fishwizzard

I used to be a stagehand and could, when I was 19-25ish, pick up and carry a 4x8 ~120lb stage deck by myself. It wasn't fun but I could carry them all day and not be too dead the next morning. I tried to do the same thing last year at age 37. It went about as well as expected. I only hurt my pride, but it hurt for a week.

To add to the "pay it off monthly" advice, look for a card with a cash back offer. It is never much but it does add up, I get a few hundred a year just making all my daily purchases on the card. I also forget about it for months at a time and it is allays a pleasant surprise to discover money in there. I have about $200 in right now building up for a finesse casting setup.

Anyone know a source for bathymetric maps of the various freshwater MD lakes and ponds? I have found them for the larger reseviors but nothing else. I am fine with buying them if they are available but without a FF/Sonar I don't think I could read a map chip on my PC. I am itching to hit some more places with my kayak but I could use a leg up.

I am in MD, and while it doesn't get super hot here, I have noticed the same issue as I keep a "go bag" in my car at all times. I found that just a decent cooler does a good job in heat up to the low 90's. I borrowed the thermometer from our fridge and tested the cooler on a hot day. After 5-6 hours parked in the sun the inside of the cooler was around 80-85 degrees while the interior of the car was off the chart. I also use an old packing blanket to keep the cooler and the rest of my gear hidden from view, so I am sure that helps with the temp as well.

Mods please close this thread, I have enough plastics already and do not need more ideas! I will contribute a favorite of mine, Eiron Breaker Lure Company. The guy sells jigs and jigheads, the latter of which are a staple of my tackle collection.

Thanks for the reply. I am not really upset, just curious and the only reason I noticed was that I gave them the "full stretch" I was used to doing with TRDs and Hula Sticks instead of the more gentle "tug" I do for the Zlinkers. There is every chance in the two or three years I had these packs open they absorbed some moisture, I kayak and wade fish a lot and wetness gets everywhere some days. The whole "salt absorbs moisture" thing escaped me, maybe I need to throw a desiccant pack into the bags I keep in my car. Honestly, I prefer the spongy texture as I think it gives a better action and in any case, other then three I ripped up, the rest of those baits caught me hundreds of fish, so I am completely satisfied. If you ever come across a batch of extra salty TRDs, save them for me!

I rarely fish treble hooked lures and when I do I pinch the barbs, having had all manner of screws, nails, and staples stuck in me at work, I am pretty ok with loosing fish if it mean avoiding another infected puncture wound.

Yep, that is the guy. I never see him doing anything but pitching that worm to those same two chunks of pads. I also almost always notice him catching, while I am ripping flukes out of the weeds and cussing. I hope I get smarter when I get older.

How do you guys stand carrying two or more rods? I tried it once and the amount of time wasted fussing with the second rod just killed me. I tend to bring a single rod, usually a ML or M spinning rod and a small chest pack of lures. I usually bring the following general categories, a topwater or sub-surface lure, a "swimming" lure, and a "dragging" lure. These are usually soft plastics and I try to pick ones that can use the same hooks. If there is room in my pack I will toss in the odd hard bait but when I am bank fishing I like to travel light and that means plastics. I am currently hunting for the "perfect" tackle sling, one with a flyfishing "workbench", exterior points to strap a coat or jacket onto, and will hold a 3600 box, a 3500 box, and 3-4 bags of plastics. It can't hold more, or I will jam it full and kill my back

If you mean this guy: http://docirvcustombaits.com/baitbox/ then yes, his stuff is great and he has a million options so any bad idea I come up with can become a lure! His 3.5" tubes can be made solid and are looking like they will be an amazing river bait once I find the perfect hook.

Ah, but these were in the factory bags the entire time. They were recently unearthed when I reorganized my hobby room. They really felt totally different then the TRDs I bought recently this spring. I found one more of the ones that broke today, I had rigged it up maybe a week or two ago and stuck it in a mixed (but Z-man factory bag) bag of Ned stuff I keep in my PFD. The Green Gobey is a new color, so we know that one is pretty recently bought. The Coppertruse one is an old one. Both were slowly pulled to about 14", then allowed to snap back. The Gobey shed some salt and is slightly longer and much more pliable while the Coppertruse snapped apart at like 8-9". I snapped it again and tried to take a close up of the inside but my phone will not focus that close. The Coppertruse shed a ton of salt and really felt spongy. Yea, this is why I think they reformulated them at some point. They used to feel just like the Zlinkers, but now they seem closer to their finesse worms or what ever those fat ones are called.

I tend to use flukes or weightless Vile Craws as topwater when bank fishing, I own a few frogs but never really throw them unless I am facing a total duckweed cover. I am going to bring a few topwater lures along but I have never really had much luck with them and likely will not bust them out unless it gets really tough. The only summer fish I have gotten so far have been from the channel slow rolling a chatterbait and twitching a senko/fluke along the edges of the pads and through the grass. I have pitched, skipped, and thrown everything under the sun at that dock and never even had a hit. There is an older guy I see there a lot who seems to have success pitching a tiny little stick worm at the pads by the dock but he has far better aim then I do.

I am going to hit Cash Lake tomorrow in my kayak. I bank fish there all the time but this will be my first boat trip. For those who haven't been, it is a small, shallow lake. It has a medium dock, maybe 200' of riprap, an old creek channel full of rocks, and a lot of grassy/weed shoreline and a huge area of pads. My tackle plan is as follows: 1) MHF Casting rod - Spooled with 8lb YZHybrid, I am thinking chatterbait and/or swim jig, but likely a chatterbait all day. 2) MHF Casting rod - Spooled with 50lb braid, so I am thinking a T-rig worm for the channel and a Vilecraw/Rage Menace for the weeds. Depending on how far in the pads I want to get, I can swap out to a frog or weightless VCraw. 3) MXF Spinning rod - Spooled with 20lb braid/8kb YZH leader. This is going to be weighless senkos/flukes to work through the grass and the edges of the pads. 4)MLF Spinning rod - Spooled with 10lb braid/8lb YZH leader. This is usualy my Ned/MWF rod, but I am also going to bring along some mico-shaky head lures I have been working with. Any critiques, criticisms, or ideas welcome. I have had rotten luck with LMBs this summer so I am starting out with everything that has worked even a little so far. The lake at Cedarville State forest is ok. It can be a pain to fish from shore but I have gotten a few 1-2lbers out of there.

I went to use a TRD today and when I went to stretch it to get some salt out it tore in half. I was then able to tear each half into quarters. It was the second to last bait I had in the bag and when I pulled out the final one the same thing happened. Thinking back, I had the same thing happen maybe a month or so ago when I was making up a pile of Neds for a wading trip. In that case it was the last lure in the bag so I didn't really pay attention. I know I have/had some of these bags for maybe 2-3 years at this point along with some newer bags. From feeling a few lures out of a bag I know I bought within the year, it feels very different in texture and firmness then the ones that fell apart today. Has anyone here had them break down like this? Also, any idea if they changed the formula in the last year or so?

I have started using straight shank hooks on most of my t-rigged lures. I believe I make more and better hook-ups, but I know that my plastics seem to get torn up twice as fast as opposed to using EWG hooks. I am fine with this, but I have run out of the hot plastic of the day a few times lately so I suspect I need to re-think my packing amounts.

Flukes are my standard "only bringing a pocket's worth of tackle" lure for exploring new areas. I think Zoom Supers have the best action and durability, and I can skip them with the greatest of ease. I also use the D-shads, as they have that senko wiggle on the fall and are salty enough to hit deeper water a ton faster then the Zooms. I likely have a dozen other small fluke style baits in rotation, it is really becoming one of my favorite ways to fish. Every time I have a senko or weightless worm tied on I, at some point, wish it was a fluke.

I use the Owner Ultrahead 1/16oz-#1hook jigheads for Neds about half of the time. They are the perfect size and are pretty inexpensive. They do want a stiffer rod to insure good hooksets, but once the lure gets worn in they seem to be about the same as an exposed hook. I also really like the Decoy Nail Bomb jigs in the same size and weight, they have a slightly longer shank so they hold the lure a bit better.

I too have been messing around with the pack of Sexy Shad ones that I picked up. I have used them while river fishing twice. I have yet to catch a bass on one, but mainly because pan-fish just crush them the second they hit the water. I was fishing them nose hooked with a 1/16oz Gopher jig with a hop and deadstick retrieve through deep pools. While they do catch fish, they only last maybe one or two hits the way I was fishing them.

Is a plastic frog out of the question? The Z-man popping frogs have great action and I had a huge snapper grab one and start a 4 min tug of war with me over it. When he spit it the hook was bent but the frog was still in great shape. I think they are like $4-5 for a 4 pack.

I fish Fat Impacts using hooks with around that amount of gap and have a great hookup ratio. The plastic is soft enough to compress is my guess.

I spend far far more then I should, mainly because I get fixated on trying a new presentation/style. My latest kick is senkos/flukes/t-rigged 6" worms and I now have four 3600 cases full of tackle and a bin of spares. I did catch my first senko bass this morning, but it is still way overboard. I also buy way way too much stuff if I can get a "deal" on it. I had to unsubscribe from Outlet Tackle's mailing list as I was just buying piles of crap I didn't even really have a plan for. I am on the cusp of getting my fishing room organized and then I am going to sell off everything I don't actively use.

Man, that is bigger then four or five of my usual canal bass combined.

I have a two-piece 7' StCroix Premier ML-F spinning rod I stick an Okuma 3000 reel on. It's loade with 15lb braid and gets a 5' floro leader. I tend to give my non-fishing friends something simple, like a Ned, inline spinner, or small paddle tail and the rod handles all of them well. Being a two part rod, I don't worry about the tip, as I can just replace the upper section.

I bought a pile of 1/16oz finesse jigs at some TW sale last year. The 2.8 Flappers make the perfect trailers for them, compact but full of action.

I spent a few hours one afternoon fishing the trd tube for smallmouth in a small river. It seems to have more action then a TRD, but is lighter and doesn't cast or skip as well. Action-wise, it looks much better when swam then the TRD, but not as much as a half zlinker it shortned Hula stick. It was durable and preformed well on the zman jigs, with a perfect fall rate on the 1/20oz one. It faired less well on Gopher 1/16oz jigs, it didn't stay on well without glue. Where it really shined, was rigged weedlessly on An Owner 1/16oz-#1/0 Ultrahead bAll jig. The solid head held the shank well and the hollow rear allows much much better hook sets then a TRD or other solid plastic. The durability is also amazing rigged this way. The tentacels didn't have much action and stuck together until I lubed them up with scent. While the plastic isn't nearly as absorbent as a older hall zlinker, the tentacels and hollow butt really help the scent last. I am going to look into a more viscous scent to try and fill the hollow butt with it. All in all, I like it. Right now 90% of my MWF fishing is done with half zlinkers and shortned Hula sticks. I use the former for more swimming presentations and the latter for more more hop/drag ones. I plan to fish the TRD Tube against the Hula stick to see if one or the other performs better.