.

You can drop shot anywhere. There is a lot of literature out there with various suggestions on where to start. Put yourself together a rig and go start fishing it. Me - I've done better the last 5 years or so with a "Bubba" drop shot approach, which consists of a 7 1/2" flipping stick, small bait casting reel and 20 lb fluorocarbon line. I will drop this down amongst tree roots, edge of weediness, on the shady side of stumps, whatever. For me it seems to work best in more than 3 feet and not much more than 10 feet of water. I know guys at Table Rock Lake and other clear deep water reservoirs fish the drop shot, in a much more finesse style, much deeper than that, but none of that kind of water is closer than 4 hours or so from me, so I don't have hardly any experience doing that. When I tried the traditional finesse drop shot style on the lakes I commonly fish at, I got broke off ALOT.

You got permission on golf course ponds? Bust out the Ned rig. When the thought crosses your mind to try something else, lose that thought, keep throwing the Ned. Clearer water sometimes helps with the Ned, but it really doesn't matter. Ned invented that rig on waters that routinely have just a foot or so of visibility.

If I was going to go to the trouble of making my own worm tail spinners, I'd go with a ball bearing swivel rather than a crane swivel. Unless you've got the various components laying around, I wonder if you can make the tail spinners cheaper than you can buy them, but that isn't the point. Sooner or later, everyone gets the bug than they can make better/cheaper than you can buy them. This I know - this bug has bitten me several times. When you go to buy components, bring your check book. If you're going to to this, spend money up front and get a GOOD set of split ring pliers. Cheap split ring pliers will make you say bad words, especially if you're going to be working with the tiny split rings found on the screw in tail spinners. I know when this bug bit me, I should have bought in bulk, i.e. buy a whole bunch of different sizes of split rings, buy a whole bunch of different sizes of swivels, snaps, wire forms, snaps, etc. When you need beads, go to Michaels or Hobby Lobby, they have ALOT of different sizes and colors, and be aware that you will get stared at because you don't look anything like the average bead buyer. Look in the jewelry making section, there are all kinds of crimps and snaps and tool kits that are helpful to making your own baits. One option be might be to forgo the swivel and just use the hitch hiker with a small blade clipped to it. It would just flop rather than spin, perhaps the flash from the flop would be enough and you don't really need the spin. I don't know - just a thought. I know I pitch stick baits into cover, or at objects quite a bit and last winter I bought an assortment of the worm tail spinners, both Colorado blades and willow leaf blades AND I made sure that they were in the boat, but it never occurred to me to use them this year. If you make some and they work for you great - let us know.

How weird. The Pflueger Presidents that I have don't grind at all. I have the 1000 size. Mine have gotten wet through being in the rain, but haven't taken a dunking, wouldn't know if that is the problem or not. I like the 1000 size reels because they are lighter. They handle 20 lb braid fine. I throw wacky senkos into gnarly brush often and I like to get the fish out when they bite, so I use a 7" Fenwick HMG MH - extra fast tip spinning rod. The drag is often set pretty heavy, so I feel like I can lean on any fish and pull they out of gnarly cover with that combo, and it will cast as far as I need it to. On the subject of other similar priced spinning reels, I have a Shimano Nasci - good reel but I don't use it much because it doesn't have an anti-reverse switch. I have a number of Shimano and Diawa, US Reel, Pflueger, and Abu spinning reels that all see intermittent duty, and none of them make any grinding sounds. Makes me think that a professional cleaning of your reels would do wonders. I know lots of guys like 30 size reels, they hold a little more line, which lets you loose a few more baits before you have to re-spool, They are a little heftier and they fit many guys hands better than a 1000 size reel does. Me, I can't get past the extra weights I just crank down on the drag a little bit more and hope for the best. On the subject of rods, if you can't deal with the purple tint of the St Croix Mojo, don't go to Academy and look for close outs. A few of the All Star rods on close out are grey, most of the ones on close out are bright purple, or a neon lime color or a neon chartreuse color. On the subject of rod color, I think that most mid-range rods are make in some color, just to make them stand out from the crowd. Many of the high end Loomis rods are different colors. I have older olive colored Kistler rods, and bright blue Kistler rods. The Wild Black carrot stir ( I still have a couple ) have a lot of glitter for a basically black rod. Making rods distinctive colors seems to be an industry trend, but I think that it has more or less been there all along. Back in the day, when Berkley Lightning Rods were considered a top of the line option, they had a very distinctive wrap for all the guides.