fishwizzard

What tube is that on the right? Hell, I might bite that thing if you dangled it in-front of me.

If the water level is up, the entire C&O has bass in it. I don't have a way to post a picture now, but I caught a very decent SM right by mile 0, where the canal meets rock creek. It is in the main MD thread, maybe 2-3 pages back. I realty wish there was a legal spot to camp between G-town and Swains, it would make an excellent weekend trip. I have done a few singe night trips, starting around mile 5-7 and camping at Swains, it is always a blast. There are a ton of great spots, both canal and river, that are not very close to any parking.

You are giving out my spot man Assuming we are talking about the same pool that is. I have had some luck in the old quarry pond just north of Riley's Lock. It is a huge pain (literally, with all the thorns) to bank fish most of the year. This spring I plan to drag my yak out there and really give it a good once over. As it stands now my B2LT (Bass to Lost Tackle) ratio is way too high there. No idea what is under the water there but it is snag city. There are maybe 3-4 decent spots on the towpath side to fish from and a few more on the back side, but a small pair of pruning shears is pretty essential gear to fish there.

I am not much of a crank-guy, but I have had good luck with the teeny wee craws. Caught a decent number of panfish and, surprisingly, some larger white perch. However, I have decide that those little trebles hurt the fish too much so I haven't replaced the last one I lost. I wish they either offered them in single hook or I could figure out a way to give them a single, slightly larger barbless treble. I also have a bunch of their single barbless hook lures, and when they work I get a real kick out of them, but it seems like only maybe 1 in 4 runs right and I haven't figured out a way to tune them yet.

A lot of stuff to think about, thanks guys. One thing I am working on this year is severely limiting how much tackle I bring out with me. When I am on foot I will have a single rod and whatever will fit into a small flyfishing chest pack. When in my yak, only a single 3600 per rod. As a relatively new fisherman I suffer from a lack of focus, which leads to a lack of practice. In addition to bass I fish a good deal of brackish/salt water and am getting into wading small streams for panfish and trout, so I have a lot of different styles competing for my attention. Part of the grand clean-up/organization is to help me focus to making each trip about working on a single (ok maybe two or three) presentation(s). A huge part is going to be sorting all my gack out into stuff I want to try and learn, and then donating the rest to a local fishing-based charity. I don't see a reason to have twelve different styles of stick baits if I don't have the skill to fish them well.

I have had more luck with the Hula Stickz then with either the TRD or half of a zlinker. I also don't usually glue mine to the jig so that while fishing I can remove it and rig it wacky on the same jig. The HS has a insanely life like action when wacky rigged on a light jig, exactly like a flashing minnow. This spring I am going to try some of the zman finesse shads (caught a few nice pickerel with them last fall) and the small sized batwing craws. I am also going to keep my second finesse rod rigged up with a slider head/finesse worm on it. I haven't had much luck trying to make a weedless Ned so I am going to see if the slider works.

No, but I did just buy a fancy fishing kayak. Being able to carry more then one or two rods easily is really blowing my mind.

I am embarking on a compete reorganization of my fishing stuff. It is an unholy mess and I am getting to the point where I loose track of stuff as fast as I buy it. I have bought a pile of storage boxes and have made decent progress. However, I cannot make up my mind how to sort and box my tackle and lures. I can think of a few different, and seemingly equal, systems to employ, they are, briefly; 1) Terminal tackle and other non-lure items are boxed by type, then by specific product. Lures and plastics are the same way, less popular categories in larger groups, more popular ones split into more subgroups. This will likely take the least number of boxes. 2) Terminal tackle is the same as #1, Lures and plastics are sorted by style of fishing, so all my LMB stuff is in one box, all my saltwater stuff in one, etc. Some styles I fish often will be split again, for example I fish finesse lures for bass the huge majority of the time, so those lures will be in a separate box from the heavier/larger stuff. In each box things will be broadly broken up into categories and smaller boxes/bags, so like it will not just be a 30L Tupperware with stuff piled in it. This will take more boxes then #1 but will make packing for any specific outing faster and the focused boxes will make it less likely I will omit something I wanted to bring. 3) Going further then #2, everything is split into style and sub-style large boxes. These are then filled with smaller boxes and bags of tackle and lures. This has the advantage of letting me see everything for an trip every quickly and let me monitor stock levels to prevent running out of something, or the more likely "buying something because I forgot I already owned three bags of them". In addition there is obviously going to be a ton of overlap, in hooks and plastics especially so. I am not sure how to deal with that, either by splitting stuff up and trying to keep track of two stocks, or by putting stuff where it will see the most use and having to remember what is where. This will obviously take a ton of boxes and a lot of storage space. I am leaning towards #2, but I could go either way. I would love any input on how you guys do it, based on some of the stuff I have read here, a lot of you must have whole rooms full of gear. EDIT: All these boxes will not leave the house, I will have a separate "car kit" of commonly used stuff, changing as the seasons do. I will add to this stuff from the main stash as needed. The building of this car kit is an other kettle of fish, and will likely take longer to figure out.

See, this is what I need to motivate, the mockery of strangers. I started the other night, but quickly ran out of Tupperware. Hah, that is the last of it to be packed away. Before I got into fishing I was super into shooting and reloading. Now, I have only opened my safe once in two years, and then just to oil them. That little press is going to become a tying station. That is how I got into this mess, I sold a single rifle, not even a super nice one, and blew it all on fishing stuff. A $500 gun is just getting started, but $500 worth of tackle is like a shopping cart full of stuff.

Well, a 7' rod will fit, but not while keeping the passenger seat usable and the rod unbent. Like I said, I tend to keep 2-3 rods in my car most of the year but space is tight due to all the other crap I "need" to keep with me. I have a few 2-part rods as I though they would be better for hiking but soon found out that a 3' long, fragile stick strapped to my pack is more cumbersome then a 6' long one carried in my hand. So I stopped buying them and went to 1 piece rods. I have a cheap Shakespeare M-F rod that the reel seat has come loose on. I think this weekend I am going to try and remove the grips and seat, shorten the butt, and put them back together. If that goes well I might just take my new rod money and invest in the beginnings of a rod building set up. Or get a Smallie Stix as "research" then buy the rod building suff this summer. Thanks for the advice guys!

Gentlemen, the monkey has escaped. And he destroyed my "den" pretty badly: But today I bought the means to contain him: I hereby swear that I will not buy a single bit of tackle until I get that mess onto those boxes.

I sometimes use a rock-climbing chalk bag clipped to my belt to hold my fishing stuff. It keeps hooks out of your pocket and it pretty convenient to access stuff. They also usually have a elastic loop on the side to hold small pliers.

Huh, I didn't realize that it was that simple of a matter to shorten a rod. I have never worked with graphite and hade no idea. If I go this route, I would likely buy the Okuma Citrix rod and remove 2-3" from the butt, giving me a rod with an OAL close to 6'3" or 4", which should be workable in my car without having to store the rod bent. Can anyone speak to Okuma's general quality and warranty and/or the Citrix line in specific? I think I am still going to reach out to Smallie Stix and discuss a custom rod. I did some reading about rod making last night and I am starting to get an itch in that direction.

I am a relentless tackle scavenger and sometimes get more excited about a nice find then catching fish. The kayak makes it very easy to get stuff snagged just off shore and I am even working on a little rig involving a 30" magnetic pick up tool with a small blade attached to it so I can gather even more. My best day was in October, I was wade fishing at the base of a small dam and got snagged. I waded over and found I was in a small pile of old sandbags, likely left over from work on the dam. In addition to my spinner I found maybe a dozen other spinners, a few small cranks, and a large squarebill that must have washed over the dam at some point. It was like Christmas. On another river I fish, there is a 1oz kastmaster hanging from a tree on an inaccessible part of the shore. It has been there for maybe a year and marks a very productive downed tree where white perch always seem to school. My old yak was too unstable to stand in but my new one should allow me to claim my prize!

I used to carry as much tackle as I could cram into my little hiking pack, but realized that I never used most of it. So I bought a small fly fishing chest pack. It has enough room for 2-3 bags of plastics, a tiny 4-compartment plano, leader, tools, and scent in the main pocket, and a few hardbaits in the flip down front pocket. If I am at a "civilized" lake I will go back to the car throughout the day and change rods and tackle assortments. If I am hiking I just try to pick stuff I have caught on before, or things I suspect might work. I do always bring a "wild card" bait, something totally opposite from what I am fishing that day, so if I am doing Ned rig type stuff I will bring a small rattling crank in firetiger, if I am fishing spinners and trout bugs I bring a weedless wacky hook and the biggest worm my rod will cast. I find this really helps me focus on learning a technique and not jumping from lure to lure. On my kayak I do bring more stuff but I am working on building a single 3600 box into my "kayak essentials" to always bring, then just bring a small assortment of stuff for each rod.

Yes, I my idea rod has both a split grip and an exposed blank above the reel seat. The split grip will allow me to add a section of foam float back there without adding much bulk. I don't like rod leashes but want some protection against an accident. I would like an exposed blank due to my experiences with my travel rod with this feature. Several times I have had a plastic sitting on the bottom while I am distracted by something and by having my thumb on the blank I have detected very soft hits and made catches. I have found a few rods that are almost what I am looking for but still not "perfect". Plus a split grip means less absorbent stuff to soak up spilled Gulp juice. My UL rod still stinks months later after the "incident".

Thanks for the responses guys. My current L rod is a premier, I have only had a out a few times but it casts so much better then the rod it replaced. However, other then their high end lines, none of the St Croix rods have a split grip or exposed blank above the reel seat. That being said it and the Okuma I mentioned are neck and neck for me right now, assuming I cant find my dream rod.

Hi, I have only been fishing for a year or two now and am looking to expand my arsenal of rod/reels. I currently do most of my fishing on L and UL spinning rigs and a single M-F casting rig I picked up last spring to see how I liked them. Short answer, is I don't, so I am looking to expand my spinning collection. I have a smattering of low end M and ML spinning rods, but I want something a bit better. I want a 6' rod for two reasons. First, 6' is the longest I can fit in my car without bending the rod. I tend to keep a few in my car at all times as I take a lot of impromptu outings. Second, I do a fair amount of bushwhacking to get to shore spots and hate fighting a long rod in the greenbrier thorns that plague this area. I want a short butt because the other half of my fishing is done from my kayak and the longer butt of my casting rod is constantly getting in the way. My L and UL rods have very short butts and are a dream to cast while sitting. Lure-wise, I fish a lot of finesse plastics (ned rigs, slider rigs, very small craws on 1/16-1/8 jigs), small spinnerbaits/inlines, and micro cranks. My L rod handles them fine so far, but I want a slightly more powerful rod to fish small plastic swimbaits on and some larger (1/4oz) spinners. I had a ton of success with the 4.3" and 3.8" Keitech Fats this summer but my L rod will only cast them weightless and my casting rod doesn't work well with them on anything lighter then a 1/8oz head. I have a pile of 1/16oz underspin swimbait hooks I want to use with them so I am thinking a ML rod will fit. I have an Okuma Citrix ML 6'6" travel rod that I take on work trips and I am very happy with it. I am considering picking up it's 1-piece brother but it is longer in both OAL and butt length then my ideal so I would love some more options. I really like the split grip and lack of a forgrip on the Okuma and would like a a rod with those features. Budget-wise, I would like something in the $100 range. I can push that a bit but, if I spend over $150 I might as well get a custom rod from Smallie Stixs or somewhere like that. I know I am asking for a pretty niche rod but figured that if such a rod exists, someone here must have heard of it. Thanks!

A Z-man Hula Stick wacky rigged has a hell of a lot of wiggle on the fall, I use a 1/16oz ball jig. Worked like a flick-shake it has caught a ton of bass for me.

Finding this thread was very reassuring, I thought I was the only one who compulsively buys tackle. I only started fishing maybe 2 years ago and just freaked out and bought all sorts of random stuff. Part of me wants to sell/give it all away and start over now that I have a better idea of what I want/need.

As of this fall I have caught 4 nice bass in the logjam at the bridge/aquaduct. As of this fall I have lost about fifty bucks worth of tackle in that same logjam. I think I need to get a stouter rod and try some punching rigs. This is the appeal of the canal to me. It is a nice hike even if the bite is off. My usual hiking buddy doesn't fish, but he is an enthusiastic climber, I might send him ahead to scout the pools for me.

Thanks for the info. If you see a chubby guy stuck in the mud this spring wave and say hello.

I fish the stretch of the canal between Swains and Pennyfield pretty often in the summer, it holds a ton of small LBMs but so far a large one has eluded me, but I have had some amazing days there in terms of numbers. It is a weird and very very unstable body of water so sometimes you will arrive and find it super low or muddy or weedy and the fishing is awful. Other times it is gin clear and has a perfect weed free channel down the center with bass stacked up on the transition. I rarely see anyone fishing more then like 1/2 a mile from the parking so if you are willing and able to walk you can have a good day even on the weekend. I would also love even a hint about the smallmouth spots, I always want to fish the Potomac but it is very daunting along that stretch and I have no idea where to start.