MultiSpeciesFisherman

Well I got her back from the taxidermist. She's a beauty.

Not whales, Wels.

I believe what you are referring to is popeye disease. I am an aquarist and have some experience with it. Here is a good article: http://freshwatercichlids.com/pop-eye-fish-disease It's pretty common for bass in captivity to develop popeye, and this can be observed at any public aquarium or Bass Pro Shops. I'm sure that some of the contributing factors in captivity would also apply to wild fish.

Is there any advantage/ disadvantage to using braided line on a baitcaster? Right now I have all of my baitcasters strung with 17 or 20 pound monofilament, but I have some heavier braided line that I've been considering putting on at least one of them. What do you guys think?

See I've been using monofilament with the frogs so far. There just isn't the amount of weed growth to necessitate using heavy braid. But do you guys think braid is better line for fishing with frogs? I have rods set up with braided line but they are primarily used for worms, lizards, and craws.

I finally decided to start fishing with plastic frogs around dusk, and the first time I tried it I had three really nice strikes but I went 0 for 3 on hook sets. Is there a trick that I'm missing because I'm a newbie? I tried both a snapping hook set and more of a sweeping set but neither worked. Any advice?

I don't think too much about it when I'm keeping fish honestly. We humans have a tendency to really anthropomorphize everything (assign human attributes to them) and most of the time it's really a faulty way of thinking. Fish don't "want" anything. They don't consider which way to die would be better than any other. All they care about is getting away and surviving, but that's a basic instinct, not a conscious thought. Any considerations we take on how to treat a prey item is based on ideas that have been socially constructed by humans, not something that is uniform across all species. That said, I'm not going to go out of my way to ensure the fish dies in a miserable way because I do have a general respect for life. I'm also a realist. I realize that in order for anything to live (with the exception of autotrophs such as plants) something else has to die. I don't necessarily think it matters whether you bash a fish with a rock or let them suffocate. Myself, I tend to try and see to it that the fish dies humanely but I realize I'm doing it to make myself feel better about killing something, not for the actual benefit of the fish. So just act ethically for your own sake is about the only advice I could give.

roadwarrior suggested that I copy this thread from another section of the forum and ask the same question here. So here goes. I cracked the tip of my rod. Not enough to break it off but enough to make it stay bent after catching a fish. I'm sure eventually it will break off. Anyway, is there anyone I can take the rod to to have them fix it? Or are those rod repair kits good enough? I'm hoping for a solution that doesn't take away any sensitivity. Please let me know.

Well it is a Field and Stream rod that I bought from Dick's sporting goods. I didn't buy the warranty because I have like 20 rods and have never broken one. But the combo between the rod and the reel was like $80 marked down from $100 and I'm a married full-time college student so I just don't have the extra cash to drop on buying a replacement. If Field and Stream has a repair or replacement policy, even if it costs a little bit of money, I think it would be worth fixing or replacing under those circumstances. But I can't just throw the rod out and start over.

Where are you fishing exactly?

I cracked the tip of my rod. Not enough to break it off but enough to make it stay bent after catching a fish. I'm sure eventually it will break off. Anyway, is there anyone I can take the rod to to have them fix it? Or are those rod repair kits good enough? I'm hoping for a solution that doesn't take away any sensitivity. Please let me know.

It's possible that it was just a largemouth bass with a genetic mutation. These things happen all the time and it's what drives natural selection. Every species of animal on the planet contains within its DNA every gene it has ever had, but normally only our more recent, "successful", genes are expressed (i.e. the genes that code for a tail in humans are turned off during embryo development leaving us with nothing but a tailbone, and embryos have tails that are about 7 vertebrae long during development). What that means is that birds, which gradually evolved from dinosaurs over time, are still occasionally (very rarely) born with teeth or with less feathers and more scales, and can be genetically modified to be born with these characteristics also by manipulating which genes are expressed or muted. So if a bass has some type of ancestor that had teeth and was more slender, it is possible that this mutation simply "regressed" to an earlier variation. Although mutation does not necessarily indicate regression. The sickle cell anemia gene after all was a response to help fight malaria in Africa. That is why African Americans have this problem. Their ancestors that had only the non-sickle cell gene died due to malaria. The ones who had only the sickle cell gene died because of sickle cell. But the people who had both genes survived malaria and survived sickle cell. That is natural selection. One condition is favored, the others die out, and the new one persists. So this could also just be nature "testing out" a new model. If it was a hybrid of any type, it would either be sterile, or have reduced fertility just like wipers and saugeye. The only reason wipers and saugeye aren't totally sterile is because the two parent species are so similar. A bass and a trout would almost certainly give rise to a sterile offspring considering the species gap. But in this case, I would say it's likely a simple case of confusing one fish species for another lol. I guess it could also just be an extremely skinny bass. But that doesn't account for the more pronounced teeth.

What exactly is a crawler harness/bottom bouncer?

That's more or less the case for me too, but with white bass and catfish added. But I know that keeping these bass will eventually help the fishery, so if they are at all comparable to any of the fish we are talking about, then it will be worth it in a couple of ways.

This can be a tough time of year to fish for them. Right about now they should be either transitioning from deep wood structure out to the deep basins chasing shad, or already established out on the deep basins. If you have a boat, I would try finding a drop off, drifting it with a live minnow, and marking where you caught them just in case there is a bit of submerged structure they are relating to. If you can get on them, vertical jigging wih a small tube jig or a twister tail can get the job done. In the spring, they are much easier to catch. They tend to move into very shallow water, sometimes as little as a foot or two of water, and hang out around brush piles, rip rap, or standing timber. They can be caught on a minnow under a bobber or a tube or twister tail jig.

Well we kept 9 tonight as well as a nice bluegill (he was big enough to hit a crankbait) so we'll see how it goes. If they aren't any good, we'll just have to do like you said and go after them in the spring and maybe the fall. They were all in the 9-12 inch range or so.

Yeah I really only wanted a smallmouth and a largemouth, and luckily now I have both. So I'm done for now anyway. The wife would have a heart attack if I told her I was getting another one done. I will definitely post pictures of the mount. As for the 12-14 inchers....the quarry owner has asked me to keep them if I want to. In fact, he's practically begged me. Unfortunately I just don't have much of a taste for bass filets. I guess I have never tried the smaller ones though. Are they less fishy-flavored than the larger ones? I may just have to try them out. I know keeping the smaller to medium sized ones helps create a fishery full of larger fish since the bigger ones will then have less competition for food...and it won't hurt the numbers since the bigger ones will obviously continue to reproduce. I'm going out tonight. I may have to just keep a few.

This time of year they tend to go deep and hang out around the thermocline. If I am not mistaken, I also think they tend to congregate in large schools this time of year. So if you find them, you can end up catching a bunch of them.

I don't really like Evergreen because I prefer to boat fish and my 125 hp motor is slightly over the lake limit lol. As for Clinton, I have put it on my to-do list to try that lake out. I fished it a couple times when I was younger and didn't have any luck which kind of left a lasting stink in my mind about that place. But I would definitely like to learn to fish it for wipers and stripers. Do you have any experience with them? If so, any tips or techniques you would be willing to share?

After having a pretty decent morning throwing crankbaits, the bass shut off. We ended up having to try every trick in the tackle box but we finally got them going. We got some really nice fish on 4-inch Carolina rigged PowerBait minnows right in the middle of the afternoon. We would just throw it out away from the bank (we were in a boat), let it sink to the bottom, and work an extremely slow retrieve. After the cast, we would just very slowly reel the slack out of our line, raise the rod tip no more than 6 inches to a foot, let it fall, reel the slack out, and repeat. We ended up catching a couple in the 2-3 pound category doing this and several quite a bit smaller, but it is after all a small quarry so it's about what you would expect in terms of size. They were just crushing the lures on the strikes too. I don't know if this method would work in a larger body of water...but we got most of our fish in about 4-8 feet of water, probably due to the fact that the quarry isn't any deeper than that. But I got some advice in the Smallmouth section, decided to try it out, and it worked like a charm. I'm probably going to go out again this weekend (most likely Sunday since the heat wave is supposed to be finished by then) and I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Yeah this year for me has been more like: You walk down to that one dam you have fished since you were a child. You stop for a moment to take in all of the sights, sounds, and smells. Flashes of your childhood come roaring back to you, hand in hand with your grandfather who has carefully begun to instill his fishing wisdom in your young mind. You have all of your bass rods ready and are sure today will be the day for that catch of a lifetime. You make your first cast and bullseye! Right in the exact spot you know that big smallmouth is hiding. You begin your retrieve. Any time now and it will be game on. As your bait inches back to the shore, you get the feeling that big pig has been following you up all the way. Suddenly, it happens! Your bait comes out of the water and it's time for cast number two. You repeat because surely that last cast was nothing more than a fluke. You know there have to be huge smallmouth in here just waiting for their prey. Again...nothing. Before long, you have thrown upwards of fifty casts and don't even have one 6 incher to show for it. You decide to switch it up, and are sure you have a perfect solution to finally get some fish out of the river. So you get into your tackle box, and find just the right thing! You pick up your pole, put on a worm and a bobber, and begin fishing no more than 2 feet from shore and sure enough...you catch sunfish after sunfish, none any larger than about 4 inches, but you have the satisfaction of knowing you have not been skunked. You go home feeling both satisfied and yet empty, but you know for some reason you will be going back the next day, and the next day, and the next day..... But your story definitely sounds better than mine!

White bass and catfish. There are different lakes I go to for each. Mainly I target big blue catfish at a nuclear plant cooling lake near me, so needless to say it can get downright unpleasant out there in the heat of the summer.

The most important thing for me is if they can be on time. I have one friend who I love to fish with when we actually get out there, but he is never there at the time I want him to be. I will say we are leaving at 5 AM and he will show up at 5:30 or 6:00 and in my eyes, that's a waste of daylight. So what I started doing is telling him to be there an hour earlier than I actually want him there. If I'm leaving at 5 or 6, I will tell him to be there at 4 or 5. Then he usually makes it around the time I actually want to leave. As for other qualities, I like my fishing partner to be experienced. Although I have no problem teaching someone, I will reserve my serious trips for my friends who have fished a little more often. For instance, when I got my PB largemouth earlier this year I had a friend with me who has fished for 20+ years. This just happened to be a trip where we had forgotten to bring a net (of course). If I had had someone with less experience out with me that day, I would have never landed that fish. Luckily, he reached in and lipped the fish for me and that was the difference between me having a true trophy and me spending the next few years chasing the fish and having nightmares about it.

Does the body of water you are talking about have stripers or hybrids present, or were they recently stocked? Sometimes lakes that have both hybrids and whites end up with stricter limits on whites because most people can't tell the difference between the two when it's a small hybrid.

You live not too far from one of my favorite lakes to fish. I go to LaSalle Lake all the time and catch big blue catfish. The one thing I wish I was better at on LaSalle though is striper/ hybrid fishing. I would love to learn how to catch them at LaSalle.