FishDewd

Ha! My gas is cheaper than yours!

I do best with a dropshot. Can catch anything from bass to perch on those. Ned rig doesn't do anything for me, wacky rigs just get caught on everything in the water, and I'm dreadful with shaky heads. Tubes sometimes work but dropshot is king to me.

When it comes to bass, I don't have a lot of older lures that I use. About the only ones are popper style, though I haven't been terribly successful using them so far. I so some really old jerkbaits that were probably hand made, but I never use them due to sentiment. My uncle has some old Devil Horses though that he's always sworn by. They actually still sell that lure, I have seen it in several shops, so it probably works pretty well. To me it looks basically like a jerkbait turned into a twin torpedo instead of a bill in the front. I use teeny torpedoes, spoons, and size 3 anglia spinners when fishing for trout in rivers though, those tend to work pretty well but the torpedoes and spinners are somewhat difficult to cast, especially in tight quarters. Spoons tend to cast a lot better, but get snagged more often.

Depends on when the rain is expected to come. Rains in mornings I go evenings. Rains in evening I go mornings. I also go mornings to squeeze in a session before work.

I picked up an older (I think) style of Berkley shock at Walmart not too long, it was about $40 iirc. It's 7', rated MH, and doesn't have an action listed, but it seems to best match a fast action. I've been using it for jigs and heavier stuff like that. I think it's pretty decent, and I don't find it to be heavy whatsoever since it balances well with the reel. My only complaint is that it could have at least one more eyelet on it.

I have too have issues with this... I've been getting into swim jigs and so far I don't think I've had a hit on them. I haven't yet figured out how to detect a bite on the fall, especially on spinning setups where the line is looping off the spool as it falls. How anyone could notice a bite when that's occurring is beyond me at this time lol. Same with it feeling heavy or different. I've set loads of times from the lure feeling a bit heavy or just different when I didn't think it was a snag, and it's mostly resulted in me losing the jig/lure due to a snag of some sort, or else just pulling up some weeds when I bring it in. So I really try to wait to feel if it's alive or not before I go to set. I suspect polarized lenses might help me somewhat to see things better but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I do that on a baitcaster, how does one keep a finger on the line on a spinning setup? I can really only keep contact with it when it's coming around the bottom of the spool, otherwise it's way out of reach.

Well, comets are cosmic, so you weren't too far out into space on that! On the right orbital path at any rate! :P

For what's it's worth, I use a strip or two of electrical tape as backing, then tie the braid on with a pitzen knot rather than an arbor. Arbor's never worked for me.

That does sound like he wasted fish. Unless I am fishing to harvest (not bass) I always throw them back so long as they seem to be healthy. You're right to be mad about it, even if it doesn't hurt the ecosystem much, it was wrong and the guy should have more sense and compassion for other living things. The fact he didn't makes me question his mentality. In the future don't confront someone like that just call the authorities and find out how they wish to handle the situation. If they say drop it, then drop it. Otherwise if they want to come out, great. If they can't make then at least try to note the make/model/color of the guy's vehicle with at least a few of the license plates digits so they can look out for him next time.

I too spent some time looking about... I saw some that were close, but not quite right.

I went to my local DSG yesterday and they had some Cavitrons. Maybe they're just waiting to sell them and won't restock after... no idea. I already have a few though, not that I use them much right now, so I'm set on them for the time being.

I like a co-polymer on my spinners either straight or with a lighter leader depending on uses... baitcasters I do prefer a braid, but you seem to do well with copolymer on them. My braid I almost always attach a leader- right now it's 10 lb Seaguar Red Label fluorocarbon. I like the invisibility of the FC with the sensitivity of the braid. Confidence thing, whatever... But yeah you can do all with a single rod so long as you're comfortable with it. Is it "proper"? Probably not... but not everyone can budget in a bunch of rods to do different things. Sometimes doing more with less equates to more experience. And catching that tricky fish with the "wrong set-up" is also a lot more rewarding personally lol.

Okay, first let's talk about the snap and swivel. Yes, a swivel isn't a bad idea, but you'll want to be using a dedicating swivel with no snap attached to it. Start with one rated at about 80 lb test since I have no idea how big the cats you are fishing for are. Don't use that kind of snap! Those are known to break- I've had those break while catching 2-4 lbs catfish before on the hookset. I have one rig that I use for hotdogs that uses a coastline snap + swivel but being able to use that came with experience on hook setting and working the drag properly. But don't try that yet lol. Secondly, the bead isn't a terrible idea but not totally necessary with an egg sinker. The primary purpose for that when catfishing would be to protect the knot, but egg sinkers are pretty good with knots anyway, so you could eliminate that unless you really feel like the added noise helps. I would however recommend a "no-roll" sinker if the river your fishing has a good amount of current to it and you notice your bait drifting around a lot. 3/4 oz- 2 oz. Using that, you should use a bead. Otherwise, your rig looks fine as it is but you should the leader direct to the hook with a palomar knot or similar. If you're worried about snagging, then don't be afraid to target them on a float rig. You don't even really need a weight. Large weighted foam traditional float. Since your pole can take *** oz of weight, that sounds like a nice piece of cut bait to me- shad, bluegill, whatever natural bait fish the water holds should be fair game. Those two together should get you a nice weight to toss out there. Warning: you might catch a turtle or two with cutbait so bring a good pair of long pliers for safety. Your rods are sufficient, although I agree that 10' rod might be a little overkill. Looks like a drifting rod to me, which you can do for catfish but that's a more advanced technique. I catch most of my catfish on no more than a medium powered pole rated for 3/4 oz lure weight and 7' length. Drag is the most important thing anyway, learning to use that properly will do wonders. Don't horse them in, let them run around and tire out, taking up line when they've stopped pulling, but keep pressure on. The battle is the fun part, enjoy it!

Lucky craft 1.5 crankbait. I don't know what color exactly, but I used one today that I rescued from a tree and the perch HATED it! It had a color changing shimmer effect in the light. Every small baitfish just smacked and slammed the heck out of it, then when I was letting it float on the surface just off the bank I saw this nice sized bluegill come up and eyeball it like "hey bro! Why you invading my turf?" I gave it one tiny twitch and it got drilled by that bluegil. Set it and pulled him up. I didn't get a picture of it but it definitely my PB perch for sure. Almost twice as big as my hand. Turns out the crankbait belonged to a forum member who had lost it that I was fishing with so I gave it back to him after we were done fishing lol. But I am so buying one now! It makes the perch angry!

Who said you can't work a bait going for catfish? I've caught them on all sorts of bass lures on purpose. Like tubes, plastics, crankbaits... it's fun. One thing I notice about catfish is that they typically fight harder for their size and are way stronger than bass. A 3+ lb. catfish on fairly light tackle is an absolute blast.

Interesting. Its very possible I could have some hybrids. Pond has held catfish for over 40 years. Can't see it in the picture but thos cat had a lot of red on the fins. I've never seen that before on my cats. I have no idea what caused that.

Bonus points for getting snagged on the stick!

Ah yeah you're right I overlooked the fin. Ones we had before were flat in the back, remember that now. The coloring on it threw me off. Normally mine have spots and a flatter head. This one was a little oddly colored and shaped. Then again I also have albinos in the pond too, so big gene pool there flying around.

Have you tried the micro crank baits? The perch love them... They normally will hit them on the slow rise upwards during a pause. It can be a trick to hook them though.

I go lure hunting when the bite is slow! I usually find at least one good one... those who lose their lures in trees, forfeit those lures to poor ole me! I thank them all for their contributions! Saves me money buying them lol. Even if it's crappy lures, I can still get free hooks, weights, floats... that all costs money!

Fished my pond this evening just before a big storm front moved in. Caught two nice catfish that were harvested for the fry pan. First was a channel cat around 18", then a few minutes later I got this nice fat boy. I had to measure it cause it might be my PB catfish. Pretty sure it's one of our old blue cats we thought had died out/been fished out. It hit that hotdog so hard it slid all the way up my 10 lb. fluorocarbon leader and got stuck onto the swivel (my exact set up is a secret, sorry). It ran 4-5 times across my pond, doing it's darndest to spool my spinning reel. I love the sound of my reel drag screaming, I know you can all relate to that! In the end I wore it down, netted it, and pulled it onto the bank in victory. 22" (although it moved before I took the pic and it's head went up farther, so it was a little over 22") and easily 3.5 lbs.

I have 3 90's in different colors to match the water conditions here, but so far I've only caught 4 on my black/yellow plopper. They were all right at a pound or so, haven't gotten anything bigger using one.

Oh it was a pretty large gap. I have it repaired amd sanded already. Not too pretty but it may work. Ill have to test and see. I figured the same thing: doesnt work least it was free lol.

Nope just a local park in Friendswood, TX lol. I find quite a bit lures here as well and I've only searched a small portion of it. I need to devote a whole day one of these days. There's another park near to that one that I hear rumors has 4-5 lures stuck in every single tree.

So I put in some work this morning with my lure retriever. I'm getting pretty good at it! I primarily went to rescue a 6th sense swim jig I dumbly managed to launch into a tree my last outing. Mission accomplished, got it back! But on the way back I saw more lures that I had missed seeing when going to the spot I lost my lure at. I managed to rescue a spinnerbait, a squarebill crankbait, and a texas rig, while removing about 15 yards of line from a single branch. I basically end up snapping off the entire tree limb and taking it home with lures and lines still attached. Minus some minor bending on the spinnerbait, those came out fine. A bit farther down the bank I saw a thick braid line zig zagging through another tree. I followed it around to the other side when I saw what at first I thought was some sort of shrimp shaped crankbait or swimbait. So I stuck my retriever up there and began to twirl it around the limbs to lock in it. That's when I noticed it was a swimbait! One of the multi-jointed ones, not sure of the brand though. Nice panfish imitation. I managed to free it and proudly brought it to me. The braid was wrapped around my retriever so badly it took a minute to slid up the spiral and get it off. Pocketed it and went on. Later when I got home I was removing the extra lines and all that when I noticed the swimbait suffered damage in the rescue. Somehow the braid had wrapped the bill several times and actually sawed about 3/4 of the way through it. Rest of it was in fine shape though. So I filled the gap with some gorilla glue since the braid had basically melted some of the plastic away and allowed it to set the bill straight as I could get it and fill in the gap. Now waiting for it to fully set overnight so that I can sand it down smooth again. I'm hoping it will be useable once I'm done, but I am not sure. Has anyone ever done this before with a bill on a lure? Will it work or will it run funny? Either way... I got some lures and detangled a lot of lines from trees that may have ended up injuring wildlife. Even got a free gama 3/0 EWG hook and 1/4 weigh that's basically brand new out of the deal from the t-rig. So there's that at least.... I assisted the park by helping to clean up from other angler's mistakes. Almost as fun as actually fishing!