(Un)official Hoosiers Thread

[OddChase]

2 minutes ago, tstraub said:

The lake is a 22 acre spring feed with a creek flowing out that I assume connects to a river system somewhere (at least during floods). I assume it connects to a river because of the large numbers of carp and gar I see swimming around.  Fishing pressure is low except on holidays. Probably because it's out on the middle of nowhere and they charge a fee to fish unless you are also camping so there are not many people that come just to fish.  I've never tried a chatterbait mostly do to my lack of success with spinner baits.  I just figured that they were similar enough baits that if spinner baits were not the answer why buy a chatterbait.  I guess I could pick up a few and give then a shot.  

Yeah I don't know how well they work, I've used one in a small retention pond and caught a few on a white/char one. A Ned also worked in the same pond and out fished the chatter one time. Might have just been beginner's luck. 

[BigBassLoveSenkos]

1 hour ago, OddChase said:

It seems like you're fishing a heavy pressure pond/small lake. Am I right? I also remember you mentioning weeds and stuff. Have you tried a chatterbait? They are pretty much weedless and can get bites when nothing else can. 

Confession:  I have an entire box of chatterbaits that the bait monkey forced me to buy, but have only used one a couple times while night fishing. When fishing in grass, when do you guys use a chatterbait over a spinnerbait or a swim jig/paddletail combo or texas rig?  

[frosty]

11 hours ago, tstraub said:

I got out at first light without any of the kids and a plan to fish hard since I didn't have anyone but me to worry about.  I threw the tackle box at them for about an hour and a half without a bite.  Then I picked up my Ned rig rod and had a fish on the second or third cast.  It was a dink but at least it fit the skunk off.  I continued with the Ned for about an hour and only hooked one more fish which I got tangled in the anchor rope and lost him at the side of the boat.  Seems to be a tough bite so far today.

I was on vacation last week, I got 3 full days of fishing in and the bite was really tough. I never got skunked all week, but man they made me work for it. As much as I hate to say it, I'm wondering if those lunar tables aren't at least partially accurate? The last time it said fishing would be best I tore them up, all this last week it was poor or fair and it was tough fishing all week. 

[FastVette]

Went out twice today (score!)!!!  

Got off work at 6AM, home at 0630, rustled my oldest (almost 7) up and we went out.  Down to a DNR pond just south of the Roush Dam in Huntington.  Had a lone strike on a stanley ribbit, my son was using a *** frog.  Left there, went to St Claire pond in northeast huntington.  Zero zip nada though there was lots of activity.  Headed home, stopped at Schoaff Pond in Franke Park by the Fort Wayne zoo.  Won't be going back there, that pond is a mess.  Skunked in the AM.  

Slept some, got up, wife and kids weren't home, sent her a message, she said "I'm getting the girls."  These are the girls of our neighbors at our old house that come over and stay with us a few times a month.  First thing she says is "They want to go fishing."  Sweet!!  Hit up our local pond.  I landed 3 2 to 2.5lb bass off the ned, my wife hooked and landed one of the same on a chunk of hotdog under a bobber, and the girls landed a 4lb channel cat and lost two others to line breaks.  My boys both hooked a bunch of gills and perch.  

Good day, no complaints.  Even my son this morning said though, "Daddy, we need a boat."

[swandog]

If anybody has any good places to fish in the Terre Haute/Brazil area please let me know. Really looking for some new places. I fish the local county parks and the Shinook coal mine areas, but other than that I'm kinda stuck when I go out on my own. Thanks for any info.

[IndianaFinesse]

23 hours ago, BigBassLoveSenkos said:

Confession:  I have an entire box of chatterbaits that the bait monkey forced me to buy, but have only used one a couple times while night fishing. When fishing in grass, when do you guys use a chatterbait over a spinnerbait or a swim jig/paddletail combo or texas rig?  

I don't have much experience with chatterbaits, but I tend to pick them up when the water clarity is average in the 2-4 foot range or if they have been seeing a lot of spinnerbaits/swim jigs recently. 

I have been fishing a lot the past few days, pretty much dawn to dusk.  The fish are definitely on a frog bite, I've been getting them over vegetation in as deep as twelve feet of water in the morning and skipping docks later on.  Since Friday I have caught a total of about a hundred bass, and quite a few over fifteen inches.

I tried trolling for walleyes on Saturday morning with crawler harnesses along a twelve to fifteen foot drop, but the only thing I caught was a bunch of big bluegill.

[BigBassLoveSenkos]

40 minutes ago, swandog said:

If anybody has any good places to fish in the Terre Haute/Brazil area please let me know. Really looking for some new places. I fish the local county parks and the Shinook coal mine areas, but other than that I'm kinda stuck when I go out on my own. Thanks for any info.

You could check out the pits in Sullivan IN and Linton IN, but if I were you I'd hop onto 70W to Effingham IL and catch some giants in Newton Lake.  You can thank me later for that one 

INFinesse- how are you presenting chatterbaits?  Trailer?  Also, I probably need to thank you for putting me onto the ned rig.  It really is an amazing deal, errrr I mean it's horrible nobody buy it they dont catch anything 

[OddChase]

1 hour ago, BigBassLoveSenkos said:

Also, I probably need to thank you for putting me onto the ned rig.  It really is an amazing deal, errrr I mean it's horrible nobody buy it they dont catch anything 

Not sure if you intended the pun, but TRD literally stands for "The real deal" 

But you're right, please no one buy them. 

[IndianaFinesse]

1 hour ago, BigBassLoveSenkos said:

 

INFinesse- how are you presenting chatterbaits?  Trailer?  Also, I probably need to thank you for putting me onto the ned rig.  It really is an amazing deal, errrr I mean it's horrible nobody buy it they dont catch anything 

I mostly use them as a search bait, so I retrieve them fairly quickly.  Usually I steadily retrieve them so they are just ticking the tops of the weeds, occasionally stopping or speeding up to trigger any followers.  As far as trailers I keep it simple and either use a fluke or a Keitech fat impact depending on the targeted depth (the Keitech keeps it a little closer to the surface) and how much vibration I want.  Recently I've been trying the new chatterbait freedom and really like it, you can make it entirely weedless, the hook-ups are better, and the hooks are easy to swap out.

[frosty]

6 hours ago, BigBassLoveSenkos said:

You could check out the pits in Sullivan IN and Linton IN, but if I were you I'd hop onto 70W to Effingham IL and catch some giants in Newton Lake.  You can thank me later for that one 

INFinesse- how are you presenting chatterbaits?  Trailer?  Also, I probably need to thank you for putting me onto the ned rig.  It really is an amazing deal, errrr I mean it's horrible nobody buy it they dont catch anything 

Newton lake huh... how's the shore access? Man I need a boat!

[dsqui]

ha ha thats what i had for dinner effingham

[tstraub]

We dropped a 12 ft Jon boat in the Tippecanoe river North of Rochester.  We took turns rowing and dragging the boat about a mile or so upstream then we threw the anchors and fished for a while before pulling anchors and fixing l floating to the next spot that looked good and fishing it.  We spent about 4 hours fishing that one mile stretch.  We ended up catching a small mess of rock bass, smallmouth, and largemouth.  It was a great time but a lot of work.

[Wally Corder]

Spent some time with dough bait over in Monticello on the Tippi river with my pops. Wasn't really a carp/cat fan until we hooked into some fatties lol. Good times and my pops ended up bringing in a 20+ pounder. 

[frosty]

I just figured out I left my box of Ned rig stuff out at the pond the other day, went back and looked for it and apparently someone got themselves some new tackle looks like an order to tackle warehouse is in order...

[IndianaFinesse]

The fish are still on a hot frog bite.  Been catching about 35 a day and fishing seven days a week.  In the morning I throw the frogs over matted surface weeds and later on switch to skipping them under main lake docks. 

On Saturday I entered into a small tourney and took second place and a small check skipping a junior pad crasher and using a wacky rigged senko as a follow up bait.  Frusterating part is we only lost by half a pound, and I hooked a kicker that looked to be 3-4 pounds that would have won it.  The rule sheet stated that we could keep any size of bass with no limit on numbers, so we pre fished for numbers throwing the ned rig.  On the tournament morning we were told that they changed the rule so we could only keep five bass, so we had to learn on the fly where the size was and what they are biting.  Luckily I already knew they were on frogs, but I didn't know were they were or what my partner should throw now that we had to target better size.

We started out the tournament fishing thick surface grass on main lake points, picking up two good fish in the first fifteen minutes on the senko.  Then the bite shut down on the grass, so we started skipping docks with the pad crasher and only managed two more good ones over the next few hours.  While driving back to the weigh in with only four decent fish and a little 1 pounder in the livewell we decided to make a few casts at a spot on the way back.  Second cast and I hooked a solid fish on the pad crasher, which ended up putting us over third place into second.  Sure glad we made that one last stop and got second,   

[dsqui]

5 hours ago, IndianaFinesse said:

The fish are still on a hot frog bite.  Been catching about 35 a day and fishing seven days a week.  In the morning I throw the frogs over matted surface weeds and later on switch to skipping them under main lake docks. 

On Saturday I entered into a small (11 boat) tourney and took second place and a small check skipping a junior pad crasher and using a wacky rigged senko as a follow up bait.  Frusterating part is we only lost by half a pound, and I hooked a kicker that looked to be 3-4 pounds that would have won it.  The rule sheet stated that we could keep any size of bass with no limit on numbers, so we pre fished for numbers throwing the ned rig.  On the tournament morning we were told that they changed the rule so we could only keep five bass, so we had to learn on the fly where the size was and what they are biting.  Luckily I already knew they were on frogs, but I didn't know were they were or what my partner should throw now that we had to target better size.

We started out the tournament fishing thick surface grass on main lake points, picking up two good fish in the first fifteen minutes on the senko.  Then the bite shut down on the grass, so we started skipping docks with the pad crasher and only managed two more good ones over the next few hours.  While driving back to the weigh in with only four decent fish and a little 1 pounder in the livewell we decided to make a few casts at a spot on the way back.  Second cast and I hooked a solid fish on the pad crasher, which ended up putting us over third place into second with 10.45 pounds.  Sure glad we made that one last stop and got second,   

nice job

[BigBassLoveSenkos]

10 hours ago, IndianaFinesse said:

The fish are still on a hot frog bite.  Been catching about 35 a day and fishing seven days a week.  In the morning I throw the frogs over matted surface weeds and later on switch to skipping them under main lake docks. 

On Saturday I entered into a small (11 boat) tourney and took second place and a small check skipping a junior pad crasher and using a wacky rigged senko as a follow up bait.  Frusterating part is we only lost by half a pound, and I hooked a kicker that looked to be 3-4 pounds that would have won it.  The rule sheet stated that we could keep any size of bass with no limit on numbers, so we pre fished for numbers throwing the ned rig.  On the tournament morning we were told that they changed the rule so we could only keep five bass, so we had to learn on the fly where the size was and what they are biting.  Luckily I already knew they were on frogs, but I didn't know were they were or what my partner should throw now that we had to target better size.

We started out the tournament fishing thick surface grass on main lake points, picking up two good fish in the first fifteen minutes on the senko.  Then the bite shut down on the grass, so we started skipping docks with the pad crasher and only managed two more good ones over the next few hours.  While driving back to the weigh in with only four decent fish and a little 1 pounder in the livewell we decided to make a few casts at a spot on the way back.  Second cast and I hooked a solid fish on the pad crasher, which ended up putting us over third place into second with 10.45 pounds.  Sure glad we made that one last stop and got second,   

way to go dude.  props on adapting on the fly and still wrecking the field!!

[Team9nine]

14 hours ago, IndianaFinesse said:

The fish are still on a hot frog bite.  Been catching about 35 a day and fishing seven days a week.  In the morning I throw the frogs over matted surface weeds and later on switch to skipping them under main lake docks. 

On Saturday I entered into a small (11 boat) tourney and took second place and a small check skipping a junior pad crasher and using a wacky rigged senko as a follow up bait.  Frusterating part is we only lost by half a pound, and I hooked a kicker that looked to be 3-4 pounds that would have won it.  The rule sheet stated that we could keep any size of bass with no limit on numbers, so we pre fished for numbers throwing the ned rig.  On the tournament morning we were told that they changed the rule so we could only keep five bass, so we had to learn on the fly where the size was and what they are biting.  Luckily I already knew they were on frogs, but I didn't know were they were or what my partner should throw now that we had to target better size.

We started out the tournament fishing thick surface grass on main lake points, picking up two good fish in the first fifteen minutes on the senko.  Then the bite shut down on the grass, so we started skipping docks with the pad crasher and only managed two more good ones over the next few hours.  While driving back to the weigh in with only four decent fish and a little 1 pounder in the livewell we decided to make a few casts at a spot on the way back.  Second cast and I hooked a solid fish on the pad crasher, which ended up putting us over third place into second with 10.45 pounds.  Sure glad we made that one last stop and got second,   

Good job...

-T9

 

[OddChase]

About to buy a real rod for my bait caster. Any one have a preference between the #8 BlackO or a Mojo Bass?  

[dsqui]

58 minutes ago, OddChase said:

About to buy a real rod for my bait caster. Any one have a preference between the #8 BlackO or a Mojo Bass?  

if i had to shoose between the two ild buy a dobyns fury instead itll cost a little more then the black out but less then the mojo and has a better warranty to boot

[OddChase]

6 minutes ago, dsqui said:

if i had to shoose between the two ild buy a dobyns fury instead itll cost a little more then the black out but less then the mojo and has a better warranty to boot

Mojos are on sale right now thanks to iCast

The Dobyns 703C is exactly what I'm looking for though.. May have to spend the extra $20. Is it worth it ?

[dsqui]

i personally think it is look at it this way save 20 break the rod buy a new one spend the twenty break the rod have a warranty claim 20 now will save you money in the future.  plus i love all my dobyn rods

now dont get me wrong dobyns rods arent free to replace but ild rather have to spend 50 for a 110 rod then have to wait for them to go back on sale and purchase it again.  in the long run its alot cheaper to spend a little more up front.  plus if it breaks from man def they replace it free but most rods dont break this way most get stepped on on door gets shut or somehint to that affect

and actually mojos are what i replaced with the dobyns

[OddChase]

2 minutes ago, dsqui said:

i personally think it is look at it this way save 20 break the rod buy a new one spend the twenty break the rod have a warranty claim 20 now will save you money in the future.  plus i love all my dobyn rods

Okay thanks man. Appreciate it. Also - I've read that the power ratings are a bit low. Would you agree with this? I want to be able to pitch 1/2oz jigs and lighter punch rigs as well as thrower chatterbaits. Might get the 704 instead. 

[dsqui]

lighter punch rigs as in what weight??

703 is up to 3/4 the 704 is up to 1 oz...if you donjt plan on going over 1/2 ild get the 703 if you plan on going any bigger ild step up to the 704..that being said ild just get the 704 so you have more options iwth it

[OddChase]

2 minutes ago, dsqui said:

lighter punch rigs as in what weight??

1/2 oz for getting through pads and just slop around ponds. Nothing above 3/4 probably. Which is why I said lighter because I know most punchers wouldn't consider those weights as a punch rig lol. I just want a decent all-around rod as I only have 1 caster right now and I'm still learning.