Help me "Break/understand the code"

[S-T-R-I-K-E-R]

Im new to Bass Fishing and I go to this private pond to understand and learn how to use the different soft baits. Using a C-rig, I was able to catch a few LMB (average size was about a pound).

 

tackle setup

California Rig with 8lb Braded (PE 1.5) line and a 6lb P-line leader

lure was a zoom 4" tag tail grub using EWG 2/0 worm hook

 

 

I am hoping to get feedback on why there happened so i can be a better angler.

 

1) I Lost a lot of my gear  (hook line and sinker) when my braided line failed whenever i try to snag a strike. The line usually breaks at the knot (palomar) of the main line and swivel. I made adjustments to my drag which i figured might be too tight and this helped with the breaks but did not cure it entirely. 

 

2) I tried a couple of soft lures and I get zero strikes but when i switch to this particular lure they seem to respond to this Zoom 4" tag tail grub using 2/0 EWG worm hook (im guessing coz it looks like baby bass). My concern is, why are most of my 1 pounders are hooked in the throat? is there anything i can do to prevent it?

 

3) I fish from the edge of the water and I noticed 80% of my strikes happen when the weight of the c-rig starts bumping on the riprap (5 feet away). Is there anything significant about this? I tried texas, c-rigs and, drop shot rigs now Im looking to try the ned rig next time out what other rigs would you recommend?

 

Thanks in advance and Happy fishing all 

 

 

[Bucky205]

1) Make sure your lubricating your knots before you cinch them down, saliva works great.  If the line burns from the cinch you have a very weak knot.  2) I get a lot less bites on straight braid on slow moving soft baits, maybe try adding a fluorocarbon leader to your braid and see if your strikes increase. If you can figure out what they are eating in the pond, try to imitate it.. 3) It may be the fish are holding on or along the riprap, or even bedding this time of year.  Try a couple of cast parallel to the shore.  If they want to hit 5' out, keeps your bait 5' out as long as possible.   If they are bedding and you can see the beds, drag a 4" white lizard across the bed and see if they will pick it up  They might not eat the lizard but they will pick it up to move it off the bed 

 

A wacky rig is definitely worth trying, as is a shaky head on a pond.  Gut hooking is usually caused by waiting to long to set the hook on a soft bait.  If you wait to long they are going to swallow it. 

[S-T-R-I-K-E-R]

thank you for your input i really appreciate everything i can learn for you guys. 

will try it out next time out.. i think sunscreen would also do wonders for me. =)

 

[Cheetahsneverprosper]

Quote

I lost a lot of my gear  (hook line and sinker) when my braided line failed whenever i try to snag a strike. The line usually breaks at the knot (palomar) of the main line and swivel. I made adjustments to my drag which i figured might be too tight and this helped with the breaks but did not cure it entirely.

 

Some braided line can be very slippery.  It's possible that your knot is slipping loose, rather than breaking.  Maybe try a double palomar knot, rather than a single one to see if that helps.

 

If they're hitting your carolina rig right as the weight is bumping against the rocks, they could be responding well to the noise and vibration it's making.  If you try throwing something else (such as a jig) and it doesn't work, try one with a rattle in it.  They might like the extra noise.

 

If you try a ned rig in riprap, you may possibly get hung up fairly often.  It's small and can easily get stuck between rocks.

If you do, maybe instead try banging a shallow running crankbait against the riprap or even a Biffle Bug on a wobble head jig.

Or the old standby, a spinnerbait.

[Esoxfreak]

Your palomar knot shouldn't slip at all. I hate coated lines! I hope I don't get anyone angry but sometimes I feel some companies coat a line to keep loose braids from falling apart, and it casts like a dream for a few days .i like naked raw unaltered line from companies that aren't afraid to show what the line truly is.I fish a lot of big swim/glide baits so line is the most important thing for me, as some of my baits get very pricey. I fish 2 braids: gamma tourque and sun line fx2. You also might look at increasing your line strength. 

your hooking them in the throat because they are pounders! That's what they do, they eat like it's their last meal. It's gonna happen more often with plastics. You can smash the barb to make it easier to remove.

[S-T-R-I-K-E-R]

Cheetahsneverprosper & Esoxfreak - good point on the knot. all the while i was thinking it was snapping. slippage is a more solid answer especially since my braided line is coated and feels so smooth. ♥♥♥ 

 

if i hook em in the throat, would the process of unhooking kill them? I just dont want to catch and release when they are going to die anyway.

[Esoxfreak]

7 hours ago, S-T-R-I-K-E-R said:

Cheetahsneverprosper & Esoxfreak - good point on the knot. all the while i was thinking it was snapping. slippage is a more solid answer especially since my braided line is coated and feels so smooth. ♥♥♥ 

 

if i hook em in the throat, would the process of unhooking kill them? I just dont want to catch and release when they are going to die anyway.

First I want to commend you on your catch and release policy. Much respect!!! I always carry a decent pair of wire cutters and long nose pliers with me so if I hook one too deep I can cut the hook and pull out the two pieces, yes it is worth it to me to sacrifice a hook to save a fish. You will get better at removing hooks as time goes by. Sometimes and I'll be blunt, you won't be able to save the fish, especially if it's past the eye of the hook,deep in the esophagus. The barb wil prevent the hook from being swallowed into the stomach. This results in a 99%mortality rate because the fish can no longer eat,they still try but can't swallow cause their throats is closed. Larry dahlberg (known for developing a number of insanely cool lures)wrote an article ( i think it was actually an analysis submitted to game and fish to try to thwart the use of bait for smallies due to heavy loses, which he got tons of flack for it) years ( late 80s or early 90s???)ago where he analyzed the mortality of gut hooked fish. It's a good read if you can find it. 

One more thing, hooks don't dissolve like they used to either, metallurgy has changed a lot over the years to make hooks stronger. Your average pack of eagle claw hooks will start to decompose in the tackle box with no acids, but something like a trokar takes a very long time.

[Paul Roberts]

Look up the FG-Knot.

 

6lb is mighty light for a 2/0 hook.

[mizzle1176]

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 8:05 PM, S-T-R-I-K-E-R said:

Im new to Bass Fishing and I go to this private pond to understand and learn how to use the different soft baits. Using a C-rig, I was able to catch a few LMB (average size was about a pound).

 

tackle setup

California Rig with 8lb Braded (PE 1.5) line and a 6lb P-line leader

lure was a zoom 4" tag tail grub using EWG 2/0 worm hook

 

 

I am hoping to get feedback on why there happened so i can be a better angler.

 

1) I Lost a lot of my gear  (hook line and sinker) when my braided line failed whenever i try to snag a strike. The line usually breaks at the knot (palomar) of the main line and swivel. I made adjustments to my drag which i figured might be too tight and this helped with the breaks but did not cure it entirely. 

 

2) I tried a couple of soft lures and I get zero strikes but when i switch to this particular lure they seem to respond to this Zoom 4" tag tail grub using 2/0 EWG worm hook (im guessing coz it looks like baby bass). My concern is, why are most of my 1 pounders are hooked in the throat? is there anything i can do to prevent it?

 

3) I fish from the edge of the water and I noticed 80% of my strikes happen when the weight of the c-rig starts bumping on the riprap (5 feet away). Is there anything significant about this? I tried texas, c-rigs and, drop shot rigs now Im looking to try the ned rig next time out what other rigs would you recommend?

 

Thanks in advance and Happy fishing all 

 

 

 

Good morning gentlemen,

 

I'm new to this site but I am a life-long tournament fisherman looing forward to good conversation.  There's a few different reasons you're probably getting hit at the rip rap.  Rock, rip-rap, gravel etc. will hold heat a little more than some of its surroundings so just the slight difference in temperature could be holding them there.  Could be that it might be the only significant structure in the pond or that it might be home to a population of crawfish.  On the Carolina rig that you're using, what size weight are you using with the six pound test?  with such light line, I would suspect that it shouldn't take much weight to get to the bottom and keep it on bottom to drag and the heavier the weight, the harder it can be to detect the strike..this could help you to detect the strike faster and possibly alleviate some of your throat hooking problems. As for the hits always coming on the rip rap?  keep fishing it until they stop biting and then concentrate on other parts of the pond.  This will allow the rip rap to rest and the fish to re-populate it.. maybe go back and change you're lure color..perhaps a crawfish color and see what happens.

[fishingfuji]

I agree the line is probably too light. I use 20lb braid with a 10lb fluorocarbon leader. Definitely lubricate knots before cinching. 

[jr231]

I'd venture out and put the c-rig down... Get yourself some senkos and flukes, and try some weightless plastics and the Texas rig. . Jerkbaits, small jigs, and any blade  bait (spinner , chatter etc) will all help you catch more fish than that c-rig will. The reason youre hooking them in the gut or deep in the throat is because the bite was not detected . And Im going to make an educated guess and say that the Carolina rig is the main culprit in this equation. 

 

I have never once had a Palomar knot give on my braided line. I think you may be missing a step or  something isn't quite right. Drop C-RIG and the leader and use one of the many, many techniques that are utilized today... there are experienced fisherman who struggle with braid to leader knots ! You are not alone ! 

 

The Carolina rig is basically a good tool for discovering cover and structure in deeper water. It can be used effectively at any depth or season but I wouldn't consider this the easiest way to catch fish. 

 

Get a pack of 5" senkos and rig them Texas weightless on a 3/0 wide gap hook. Cast parallel to the bank and let the worm fall on slack line.. give it a nice snap off the bottom and let it hover back down... Changing speeds until you find the preferred cadence .  Its like using live bait sometimes and you will not regret trying this out... Check out the senko threads that are pinned in the fishing tackle forums. This will save me some time and give you much more success stories and rigging options to read about the almighty stick worm. 

[fishnkamp]

There are some basic lures that have been suggested here and they are all techniques that fish extremely well on a 6'6 to 7 foot medium action spinning rod.

Flukes have been suggested. Let me go farther and suggest you pick up some Reaction Innovation Skinny Dippers (little dippers if you want to downsize due to being a pond) and rig them with either a weightless swimbait hook, or a lightly weighted swimbait hook. I use Gamakatsu brand and they work great.  I fish these baits from shallow out to really deep water in big lakes, only then I use swimbait jigheads of 3/8 to 1/2.  Keitech makes a good version of this swimbait as well.

 

My wife will not go fishing if she does not have a Kalin 5 inch Lunker grub tied onto one of hr spinning rods.  She has used three colors to fish from MD to PA, VA, NC, TN and KY.  We go to Bass Pro and order some Bass Pro Shops Perfect Finesse Worm jigheads. I match the hook size to match the body of a worm or grub and I like 1/8 and 1/4 ounce versions.  These make changing a body easy and fast and it allows the weight, hook and body not to separate so they can not get stuck on opposite sides of a limb or something.

 

The Senco is a no brainer. Go do a little research on here and youtube to learn about these easy to fish baits.

 

As for setup I use 14 pound Berkley FireLine original.  It is equal to 6 pound test. You can tie direct or else use a double uni knot to attach a 4 foot leader made of P Line Halo or CXX in 8 pound test.  I use that combo all over the country and in all types of water clarity.  It flat works for me and my wife. We have landed bass up to 7 pounds, a 8 pound cat and plenty of big stripers on that setup.   

[Airman4754]

A C-rig in a small pond is going to be about your best bet initially. Cast every inch of that thing, make mental notes or take actual notes. Where is it deep, where is shallow, are there steep banks, are there rock to weed transitions, are there big rock to little rock transitions, are there isolated big rocks, etc?

 

Detecting bites on a C-rig is tough. Watch your line for movent, speed up your pauses between drags, and get used to the weight on your rod. If it feels the slightest bit heavier reel down and sweep it right away.