fishwizzard

The heat thing seems likely, I live in central MD and depending on the weather at the time of stocking, the trout can be in water way way too hot for them and at times it is hard to get a spinner to run slow enough for them to catch it. On a few occasions I have have had trout die in the time I takes me to get them unhooked. The state tries to shift the stocking times/locations around based on water levels, but there is little they can do about the temps I guess. FYI, do not try to wrap a trout in the outside of your rain coat to take home. I now carry a few plastic bags in my tackle pack incase I end up taking home an unplanned fish.

That sounds vastly more practical than the "camping lantern lashed to an old tomato stake" light pole I had rigged up for my last attempt at night fishing.

Yea, I am still a bit gunshy about throwing a $25 chunk of plastic into the water, so I am sticking with the smaller weedless swimbaits for now. If I start getting hits but not hookups I think I will change my tune though. For now, my plan is to fish the 68 around obvious cover and use a larger jig to drag the bottom as much as I can. None of the rangers I have bugged have any idea about the bottom contour so it will at the very least get me some good intel about what is going on down there. My current catching streak has had most of the larger fish right up on the retaining wall, so I have little idea about the further out areas.

You really have a knack for catching fat fish. Do you use a light much when night fishing? I tend to pack it in as soon as I can't see to cast, but there is one more night fishing day at Centennial this year and I kinda want to give it a go from my yak, but I am a bit intimidated about paddling around in the dark.

Huh, most of mine, which have all been LMBs, have been stuck on the rear treble. Maybe I will try one each way and see.

I am less worried about them hitting my lures but more excited that they might be feeding on the stockers and getting nice and fat.

Very interesting info guys. It sounds like the bass in this pond could have been feeding on the stockers for the past few years. I am gonna really give this spot some attention in the coming months.

Not a fishing goof, but I have a pelican case I keep all my tools and such in for work. One day I decided to throw a 24oz can of energy drink into my already overly full case. And then decided to bump it down two flights of stairs. Sugar water all over all my tools. It took me three days to clean, dry, and re-oil everything. As for fishing, well, I fish out of a kayak and I like a lot of coffee in the mornings. My yak is pretty stable, but I was fishing a crowded area and didn't want to pee over the side. But I had a wide-mouth gatorade bottle on me, so I used that, nice and stealthy. When I was done I dumped it down the scupper hole. The scupper hole with a plug still in it. Still up in the air if urine is a fish attractor, but I did pretty well that day.

Like the title says, I am looking for info about the trout eating habits of bass. I have been fishing a small suburban pond for a few years now and have been able to catch quite a few LMBs in the 1-2lb range, with a decent number in the 2.5lb range. Recently I have been catching more and more of the larger bass, culminating in a 3.1 and a 3.6 the other day. This pond is stocked with trout two or three times a year, the smallest being around 8-10". The pond is about 10 acres in size with a retaining wall around most of it, with only a short section of natural shoreline along the perimeter and a small "island" on one side. The only other forage species that I have seen are an abundance of small sunfish. I have seen very dense schools of them when little kids throw bread to the ducks. I poked around the natural bank a bit this spring and didnt see any crawdad towers. I remember reading somewhere that as a general rule, a bass can eat something a third of it's size. I am not sure if this is true or I am remembering wrong. In any case, I would love some insight into this topic. The pond gets a lot of pressure, but, I have only seen a handful of people fishing it with a "plan" other than just throwing their lures out to the middle and reeling back in. I am hoping that there might be some even larger fish in there feeding on the trout that will take a bit more effort than others are willing to put in. I plan on devoting a lot of time to this spot this fall/winter and dragging a large jig/68 Special over as much of it as I can reach, but I would love to know where to set my expectations.

I wade a fair bit for smallies, but almost never in rivers with holes much deeper than 4-5'. My general "rule" is to try and never go deeper than mid-calf, so if I do miss judge depth I am only going in up to my waist. I do some wading in the Upper Potomac river and I am far more cautious there. I the spring/summer I just wear shorts and water shoes. I do wear neoprene socks as they are tight enough that I have never had an issue with sand/grit making it's way in. The sand/grit that does get in between the sock and shoe will destroy the socks over a season, but I just keep a few brands bookmarked on amazon and buy them when the go on sale. In the fall/winter I wear breathable waders with a loose-ish belt at my waist (to stick my rod in when I am tying on a lure or unhooking a fish) and a very tight belt run through the chest pocket as high up as I can. I bought a neoprene hoody from Stormar which has gaskets at the wrists, waist, and neck to wear over the waders, but it is so heavy and warm I have yet to encounter weather cold enough to make wearing it bearable and still have unfrozen water. I also own a full semi-dry suit I use for cold weather kayaking. It has neoprene rather then rubber gaskets thus the semi. It is maybe the most uncomfortable thing I have ever paid money for and I hate wearing it, but it with a PFD makes me feel pretty safe on the water in extreme cold.

I have been thinking of swapping the hooks on my 90s out to single hooks or just removing the belly hook altogether. I fish the WP the most around dusk and I do not like messing with multiple trebles in general, but especially not in low light. I assume that so long as the lure still floats nose up, I can mess around with different hook sizes pretty freely?

I can believe that, I also have the 1-power Classic rod and it seems to really favor the heavy end of it's range. I am tempted to sell both and get like a IMX/GLX 783MBR to replace them with.

It's interesting to me that so many of you guys consider the 4-power "Heavy" rod the most versatile one. I have a 3-power loomis from the Classic line and I feel like it fishes far lighter than it's 3/4oz upper rating. While it was unsuitable for the role I bought it for, I really liked it and use it for as a general rod for lures in the 3/8 to 1/2oz range. Am I right in thinking that the Loomis rods do fish a bit lighter than their upper rating?

Oh man, I had never heard of one of those before, they look kinda fun.

I have spent a little time fishing a 3/4oz jig on mine and it worked quite well in terms of casting. I cannot speak much to the sensitivity as it was all on very soft bottoms. I have gotten a pair of bass with it using a Huddgill and neither were hard hits and I was able to feel the slight change of weight when the bass sucked the lure in.

Dropshot fever hit at around the same time my Rod Fund/CC Cashback Rewards savings was at a nice high spot, so I went all in. I stole the reel off of a M/XF rod I have for senkos/flukes, but I use a casting combo for both now so the reel wasn't seeing much use. I have had it for about two weeks now and have a good 20 hours on the water with it. To start with what I like about it, the sensitivity is amazing. I put a little panfish grub on the hook and went sight-fishing for bluegills for a bit and it was crazy how I could feel even a little 2" fish nipping at the grub tail. Even when a bass just slurps up my lure I can feel the bump if I have my finger on the blank before I see the line move. It took a morning with it to get the hang of setting the hook, but once I got into just doing a quick wrist snap my hookup ratio really shot up, I think in my last few trips I only missed maybe a pair of bites out of 12-14 hood hits. The rod's taper makes keeping even a large (3.5lb is my largest on it so far) bass pinned on a barbless hook very easy and once the rod flexes to the backbone it has enough power to let me steer them away from cover. The only fish I have had on and failed to land were all sub-1lb and they have all come off on a jump. In two of the three cases the hook was not totally clear of the plastic completely. I am also really digging the "entire hand in front of the reel" grip style. It is noticeable how less fatigued and sore my hand is after 6 hours of fishing it vs my other spinning rods with reel seats designed for a keeping a finger or two behind the reel stem. Fishing from the bank, I very often use a pitch-cast when throwing to anything inside of ~40-50' as I feel like I can get better accuracy and a softer entry that way. With the rod gripped in front of the reel I can make really good pitches with both distance and accuracy. Now for the stuff I don't like. Sadly, the first and biggest complaint is casting. Even with an aerodynamic lure like a Ned Rig tied on, distance and accuracy is far far less than the same lure/reel/line on my 6' ML/F custom finesse rod. The custom does have Microwave guides, but the I feel the difference is far greater than that alone could cause. When making a slow false case I can see that the tip is loading, but as soon as I try to cast it feels like the entire rod is shaking and no matter how I time my release, the lure seems to drift one way or the other, like a curve ball. I am getting the hang of it a little but it is still far from great. I have tried casting with one, two, and no fingers behind the reel stem and it seems to make little difference. I also get a lot of line slap on my hand when trying to make a long cast, even with two fingers behind the stem. I was looking at this rod and the Stinger Shot from the same line and picked the DS model as the general consensus was that it was still versatile. I am really glad I did as even the DS feels "off" with every other presentation I have tried with it. Ned Rigs, small cranks/minnow lures, 1/4oz poppers, and even small keitechs all just feel "wrong" and awkward to retrieve/work on this thing. I have had good luck with a Flick-Shake, but that is about it. I suspect some of it is that I am used to fishing these lures on a faster and much shorter rod and i hope with more practice things will smooth out. All in all I really like the rod and am very happy with it. Before I got it I was fishing a DS on a BFS combo with a 6'8" L/(m)F rod and the Orochi is so so much better for this presentation. I knew what I was getting into buying a specialized rod and so far am having enough success with the DS that I have zero regrets and am really excited to get some more time in on it. This is my second rod form the Orochi XX line and I am really pleased with both of them.

I have a Fred's Magic Stick that I bought for frogs, but have ended up using it far more often for small swimbaits, like Huddgills or 68 Specials. It will cast a 1/2oz frog just fine, but I cannot deal with that long butt section for anything other than slowly reeling in a swimbait with the tip up. I am debating whether to not to get two or three inches lopped off the butt and a weighted cap added to keep the balance, but it might be more trouble and expense then it is worth. I may just keep it for swimbaits and inshore fishing The rod is very light and incredibly strong. My biggest "catch" with it was a snapper with a shell about 16-18" across who hit a whopper plopper almost as soon as it splashed down. It felt like I was pulling in a cinderblock but the rod handled it very well and I was very surprised to see how deep it bent under that much load.

Yea, a 100' classic "lure flying inches parallel to the water" sounds insane. However, I very often cast a "big pitch", where in I start the cast like a proper pitch, but use more of my arm to get more range. The lure will stay within say 5-6' off the water, but it isnt' sliding under cover. I do it when bank fishing on a really choked spot where there is a very narrow opening to the water with cover making even a sidearm cast impossible. I can get a lure about 100' out with decent accuracy if I have a heavy-for-rod lure on. It is the only way I have found to cast at these spots and keep the rod inside the profile of my body, but I have also started using it as my general "short" casting technique.

I have managed to beat my Allen Pond PB twice in one day, with the final fish almost a pound over my old record. If I ever see again the random dude who got me to try drop shotting I might run up and hug him.

I have been in a dropshot frenzy for the last few weeks. I have been catching more and bigger fish now then I have all year. On friday morning I hit a local pond and immediately hooked up with a little pounder. In an hour or so I managed 1 more around that size and two more right around 2lbs, with this being the nicest one. I got two more dinks and decided that since the larger fish both came very tight to the wall, I would re-fish the spot I started but a bit slower and closer to the wall. That paid off and I almost immediately I hooked into this fella; A three pound bass is pretty good for this place and this was likely the best bass I have ever pulled out of it. Or it was the best, as maybe 10min later I got this one; This is maybe a pound heavier than anything I have regularly caught here. At this point I don't know if I will ever put the dropshot rod down. All of my bass came on a 6" Marten's Madness Roboworm on a 1/0 Gamay Finesse Cover hook. Incredibly, I got my first five fish on a single worm. I had never seen on so worn, I usually loose one every fish when with other hooks.

How does that not explode into a huge mess as soon as you take the twist ties off?

Man, if I could get silk line to work on my BFS trout combo I could really out-snob the fly fishing guys with their trashy plastic lines.

I only have a pack or two of Horny Toads and Rage Toads, neither of which I am super impressed with, so I am going to throw a pack on the new toads onto whatever Labor Day sale order I make. I really like the idea of a floating toad and used the Zman ones for a while, but they really don't like to stay on the hook.

Traps do as well, sorta. They are light enough to lift on the hookset but heavy enough to pull the rod back down. I do imagine that you could fight a trotline for longer before you realized what was happening.

I had not heard of them before this thread, but if they have really managed to make a toad that floats, has durable legs, will not rip off the hook, and will hold the hook well enough to stay weedless and allow good hooksets, well then I will gladly pay ten bucks for three of them.