Lord Castlereagh

I use chicken livers to get catfish. Works BEAUTIFYLLY! Are mullet just as good? Better? Not good at all? Thanks

My rods and reels are clean and they gleam like diamonds. All is prepared. All is ready. The tackle box is stocked and sharp hooks wait for flesh. The lures and the plastics bear silent witness to the struggles, failures, and victories of seasons past. The fish are sleeping, barely stirring. I will not know them for a hundred days still... But the mighty Potowmack, father of waters (that may be the Chesapeake in Indian language) and I have an appointment to keep. I just don't know how to pass the time until then. How do you do it? What glides you over that time? The time from now until the time to cast?

SM is more fun, and fight harder, but you prefer LMs??? Why?

Caught my first ever big smallmouth today. My did he fight! I was really impressed. Is it my imagination or did he fight a lot harder than his largemouth cousins? Or are they about the same?

Very well said...

4 years USMC, TOW gunner, 1981-1985, Beirut, Lebanon, 1983. I DESPERATELY WANTED to be an 0331, but I got TOWs instead.

Kept accidentally getting catfish on Goose Creek. So I figured I'd go for them for real. Here's what I found: I caught 5 in about 4 hours which is pretty good for me The bait (chicken livers) is as close to free as you can get They are HUGE, way bigger than the bass I catch And, of course, fried catfish is way better tasting than bass. So, why is bass fishing so much more popular than catfishing?

Thanks, WRB. I just blood-knotted it. If it snags, I'm blaming you...

What do you do with the last 30 feet or so of the spool? I hate to waste it, so I used to attach it to the next, fresh spool with a double uni know. I say "used to" because each and every single time I did that, the line would, without fail, snag up on the exposed ends of the double uni knot. I used a magnifying glass to clip the ends as unbearably close as I could, and still the snags came. This leads to several question: 1. Is that what a double uni is for, and am I, therefore, doing it wrong? 2. If that is NOT what a double uni is for, then what is it for? 3. What do YOU do with those last 30 or so feet? Seems terrible to waste it.

For everybody that says "Potomac," I'd like your opinion on the 53-mile Goose Creek that feeds the Potomac near Leesburg. Thanks

Snapped 2 inches off my rod today. Looks like all the repair kits merely put a new guide ring onto the end of the broken rod, as opposed to reattaching the snapped off 2 inches. Am I right about this? Thanks

What lures/baits were you using that were not working just before you switched to worms? Thanks

VERY informative. Thanks much. This is a great site.

Help me out with this... When I go to amazon and search, say, "spinnerbait" I'll get pages of baits, a great deal of which will be packs, which is great! I like 10 packs and 12 packs and 30 packs. I cannot find those on TW. I just can't. When I search for "packs" or "kits" I get no hits. When I search "spinnerbait" I just get the singles. What to do? Thanks

I don't think I've seen any mention of minnows for bass on this forum. Curious.

Are minnows no good for bass fishing? Everybody tells me to fish a minnow 4 feet under a bobber for crappie, but nobody ever says use a minnow for bass. If they ARE good for bass, what's the best technique? Thanks

Oh, yeah. By the end of the day, I'm sure I'll be trying a lot of things. Thanks

You are too kind... I will do just as you advise. Thanks, Rick

Going fishing on Goose Creek and the Potomac River in Northern VA. Rocky bottom, easy to lose lures, keeping that in mind, do y'all have any advice. I'm new to fishing (since last July) and have had a MISERABLE spring. One good day in my last 30 trips. Nothing seems to be working. Thanks.

Can't quite read the article, but as a former Marine, I am intrigued by the Hathcock connection. Please enlighten. Thanks

Well, darn! You two might have solved the mystery just that fast. The pond I fish is PACKED with bluegills, and there were hundreds of 'em crowding the banks yesterday. I bet that's it.

So, I went fishing with NCs yesterday and it left me quite puzzled. Right off the bat, if I look at the responses to my last NC posting, I can see that there is a great deal of mystery behind fishing with these creatures. One man was amazed that you could even gun for bass with them, while others described them as VERY effective. Just think for a moment how strange that little fact is... Well, after burning through 12 NCs yesterday, I can see where the mystery comes from. Let's first eliminate the "ball" method of putting the hook on the worm. I never got a nibble with the ball. HOWEVER, when wacky rigging them or putting them on in any way "loose," the bites were truly amazing! Unlike anything I have EVER seen before. The average time in the water before a strike was UNDER five seconds. But... I did not land one single fish. The fish would hit, I would retrieve, and half or all of the worm would be gone. Believe me, I tried every method I could think of, from a vicious hook set at the earliest possible instant, to letting the fish take and run with the bait. Nothing worked. What am I doing wrong? What should I do? Why does a plastic wacky snare the fish, but a real worm not? Why do some states (from what I read on my first NC thread) outlaw NCs? By the way, after I fed the d**n bass all 12 of my NCs, I switched to a Senko wacky rig, and bagged 3 bass. Please help. Thanks

Describe the split shot method if you get a minute. Thanks

It seems as if almost nobody eats their catch. Is this a misconception on my part? Crappie are supposed to be fabulous, and they are, but honestly, I can tell VERY little difference between bass and crappie. So who eats 'em, and who lets 'em go? Thanks