Creek Fishing Newb

[fixxer12]

Hello all!

 

I've only recently started fishing here in TN, and mostly fish local creeks and "rivers" in my kayak

 

What tackle would you recommend me having as an absolute necessity? I'm mostly using ultra light rods (it's just more fun to me) and anywhere from 4-8# mono line.

 

I've had the most luck with your standard Zoom Super Fluke Pearl White and the Strike King Bitsy Minnow, so I've tending to lean on them more often that I might should. When these aren't working, what'd be your next go-to lure? I have a very limited tackle box at this point.

 

I mostly catch LMB, SMB, bluegill and a very few perch.

[GreenPig]

Missile Baits Micro jigs would likely produce for you in those scenarios. I tip mine with the 1&1/4" tail of a worn out Trick worm. Works great on light line, I fish 10 lb braid to 6 lb FC. A small popper is always good to have on hand. Goodluck. 

[Hammer 4]

Just be careful with the UL stuff. Prolonged fighting a bass places undo stress on the fish, to the point where it can actually kill them, so try and get them landed asap..Using 6 to 8 lb line shouldn't be a problem, although 4 lb on a good sized bass could be iffy.

 

Maybe move up to a ML/F rod, still a lot of fun, but a bit safer imho.

 

BTW, welcome to the forums..

[MGF]

I stopped using UL tackle to bass (especially stream/river SMB) for the reasons that Hammer 4 gives. I've caught some lately that I had to play too long on medium weight tackle. Those SMB in the current are STRONG fighters this time of year.

 

As far as other tackle I would add a ned rig and other little jigs/grubs, tube and Something quiet that floats like an original Rapala. I guess we could keep the list going but that's a start. 

[plawren53202]

Ditto on the UL rod comments. I just recently got my first ML rod, a Daiwa Aird. For me this perfectly hits the sweet spot for smaller largemouth and smallies in the ponds and creeks I fish. Enough bend to make it fun, but enough backbone to land them without a prolonged fight. (As an aside, I was using this rod for crappie fishing on Kentucky Lake this weekend and successfully landed a gar that was close to 36" long ?? So that ML Aird can take some abuse!)

 

For baits, Ned rigs work really well for me in creeks and small streams. On my creeks I have a lot of luck with Blue Craw and PB&J. I've been using the standard TRD Finesse on regular (not weedless) jig heads. One downside about Ned rigs in creeks is they do get snagged on rocks. However, I've been using some Eagle Claw mushroom jig heads (the ones that come in different colors) and they have pretty light hooks so even on 8# line a lot of the time I can bend the hook straight enough to come loose.

 

I also have really good luck on hellgrammites. John on Creek Fishing Adventures uses the Nekko ones but they are a little too pricey (and hard to get) for me. I've been using the Bass Pro brand in green pumpkin or watermelon, just rigged on a plain light wire jig head.

 

Good thing about creeks is there are a lot of baits that can work. Rebel hard baits (Crickhopper, Wee R Crawdad) are staples on creeks. Beetle Spins will always catch some. Rooster Tails or Mepps Aglias work great as long as there are not too many weeds to keep getting snagged in. 4" Yum Dingers rigged wacky or weightless Texas rigged. 

 

Lots to choose from!

[Black Hawk Basser]

Try some small squarebill crankbaits.  The Bomber Square A is my favorite - economical and effective.  Instinct might tell you to not throw them from fear of losing them, but I really don't lose very many in my river.  Now, jigs and other bottom presentations, I lose constantly.  If crankbaits aren't producing, I switch to 3"-4" plastics on a 2/0 EWG hook.  Zoom Flukes, Finesse Worms, and 4" stickbaits are good choices.  Depending on the current and bait, I use anywhere from 1/16 oz to 3/8 oz weight to keep it down near bottom.

[galyonj]

Where in TN? Not cause I wanna give super secret recommendations, I'm just nosy.

[fixxer12]

46 minutes ago, plawren53202 said:

Ditto on the UL rod comments. I just recently got my first ML rod, a Daiwa Aird. For me this perfectly hits the sweet spot for smaller largemouth and smallies in the ponds and creeks I fish. Enough bend to make it fun, but enough backbone to land them without a prolonged fight. (As an aside, I was using this rod for crappie fishing on Kentucky Lake this weekend and successfully landed a gar that was close to 36" long ?? So that ML Aird can take some abuse!)

 

For baits, Ned rigs work really well for me in creeks and small streams. On my creeks I have a lot of luck with Blue Craw and PB&J. I've been using the standard TRD Finesse on regular (not weedless) jig heads. One downside about Ned rigs in creeks is they do get snagged on rocks. However, I've been using some Eagle Claw mushroom jig heads (the ones that come in different colors) and they have pretty light hooks so even on 8# line a lot of the time I can bend the hook straight enough to come loose.

 

I also have really good luck on hellgrammites. John on Creek Fishing Adventures uses the Nekko ones but they are a little too pricey (and hard to get) for me. I've been using the Bass Pro brand in green pumpkin or watermelon, just rigged on a plain light wire jig head.

 

Good thing about creeks is there are a lot of baits that can work. Rebel hard baits (Crickhopper, Wee R Crawdad) are staples on creeks. Beetle Spins will always catch some. Rooster Tails or Mepps Aglias work great as long as there are not too many weeds to keep getting snagged in. 4" Yum Dingers rigged wacky or weightless Texas rigged. 

 

Lots to choose from!

Plawren, is this the jighead you're talking about? If so, what size would you recommend? https://www.eagleclaw.com/tknj-tknjw-tungsten-pro-v-finesse-jig

 

For the hellgrammite, how light on the jighead? FYI...hook size and weight are one thing I am struggling to get a good grasp on so far. Working on it though! :)

4 minutes ago, galyonj said:

Where in TN? Not cause I wanna give super secret recommendations, I'm just nosy.

Middle :)

[galyonj]

2 minutes ago, fixxer12 said:

For the hellgrammite, how light on the jighead? FYI...hook size and weight are one thing I am struggling to get a good grasp on so far. Working on it though!

---

Middle

If it were me, I'd use as light a jighead as I could get away with given the sitch vis a vis current strength and vegetation. I'm learning that the weight I think I need is usually quite a bit more than what the situation actually calls for. You don't necessarily want it, like, rocketing down to the bottom.

 

@plawren53202 suggested Creek Fishing Adventures, who is super legit; and I'd like to add a rec for Online Outdoorsman, who is ALL ABOUT kayak fishing and small lures. I've been watching a lot of Ethan's stuff trying to learn about ned rigs and such.

[scaleface]

A weedless Charlie Brewer slider jig would be a good choice around cover .

[Lobocito]

A few of my creek favorites: 

1. Rebel Bumble Bug (mostly catches some good size panfish but the bass will swing at it occasionally)

2. Small rooster tails. Have a 1/16 fire tiger with the hooks bent every direction and the weight basically torn in half and the creek fish just won't stop assaulting it... hookup ratio gets a little worse every day but gosh dang they just won't leave it alone

3. Microjigs are fun but I don't get much production out of them

4. Trout magnets will catch anything and everything.. under a bobber or sitting on the bottom the panfish will take it, if you start jerking it around some surprisingly big bass will reaction strike it hard

 

I use Light rods with either 4#mono or 15# braid w/ a 4# fc leader. I hear the concerns about overfighting fish but with those lures you aren't really targetting those 3+ pound bass, mostly sub-1 pound dinks and panfish. Actually caught a 27 inch bowfin on the light set up a few weeks ago, but he got flipped upside down almost immediately after taking the hook so the fight was extremely short.

[plawren53202]

35 minutes ago, fixxer12 said:

Plawren, is this the jighead you're talking about? If so, what size would you recommend? https://www.eagleclaw.com/tknj-tknjw-tungsten-pro-v-finesse-jig

 

For the hellgrammite, how light on the jighead? FYI...hook size and weight are one thing I am struggling to get a good grasp on so far. Working on it though!

Middle

That is the jighead. I carry all three weights in several colors. Like galyonj said, I use just whatever is heavy enough to get down in the current. So for instance if I am fishing a slow pool with not much current, I would use the 1/15 oz.; faster current I might go heavier. I just want to make sure that fish feels as little weight as possible when he picks it up, but also recognizing that the bait has to get down to the fish so it doesn't do me any good if the current just carries the bait off before it reaches the fish.

 

On the hellgrammites, I would love to always use a 1/16 oz. weight. Again that doesn't always let me get down to the fish depending on the current so I might bump up to a 1/8 oz. 

 

For hook sizes, I have caught smallies on 4/0 worm hooks and on Beetle Spins that I was really intending to catch sunfish. For instance a lot of those Ned rig hooks look a lot smaller than you would think for smallies or largemouth. In general for a creek smallie something in the 1, 1/0, 3/0 range is probably my comfort zone.

[NYWayfarer]

3 hours ago, plawren53202 said:

 

For baits, Ned rigs work really well for me in creeks and small streams. On my creeks I have a lot of luck with Blue Craw and PB&J. I've been using the standard TRD Finesse on regular (not weedless) jig heads. One downside about Ned rigs in creeks is they do get snagged on rocks. However, I've been using some Eagle Claw mushroom jig heads (the ones that come in different colors) and they have pretty light hooks so even on 8# line a lot of the time I can bend the hook straight enough to come loose.

 

I also have really good luck on hellgrammites. John on Creek Fishing Adventures uses the Nekko ones but they are a little too pricey (and hard to get) for me. I've been using the Bass Pro brand in green pumpkin or watermelon, just rigged on a plain light wire jig head.

 

Good thing about creeks is there are a lot of baits that can work. Rebel hard baits (Crickhopper, Wee R Crawdad) are staples on creeks. Beetle Spins will always catch some. Rooster Tails or Mepps Aglias work great as long as there are not too many weeds to keep getting snagged in. 4" Yum Dingers rigged wacky or weightless Texas rigged. 

 

Lots to choose from!

Problems with the Ned, try the tiny child rig. My river has a rocky snaggy bottom. Since I switched to the TCR I have lost way fewer lures and my hookups stay the same. The rig is a TRD with a weight at the bottom and a Neko or 1/0 straight shank worm hook rigged weedless.
 

http://

 

 

The Rebel lures are great for fishing. I second the recommendation.

 

Rebel Wee Craw

 

http://

 

Rebel Hellgrammite 

http://

 

[cal9323]

1. Ned rig TRD or hellgrammite

2. Small paddletail swimbait
3. Inline spinner (Rooster Tail or Mepps Aglias)

4. Small grub

 

Wildcard - trout magnet (I used this for about 10 minutes the other day and landed 3 sunfish and 2 rock bass - I couldn’t believe it). It was as we were leaving so I might try this again next time I’m out on the creek 

[fixxer12]

The few creeks I fish right now are mostly in the 2-3' range, but do have holes that go as deep as 5-7'. Do pretty much all the suggestions above still apply to these fishing conditions? Thanks everyone for the help so far! Looking forward to trying some of these!

Oh...and here's a very short video showing one part of the creek I often fish. Any types on what areas I should be focusing on. I mostly stand on the rock to the left at the very end of the video, and cast upstream a ways and let it come back to me. Just past this rock, there is a relativiely shallow stretch of slow water.

[Manifestgtr]

My creek go-to’s are toads, small frogs, flukes and small jigs. Topwater is a bit of a different game in a small creek. The water column is so condensed, there are times of year (like right now, for example) when topwater is sunrise to sunset...

 

Also, jigs might sound ridiculous but they aren’t. I’ve been throwing this 3/16th finesse jig with a paddle tail trailer (blue/pumpkin or black) and it’s been knock-out this year. You can swim it, bounce it along the bottom like a craw, keep it just under the surface...whatever you want. I took this nice little creek 2 pounder the other day who followed it into about 8 inches of water and started to hesitate...I killed it and let it fall to the rocks “BOOM”. They’re versatile baits and if you have a lot of rooster tail guys in your area, you’re throwing something they don’t see very often, if at all...

[Mobasser]

On 7/6/2020 at 10:09 AM, scaleface said:

A weedless Charlie Brewer slider jig would be a good choice around cover .

Yep. That ones so old a lot of younger folks have never heard of it. You can rig a lot of different smaller plastics on a Slider head.

[greentrout]

the following ...

 

rapala original floater & rebel minnow 1/16 & 1/8 oz. ... small road runners ...  bettle spin 1/16 & 1/8... heddon teeny torpedo ... rebel critters ... 

 

use bps tourney special 5'10" m/h spinning with 6&8 pound test shimano solstace 2500... pro qualifier 5'6" pistol grip medium fast 8lb test with century johnson spincast 200BG... shimano sieanna 1000 4 lb test on shakespeare agility spinning light fast ...

 

good fishing ...

 

 

[the reel ess]

Rooster Tail, Beetle Spin, Trout Magnet, Rebel Micro Lures pack, crappie jigs.