VaMushroomHunter

Hi folks, I'd like to get your opinions on when northern snakehead angling season starts winding down in the DC/VA/MD area. It's been pretty slow with the bites over the last week. Do you catch them into September? A related question is this: Do you fish for them differently as the season progresses? Late summer conditions on my creek are much different from spring, with scummy water the color of milky tea. The creek is clogged with vast mats of coontail, too... making it hard to use a chatterbait when every cast dredges up a ton of salad.

Hi folks, I recently bought an Abu Garcia 5500C, reel foot number 820500, on Ebay. From what I can find on the Internet, 82 is the year, 05 is the month, and 00 is the revision. I went to Garcia's reel schematic site, and the closest I could find was a 1981. Probably not a lot of difference from what I've got, but I would like to know for sure what the parts are, especially since I plan to upgrade the drag washers to their modern-day carbontex equivalents, and to replace the bearings. Anyone out there perchance who happens to have the schematic, or who can give me more information about my reel? Thanks!

Hey folks, I have a Tracker Topper 1436 jon boat that I want to use with a bow-mount trolling motor, so I'm planning to affix a small plywood deck to the front bench, with the end extending maybe a foot out and braced by 2x2s. A fourteen-foot jon boat only three feet wide doesn't strike me as as providing a stable enough platform for a casting deck, so I don't intend to ever use it as such- its sole purpose will be to support a couple of 2x4s stacked together so I can affix the trolling motor mount. Do I really need to go through the expense and hassle of carpeting this deck? I care about functionality and durability, aesthetics not so much. Could I get away with just painting the plywood? I hope to eventually build a carport to shelter the boat, but for now it will be sitting in the weather.

Hi folks, I'm wondering what I should be doing to my baitcasting reels upon returning from a day of fishing. I see lots of recommendations for dealing with saltwater, but not so much for my situation: I fish freshwater (actually it's right at the fresh/brackish line, according to the maps), but there are summer days when there's a layer of thick, viscous, brown scum on the creek. I don't know whether it's from mud, organic matter, or what, but if you've ever fished in it, you'll know what I'm talking about. It comes in on the line when you retrieve, and then when you cast again the reel throws drops of dirty water with the color of tea or even of chocolate milk, and any that land on your clothes will never wash out. It stains my braided line, and it leaves the reel coated with a stubborn muddy deposit. A few times of fishing in this kind of water, and it builds up enough so that my baitcaster's line guide starts to clog, especially since the muddy water tends to bring in creek debris like algae, pollen, tiny fragments of hydrilla, etc. (Sometimes I even wonder why I fish on days when the creek's like that, but the snakehead seem to love it, so...) I used to wash down my reels with a hose upon returning home, taking care to tighten down the star drag first, but now I have extreme reservations about that procedure. I took apart my Bass Pro Formula reel and saw that water had gotten in under the spool tension cap; the water was brown from rust, and the source of the rust turned out to be the ball bearing under the cap. The bearing was so rusty that it only turned with difficulty- and this was in a reel I'd only owned for a month. Does anyone have a (hopefully quick and easy) method of cleaning their reels at the end of the day to deal with situations like mine?

Hey folks, I bought a Bass Pro Qualifier baitcast reel a few weeks ago, and I've taken it out ten times so far. I was extremely satisfied with its performance up until yesterday, when I found that the spool tension knob has apparently stopped working. I can tighten the knob all the way, yet my bait still drops to the ground quickly once I press the thumb bar. I don't know what I could have done wrong to make this happen- unless it could be hosing down the reel after a day of fishing? Where I fish, there's often a thick layer of mucky scum that gets all over the reel, so when I get home I tighten down the star drag, put the hose sprayer on its "Soak" setting and douse the reel, cast and retrieve a couple of times, and then re-loosen the star drag for storage. Anyone know how I might go about diagnosing the problem with the spool tension? Of course, I can take it back to Bass Pro and let them deal with it, but I'd like to try to resolve it myself if possible. They're sixty miles away.

Hi folks, Last year I bought a used 14' jon boat and a trailer. Over the winter I built a floating barrel dock at my landing, where I intend to keep the boat during the summer and fall months. The landing is at the end of a long logging trail, and a grove of trees combined with a steep hill make it impossible to get a trailer down there. So my plan was to use my neighbor's landing to put the boat in the water and take it out. He kindly gave me permission, and all was well until I actually inspected his landing. The mild slope of the landing doesn't continue into the water; at the shore's edge, there's a vertical drop of a foot or slightly more. I'm concerned about my ability to smoothly launch the jon boat, and even more concerned about how I would get it back onto the trailer once it was launched. I'm not about to back my Dodge Dakota pickup so far that the rear wheels go over the edge, and the boat is heavier than just a regular 14' aluminum-alloy jon boat, due to its plywood deck. The alternative would be to use the nearest public landing, but that's several miles away by water. Is there a method for me to safely and easily get my boat in and out of the water at my neighbor's landing?

Thanks, JustJames! I'm thinking next year I'll go out at night and give it a try. I'll stick with topwater frogs, maybe the larger ones like the Stanley Bull Ribbit 3/4 ounce. They really do make a lot of commotion on the water. I also think I'll go snakehead fishing the next time I visit my relatives in ประเทศไทย, to see how it's done over there. The main village is in Isan, the Northeastern region of the country, in Nakhon Ratchasima province, but I also have relatives in the north near Chiang Mai, in the south near Chumphon, and an aunt-in-law who lives in Don Muang. Is there a particular part of the country that's best for snakeheads, or are they located all over? (I know I won't find them in the Bangkok canals, and probably wouldn't eat them if I did.)

Snakehead, definitely. Matter of fact, it's the only thing I fish for. I'll reel in the occasional largemouth bass or chain pickerel, but I release those. The thing about snakehead, the primary reason I fish for it, is that it is delicious. I'd rather have it than rockfish, salmon, flounder, tilapia, whatever. Firm white meat with no fishy taste. Beats cod or haddock hands down for fish n chips. The thing looks like a monster, but oh, is it tasty. And since it is so large, it is easy to make fillets. (As a matter of fact, being tasty is the reason it ended up as an invasive species here in the USA: people took live snakeheads from Asian groceries and released them into local waters.) Also, it's an exciting fish to catch. I love the way it assassinates a topwater frog. It waits in ambush for the lure to go by, then savagely attacks it. Thing looks like a torpedo slicing through the water.

Hi folks, This was my first year snakehead fishing (matter of fact it's been thirty years since I did fishing of any sort), and I only got started in late July. I use a baitcaster with soft-bodied topwater frogs. The fishing was great at first, but slacked off seriously in August, and the last several times I've been out, it's been nothing, nada, nil; I'm guessing the snakeheads have called it quits until next year. So with the tidal Potomac snakehead season apparently over, I've got lots of questions and no way to answer them until next year except to appeal to those of you with more experience. One big question is this: Is it possible to catch snakeheads at night on a rod and reel? (I know the big thing these days is to outfit a boat with a generator and some high-intensity lights, and to use this for night bowfishing. But the logistics for that just wouldn't work for me: my favorite fishing location is a tidal creek located on my property, with masses of thick hydrilla, water less than a foot deep in places, numerous obstructions from beavers, and no path suitable for a vehicle to back a boat trailer to the water's edge. Some of my best places aren't even accessible with a jon boat, but require something narrow like a canoe, and light enough that I can get out and pull them over fallen trees.) Has anyone had substantial success going after snakehead at night, with nothing more than, say, a canoe, rod and reel, tackle box, artificial lures, and a headlamp or cap light so they can see what they're doing? Thanks in advance for any replies.