the reel ess

Mossy green braid fades and turns to light over time. If you fish in dark waters like I do then the Sharpie makes it less visible. I guess you could use a dark green Sharpie if you like. I do this trick to the end 3 feet or so of line even if it doesn't matter one bit to the bass. You can also reel the line onto another reel and you'll have a new, dark end.

Do you know any places where people have sunk brushpiles for crappie? Once the crappie move out, forget about them, but there'll be catfish on the brush almost year round. Of course they mostly eat shad and other fish. Channel cats can be caught on a variety of homemade baits. One we always had good luck with was hotdogs cut into about 3/4" lengths. You can rig them on a Carolina style rig or just put a couple split shot on. Don't go too heavy with the weight because the hotdog is tender and will come off easily. Or you could go buy some frozen shad, minnows shiners etc. or seine up some bait. Cats will also eat nightcrawlers and crawfish. You can fish a little away from the brush to minimize your hangups in the brush. Cats will come to the smell. My dad has a house on a local lake where we sunk Christmas trees for maybe 20 years for crappie. We caught a lot more catfish than crappie, and good size too. We had a few we didn't manage to get turned around because we were using light tackle for the panfish. Another good bait is anything you have on the lake that's invasive, like white perch. You can have fun catching them, there's no limit and you can have free bait. They'll catch blues as well.

That's the real reason people use 65 or 50# braid. It won't dig in as much. Try not to yank on it because that's when it digs in. When you do have to yank it, take a good cast away from your target, reel it up and get back to pitching. I love braid, but that's a shortcoming.

I like a black buzzbait in the fog or a drizzling rain. I try hard not to fish in a thunderstorm.

I have so many. But one of the earliest was me finally big enough to go out with my dad and his buddy in his friend's boat. We didn't have a fishing boat a that time so it was a big deal. They were crappie fishing over brushpiles with minnows. You know how young kids are. They need to be casting and reeling to stay engaged. My dad gave me a white Mr Twister grub on probably an 1/8 oz. jighead and I proceeded to outfish them the entire day at every stop. They only had poles, no rods. We stopped at a store on the way home and the men bought the store out of small grubs. I had fished for panfish with a cane pole and worms before them,but I was hooked on gamefish thereafter. Another time, my dad and I with his same buddy, happened upon a guy as we were trolling down the bank who told us to leave his spot alone because he was fishing a bass tourney the next day and needed that spot. We cleaned it out. My dad and I got into white bass, stripers and white perch many times. One time the action got so fast and furious, we rigged multiple rods so we could catch one and drop it in the boat, pick up another and cast. My dad got so excited he fell in the boat trying to put some in the livewell. We caught 60, which was a limit at that time of the whites and several stripers to boot. We just started throwing them back after we thought we had a limit. We could have kept fishing, but we ran out of daylight. I caught 5 nice keeper bass on five casts with a Spook one morning in front of a guy who told us he was fishing a tourney and would love to have those bass, insinuating he wanted to use our fish. I kept them. BTW, the 6th bass broke me off and took the only Spook we had because I didn't retie. I had other topwaters, but didn't get another bite after that.

I usually move them with jerks until I find an opening. Then I'll let it sit still in the opening. If no bite, I'll walk it a few times and let it sit a little longer before moving across the mat again. If I'm retrieving away from the bank, I'll pause at the edge of the pads and give them a really good look and walk it slowly away from there. If you can walk the frog, you can give it a lot of twitches without moving it far. The edge of the pads is where I get most of my bites. I don't fish anywhere on a regular basis that is just one thick mat of vegetation. It's usually pads and/or logs. If a fast retrieve is what you want, I'd try a toad.

I caught this in the creek behind Pawleys Island, SC. I was told by a local woman that my description sounds like a toadfish. But I don't see that as a SC saltwater species. I caught it on the first cast. As I was clearing a backlash, it was already on. It was about 10" long and the head was larger than the body. It had a row of stubby teeth top and bottom. Sorry for the pic quality. It was taken with a phone though a waterproof enclosure.

I caught a toadfish (on the first cast as I was picking out a backlash) and a small flounder, both on Gulp Mulet. I was hoping for better luck, but after speaking to the locals, it looks like I had better luck that day.

Thanks guys. I have fished the creeks behind the island before and caught a couple flounder. I guess I'm looking for some more action. But I'll give the creek another try. Saltwater is not my specialty. I'll read up a little before I go.

I'd like to add to this that if you tie a loop knot to the frog you'll get it to walk easier. I usually don't though because I can walk the frog and that knot is hard for me to tie without leaving a big loop.

This is all good advice. Yeah, the two times during daylight you can reasonable expect a topwater bite are morning and evening. I'm no expert, but I do fish topwaters a lot. Of course, there are times that will make a liar out of me. I find the best places to get bites on frogs are shallower, smaller bodies of water and places with a lot of cover. Some have said they get bites in open water on them and I'm sure they do, but I don't. I get bites in ponds with dark water, lilies and flooded timber where the water is probably no more than 8 ft deep except at the dam. If I come to a place with a lot of large lilies, I'm sure to put a frog on. When I get a bite, I don't yank. I reel down to it quickly, feel the fish and set it HARD. They will usually hol it a couple seconds and I don't take that long. I have a rod specifically for frogs in junk. I use 50# braid on it. Sometimes the fish don't bite the bait but rather slap at it. If you can see it, it wasn't a bite. Let it rest a few seconds and resume the retrieve slowly. If you get a bite that misses, you can toss a Senko type bait over and often catch that fish. I guess the fish thinks it stunned its prey. I almost always have a Trick Worm tied on in shallower ponds. I see others have mentioned bending out the hooks, which I do before I even tie frogs on. Also, hold the frog nose down so the skirts hang to each side and trim those skirts about even with the frog eyes. Some trim them even more. I usually trim to the eyes and stop there. This makes a smaller target for the fish to bite.

Freshwater or salt? And good locations I can put the kayak in? I'll be staying at Pawleys, but I can drive wherever I need to. Thanks.

And as is well documented, I LOVE topwater fishing! Thanks for the tip.

Headed to Pawleys Island, SC for a week. I haven't decided if I'll take the kayak and fish the inlets or hire a guide with kayaks and gear. That would be easier because I wouldn't feel the need to drive my truck down as well as my wife taking her car, but I'm a cheap skate and I've already managed a few flounder before on my own. I'll take pics though and report back.

The only time I usually don't use a weight is when I'm using a Zoom Trick Worm or some "floating worm". They're heavier and designed to be T rigged weightless. You can cast them without weight. Or when I'm using a wacky rig. But I usually use the same worm for that. I'm saying you should never use Trick Worms with a weight. They're extremely versatile. I have experimented with using a magnum size worm weightless, but didn't catch anything on it. That's just not in my wheelhouse yet.

Thanks. The 2 bags I got by mistake are Okeechobee Craw color. The fish really like black/blue color combos where I fish and thought this will be a good one to try.

What's your rig for these? I got 2 bags of them mail ordered because I didn't pay close attention to what I picked. They're the smaller version of the Zoom Speed Craw-I T rig those. I don't find that I have a hook small enough to T rig these little guys. But I know they'll get bites since the larger version does. The smaller ones should draw more bites. Thanks.

I would start with whatever they bite everywhere else I fish. You might hit them just right. But if not, I'd fall back on the finesse approaches everyone else has mentioned. My fishing buddy showed me something with the old do-nothing worm with a splitshot lately-the rig with 2 small pre-rigged hooks in a 4" worm. He has 2 fish over 5 lbs on it in the last 2 weeks plus a lot of dinks that weren't biting for us until he switched to it. Use natural colors. I like a weightless trick worm for new waters because I know most people don't use it, therefore the fish haven't seen it. If it's really tough, I'll use a C-rig with the Zoom Finesse Worm on a 2/0 hook and a light bullet weight. I've tried the ned rig to no avail lately, but I'm sure it works. If you like the Senko, but get no bites, downsize.

Catfish for me. They just roll and get slime on your line. That's fine if you're fishing for cats, but I never am. I know there's a lot of interest in trophy size blue cats nowadays. But to me, the bigger the catfish, the bigger nothing you have on your line. I don't mind eating them, but when you clean them they seem to have more blood than a human being inside them. Hardest fighting fish I've caught is the striper. That's one strong and fast fish. I'd target them if I had the right boat or the $$$ to get it. Maybe one day.

"Now Aint Bee, JUST CAAAAWLL THE MAN!" Sheriff Andy Taylor Man, back in my day we had to call the girls up on the land line phone, get past one of their parents and ask them out on a date. But the phone was a firewall for embarrassment in case we got shot down (in flames). If she said no, just say "OK then, goodbye." A girl's dad once told me to get lost and hung up on me. LOL. But I didn't despair, I persevered. The meek may inherit the earth, but they won't get what they want in this lifetime.

Yeah, unboxing tackle is un-fishing IMO.

I caught 5 good fish on 5 casts with a regular Spook one morning, then nothing for years. I started fishing a lot of ponds lately and it's one of my top 4 baits again. It beez like that sometimes.

Purple worms and black and blue craws and jigs.Gold Traps. Gotta have 'em or my confidence will suffer.

One starts by fishing where there are big bass. If the average is good, you'll catch big ones. My buddy sent me a pic this morning of a 6.2 lb he caught on a 4" do-nothing worm. My PB came on the frog in my avatar and I've caught a lot over 5 lb. on Trick Worms, Rat L Traps and T rigged craws.

4 Booyah Pad Crashers. Or 2 bags of jerky. There was a time I would have said about 12 Uncle Buck's spinnerbaits. They were an awesome value and I still have some.