fishwizzard

The only thing I am especially good at is being willing to suffer ticks, thorns, sore feet and ruined clothing getting to places that most other people don't fish at. Even living in a super built up area, I swear I never see other fishermen more than a half mile from parking spots. I have started carrying a small pair of pruning clippers and they are becoming as indispensable as my rod on some outings. I am going to catch a fine from DNR some day over it, but so long as I only cut invasive plants/fast growing thorns I will claim the moral high ground. Now if I can get better at catching once I get there, then I will be onto something.

My work involves a lot of planning and record keeping, so my desire to do so in my free time is pretty much zero. However, this coming season I am going to start weighing the nicer looking ones to get an idea of what different weights look like, just for personal curiosity. In addition to taking pictures of fish, I am going to start taking pictures of productive spots and lures. All the photos on my phone get uploaded with a date/time stamp to cloud storage, so I can go back and look at what I was catching where and with what on any given day. I ended up accidentally doing this over the summer and it helped me realize something about a spot I fish all the time, but never had consistent luck at. Looking as some old pictures showed me a pattern that I had not noticed before.

I was firmly in the "I don't need a baitcaster" camp for a long time. I had bought a BB1 and while it is a great reel, I was struggling with it. On a whim I bought a PX68, which is a much smaller reel. That was when the light bulb went on. The smaller reel was so so much easier for me to cast with and I quickly gained proficiency and confidence. Even going back to the BB1, while it is still too big, I can take what I learned with a smaller reel and apply it to the larger one. While I am still far more accurate with my spinning combos, I have grown to really enjoy baitcasters as well and am getting more and more of them to compliment my spinners.

I have gotten the occasional fish on the warmer days fishing whatever shallow and warm spots I can find on the larger bodies of water. It looks like this Thursday and Friday might be decent temperature wise.

Actually you saved me (a small amount) of money as I went with a smaller reel. Most of the time I post a topic it ends up costing me $200.

The rod came in today and oh man is it nice. With a 3/8oz tungsten weight tied onto 8lb YZH, I can feel each seam as I drag it across our brick floor. Tried the same thing with a low end Abu rod and I can't really feel anything other than the really crooked ones. Spring cannot come soon enough!

Guys, thanks a lot of all the help and advice. My jig rod came in today (a CR 723 IMX) and after playing with it I have a much better sense of what weights and such to look for. I played around with different jugs, weights, and plastics, and am ready to make a nice big order from Siebert.

I have both a 1000 FJ and a 1000 CI4+. I have yet to fish them both side by side, but the CI4+ is just insanity light, almost to the point where it had me wanting to add weight to the butt of my finesse rod to move the balance point back a bit. After a day with it I changed my mind and now want to replace all my spinning reels with them. I was hemming and hawing about getting a 1000 reel for bass and @Darren was a huge help in pushing me over the edge and I am glad I listened to him. If you really want a 2500 reel but are unsure about the weight, take a look at the Okuma AV-30b reel. It is about the size of a 2500 FK and about the same weight. For $40 you can see how you like a reel in that weight range and will end up with a rugged "beater" reel that could last decades of sporadic use or years and years of constant use.

Not having to worry about a backlash/overrun is to me the best part of pitching with spinning combo. Hell, that is my favorite thing about using on in general. I am willing to make a far more challenging pitch/cast with a spinning combo and like knowing that if I misjudge things and my lure hits a log I was trying to pitch under I might just loose my lure, not my lure, my line, and the time it takes to deal with the backlash. The downside is that it seems much slower to hand close the bail and get the slack picked up to be ready for a hook set then just being able to crank the handle and set the hook.

Yea, but man do they work well. At least the 4" Swing Impacts are cheaper than the Fat Impacts. I am going to start swapping in some grubs next time I get into a good bite with the SIs and see if they like them just as well, but I have yet to find a grub that runs as well as the SIs when rigged weightless.

I pitch cast with my spinning reels all the time, it is perfect to get small lures into holes in cover to to bounce them off of something to fall softly into the water. I cannot flip with one at all however, the handle seems to foul the line often enough to be annoying and my short rods are not great to flipping in any case. There is an older guy at one of my local ponds who seems to always be flipping a small weighted stick worm into the shoreline pads using a spinning combo. He seems to consistently catch too, so he must be doing something right.

Yep, my local pond is a very soft mud bottom and this is a great producer. The lure produces even better rigged weightless on a screwlock hook, but it sinks very very slowly so you cant cover much water with it.

I use megastrike on porous soft plastics (zlinkers and the like) and on anything with a skirt. I don't feel like it sticks well enough, in the summer at least, to anything else to be worth the bother. I do very much believe that it helps to give me a second or so more time to make a hookset when fishing a texposed ned rig. I do wish that they would offer it with a flip top lid, like a tube of toothpaste. When wading it is a pain to deal with my rod, the scent tube, the tube's cap, and my lure, all with wet hands.

Last year on a road trip I walked into a Cabelas "just to use the bathroom" and walked out with a pile of Eco Pro swing jigs; They were bogo, how was I to resist? In any case I have yet to really fish them, but they are on the list as well. I do dislike how short the head/neck of the hook is before the bend, keitechs are too soft and rip off when you pull them through weeds. But, the new SK swimmers seem much tougher and I am going to give them a go as soon as I find time and soft water. EDIT: Now, looking at that picture, is there any reason why I can't swap the hook out with a flipping hook and use them as light pitching rigs?

I use twist locks for my belly weighted/EWG hooks, so the knot is out there exposed. I meant that the punch hub would cover it in that case.

Now this is something right here. Adding bulk but not weight, keeping a horizontal sink, and protecting my knot a little? Punch hubs are looking better and better.

Yes, I have had some luck this season with that combo and plan to continue, especially for heavier rigs where I want to stay weedless. I have a decent supply of tungsten weights in the 5/16-1/2oz range already. For this rig, is there a benefit one way or the other to using a punch hub vs a weight with the hub molded in? For colors I was thinking to start with Blue/Black, Green Pumpkin/Gold/Purple, and Chartreuse Shad. The last color because I plan to reuse old nose-ripped Menace grubs as trailers and I have had a ton of luck on the Pearl ones so I will have a bunch of them available for trailer duty. For the specific jig, anyone use the Dredge Dock Rocker Jig? Another goal this season is to lean how to skip with a baitcaster and I need all the help I can get. I bought a few of them last year and got to be pretty decent skipping them with spinning reel, they worked far better then the assorted football jigs I also tried.

I am going to give jigs a more serious try this coming season and am looking for some advice on what weights to look for. My thought process is as follows; Bass most often hit a jig on the fall, so having one that will give a slow fall is a plus. If I am fishing from the bank then I am going to be fishing shallower waters, so a lighter jig will give me a slower fall but will still make it to the bottom in a reasonable time frame. I will be mostly fishing wood and open water with grass on the bottom, like these spots below: Right now I have a Siebert 1/4 Dock Rocker that, with trailer, comes in at 1/2oz total weight, and for a larger profile lure, a Zero Gravity jig, with trailer, at about the same same weight. For deeper waters in my kayak or when fishing pads or heavier cover from the shore there is a ton of good info on larger jigs out there, but before I stock up on the lighter stuff I would love to know if I am thinking in the right direction.

Now I am worried that there is something wrong with me as I have never noticed Powerbait to have much of a smell at all.

I suspect the possibility of a dam being damaged is worse than sending some water and fish down stream. One of my favorite local lakes has a dam that, according to the ranger I spoke to, was poorly designed and built even worse, so they are forever messing with the water level. The only slight advantage (for fishermen) is that when it does get high, it floods like a 20-30' up a shallow, weedy bank and the place just lights up for a day or so as every fish in the lake swarms up to feed.

Could you use tungsten powder with some kind of expoy binder? You would still have the issue with bake-on paints, but maybe there is an epoxy that can take the heat?

Coll, thanks for the info. I have a kayak and am determined to be more adventurous with it this year. I also keep eying those little white water sit-ins. I saw some guys who had them fitted with backpack straps, if I got something like that, my travel rod, and and some rope for launching/landing, I bet I could fish every body of water in the state.

Dude that is great. I have a SV105 and have had that handle in my cart for months but I never pulled the trigger. I have also resisted dressup parts, but I have a PX68 that could really use some red SPL handles, and your pic ain't helping my willpower any.

This explains the few I have found dumped out on lonely country roads or powerline cuts. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to make my inner-hillbilly shut up about wanting to drag one home.

I use my paddle as a push pole often enough that I don't mind having a cheaper/heavier one. What I really want is a paddle that 1) Floats, 2) is magnetic so I can rig a simple mount that I can use with one hand, and 3) has a retractable blade/claw combo on the end to help in retrieving snagged lures.