beardown34

The 2.5" slim swimz are awesome. And when you get bored fishing it finesse style, just steady reel it and you have a tiny swim bait with the tail paddling away. Has really re-ignited my interest in finesse fishing. The TRD Craw I had high hopes for, but the claws will frequently get caught in the hook, requiring you to fix it before the next cast. It's like the claw appendages are just too flappy.

Thanks for your input TOXIC, cgolf, and Oregon Native! TOXIC -- that's hilarious, you're right, in my mind this family trip is a fishing trip! I'm just the only person who thinks that! I decided to bring two spinning reels + two spincast reels. In all honesty the non-fishing folk will probably not fish at all, but at least this gives them the option. I think presentation-wise I'll lean heavily on things that either allow the bass to hook themselves or will be relatively easy to set the hook -- ned rigs, drop shots, wacky rigs, and inline spinners. And my 8 year olds love them some whopper ploppers I hope I can find a bait shop nearby to buy a mess of nightcrawlers and set up the spincast rods for slip bobber fishing. Come to think of it, maybe I'll just go to Walmart and see if they have live bait. (Anyone know in the Chicago western suburb area?)

Maybe I should just rig up a nightcrawler on a dropshot rig, grab some beers and call it a day

We will be on Lake Petenwell. You're right. Looks like I'll be kind of near the Dells but not in them.

Hey all, I do mostly bass fishing in small (1-3 acre) residential ponds. Next week we are headed up past the Wisconsin Dells to a rental home that backs up to Lake Petenwell (the second largest lake in Wisconsin apparently?). The group consists of 3 families -- one set of grandparents, and my family and my sister-in-law's family. None of the adults fish except me. The kids are aged 8 (three of them), 6, 5, and 4. My 8 year olds have gotten on some fish with ned rigs and in-line spinners, and can cast spinning reels on their own. The other kids have not fished at all. I have no idea if we're even going to do any significant fishing, so I'm just making what-if type arrangements. Meaning, I have extra spinning reels so that's what I'm going to bring. I'm not going to go out and get spincast reels because all the younger kids are going to need an adult helping them cast anyways so I am choosing not to spend money on more reels. Again, to be clear, this is not a fishing trip. This is a trip to the Dells-adjacent (water parks, pontoons, etc) where there might be fishing. I'm not bringing my one-piece rods due to packing purposes so I'm probably going to go to BPS and get some Berkley Cherrywood 2 piece M and MH rods for $25 each. I already have a couple 2 piece L/ML rods I can setup. Just curious on some of your tips regarding: 1) Lures to prepare I'm thinking 1/32 to 1/10 oz ned rigs In-line spinners Mini/micro chatterbaits Whopper plopper 75s for my kids (so they can fish topwater and just chuck/wind without having to set a hook like horny toading) Wacky rig 2) Line I'd like to buy one big spool of mono to supply all the reels, since after this week, the reels probably won't be used. What weight would you think --- 8-10lb mono would be a reasonable compromise for all the presentations about? Doesn't look like my local BPS has any Yozuri hybrid 6/8/10 # in stock 3) If bobber / nightcrawler fishing, what kind of hook do I use? Like a long shank #2? Targeting bass ideally. I have tiny #8-12 hooks for sunfish. Thanks! Any other tips appreciated. I'll probably make a run out to BPS tomorrow.

Started seeing bass on beds last week. Western suburbs

I excitedly tried mine today. Unfortunately, mine consistently backlashes unless the spool tension is tightened way beyond what I need for my other reels. Plus after 1 or 2 casts (non-vigorous roll casting), my spool tension would noticeably loosen. Also, the level wind stacks line on the right of the spool. Clearly others have had good luck with their speed demons. Mine is going back though.

If you've seen my recent posts on wacky rig and chicken rig modifications, you'll see that I've been accused of making things too complicated. But this discussion is barreling off the rails! I agree with MickD, you're probably overthinking it. Practice with the braided line reel first. If I need to unwind and respool some line, I usually just sit down while watching tv and do it during commercials. Takes a couple minutes.

All he's saying is if you're going to strip the line off yourself, do it by loosening the drag until you can pull the line off easily by hand, as opposed to pushing the thumb bar and causing 125 yards of fluoro to go springing off. All he's saying is if you're going to strip the line off yourself, do it by loosening the drag until you can pull the line off easily by hand, as opposed to pushing the thumb bar and causing 125 yards of fluoro to go springing off.

Brett is it braid/superline? Or something with memory like mono or fluoro. It sounds like you're not terribly comfortable respooling yourself. If it's braid there's nothing to worry about. But if it's line with memory, and you're not comfortable spooling a reel, you can definitely end up wasting a bunch of line. In general i agree that it will be well worth it in the long haul to learn to spool your reels on your own.

The wiggle wog tail will leave a wake but it doesn't spin and plop

While my buzzbaits and traditional hollow body frogs have stopped working for whatever reason, I have been able to catch a couple on the Sprinker this past week. It plops nicely and must look different enough from the other traditional topwaters to be attractive to the fish. Two things so far I'm not in love with -- I hooked a 2# bass and dragged it in with a fair amount of algae. I'm guessing due to the weight of the fish + algae, the underside of the Sprinker tore about 1cm -- where the hooks come out of the body. I guess that's one of the things the Teckel frogs are known for -- soft bodies. The second thing is that when fishing the Sprinker through/over algae mats, the algae will get caught in the hooks and occasionally pull the hooks slightly downward -- so the hooks are kinda hanging over the side/butt of the frog. Obviously can't really compare this effect to traditional hollow bodies because those aren't retrieved quickly across algae like the Sprinker is. Oh, there's one more thing I don't like about my first Sprinker -- the fact that it is now floating away somewhere in my pond because my line snapped

Tie the mono, fluoro, or copolymer leader directly to your braid, with a double uni, albright, or FG knot. I use 15# fluoro with my 30lb power pro, but when I'm fishing topwater or moving baits I just go straight braid.

I tried it out at a local pond today. The tail does a good job spinning or plopping, as opposed to my whopper plopper 90 which requires a quick jerk to get it going. Also the tail has the same action regardless of whether my rod tip is high or low (as opposed to my WP90 which needs the rod tip high). Got 2 hookups in an hour with windy water.

Not to wish any ill deeds on you, but there is a lot of value to birds nests while you're learning. It will force you to learn why you birds nested and how to better avoid it. It also teaches you the limits of exactly how light you can go with each reel/rod combo. And probably most importantly, backlashing a bunch (and then picking them out) teaches you that most birds nests really aren't that bad, and you can finally get over your fears.