Too much tackle…what would you use?

[bgaviator]

3 hours ago, Jaderose said:

Honestly I could take one spinning rod with a weightless Gammy 3/0 EWG hook tied on, one sack of Green Pumpkin Senko's, one jar of JJ's (Chartreuse) and my frog rod with a Scum Frog Trophy Series Natural Black and Green Frog tied on it and Fish happily all day and then do it again every day for a month. 

What’s a “jar of JJ’s”?

[Ben77]

I had the same problem as you. I wanted to buy everything in the best sellers section just because I wanted the latest and greatest but realized it's not always the case. Luckily enough I was able to return some of it and just keep what I had confidence in. I still have enough tackle too last me awhile but I love to fish so why not stock up now because when I retire I plan on fishing a alot more. So now I buy as I go in moderation if it produces I stock up on it but if it doesn't I move on. But I do reach for my Senko most of time when I need a bite so go figure lol.

[cal9323]

Just give me a TRD Ned Rig and I can catch fish all day. I can throw on a paddletail Swimbait if I want to fish moving baits. 
 

I think we all get sucked into buying more than we need, but it’s fun to just “have it”. lol

[jtharris3]

Never try to second guess the bait monkey! You’ll just confuse yourself! ?

[Biglittle8]

I have a lot of stuff... I like trying to catch fish using different techniques. Do I need all my stuff... No. I have a lot of lures that have never been wet. I know what works for me, but I can't control myself! Oh well, chalk up a win for the Bait Monkey.?

[galyonj]

6 hours ago, bgaviator said:

What’s a “jar of JJ’s”?

JJ's Magic. Scent additive for artificial lures.

 

That's a whole other philosophical argument in fishing. Some people believe scents work; others not so much.

[E-rude dude]

Yes Dear

I absolutely need to order more tackle this year. 
Later

Ok what the heck am I going to remove from the boat so I can fit all this new tackle in the boat. 
 

It’s a sickness, a very expensive sickness.

?

[gim]

9 hours ago, Fishin Dad said:

My new theory, and I think it has some merit, is with all the fishing pressure these days, I am really trying new lures Bass might not have seen to get more bites.  

 

Could be true.  I know for a fact that it works when muskie fishing.  Could have some truth in highly pressured bass waters too.

 

Or...you could simply go after them when there's less or minimal pressure too.  Targeting fish that haven't seen as many lures are more likely to bite.

[Jaderose]

4 hours ago, galyonj said:

JJ's Magic. Scent additive for artificial lures.

 

That's a whole other philosophical argument in fishing. Some people believe scents work; others not so much.

While I somewhat believe in scents (and JJ's certainly has one!) I mostly use JJ's for the color.  All my plastics get tipped with JJ's.  I might only be a 1/16th of an inch on a single claw or Senko tip but I believe that little bit of contrast gives a fish something to home in on.  I'm never without JJ's

[DaubsNU1]

Man, good thread...I currently have five tackle boxes and two storage bins of "fishing stchuff." it goes like this:

 

Tackle box 1: hard sided box with three large Plano boxes on bottom holding top water, jigs, cranks, walleye jigs, a few musky lures, frogs, in-line spinners, whopper ploppers, and swim-baits. The top of this box has racks for 20+ spinner and buzz baits. Also has five smaller Plano boxes with hooks, weights, jigs, jerk baits, rattle-traps. Also holds my scissors and plyers...and top holds tooth picks, wacky rings and a hook sharpener. 

 

Tackle box 2: soft sided with six or seven medium size Plano boxes containing soft plastics of all shapes and sizes - Senkos, Slug-Go's, grubs, NED, trailers, finesse worms, fries, craws, Houdini shad, etc. Front pouch holds all my power-worms, swim trailers, and floating worms. Side pouch holds small tool kit, extra line, and a small box with all my small Mepps and light crappie tackle. Back pouch holds reel lube, polarized glasses, sun block. 

 

The above two boxes go with me when I fish...every time. I am constantly moving tackle and equipment from the above, to the below...

 

Tackle box 3: my old box holds extra soft plastics, extra hooks, weights, skirts, duplicates of stuff I have in boxes 1 & 2 (I never want to run out of stuff...keep extras on hand). 

 

Tackle box 4: the really old box...it's steel...given to my by my Dad when I was 8-9 years old(?). This holds all my rod building / repair supplies, vintage lures I just can't throw away, tackle building supplies, and miscellaneous fishing stuff. 

 

Tackle box 5: holds all my Musky lures. 

 

Bin 1: holds all my lines

 

Bin 2: holds boat supplies, reel covers, rest of my walleye lues and jigs, older cranks, jigs, soft plastics that I haven't used in a while.  

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Going forward...I am currently renovating my 14' v-hull...creating storage compartments...the goal is to transition all my tackle to Plano boxes in the boat's storage compartments...no more tackle boxes to stumble over, drag in and out of the boat.  When I fish with Brother, or others, I can then pull the Plano boxes I need, toss them in to a tackle box, and fish. 

 

Picture fishing with my Dad...Tackle box 1&2 are on the left...Dad's tackle box is brown on the right...gets pretty crowded in that little boat...

 

[galyonj]

16 minutes ago, Jaderose said:

While I somewhat believe in scents (and JJ's certainly has one!) I mostly use JJ's for the color.  All my plastics get tipped with JJ's.  I might only be a 1/16th of an inch on a single claw or Senko tip but I believe that little bit of contrast gives a fish something to home in on.  I'm never without JJ's

 

I like JJ's, but can't say one way or the other whether it got me more bites. Never used any of the colors. When I had some, I'd just draw it up in a syringe and then dose entire bags of soft plastics with it. I opened a bag of black trick worms the other day that I dosed over a year ago, and they still stank. So I figure at least I got my money's worth. Caught fish on a tough day with them yesterday.

 

I will agree that contrast is important, though. The vast majority of the time, I fish very dark colors like black, pb&j, or junebug, or I'll use something that's got a lot of pop to it like white, chartreuse, or bubblegum.

 

However, almost none of the water I fish has more than a foot visibility at any given time. So YMMV as far as that goes.

 

I have a lot to say on the subject of this thread, but this is long enough already.

[papajoe222]

11 hours ago, DaubsNU1 said:

,
 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Going forward...I am currently renovating my 14' v-hull...creating storage compartments...the goal is to transition all my tackle to Plano boxes in the boat's storage compartments...no more tackle boxes to stumble over, drag in and out of the boat.

 

Save yourself the time and effort. Find yourself a used Tracker. You can get one fairly cheap as the resale value is somewhere around the water level of an old toilet.  They have two compartments on either side of the livewell that are made to hold thos plano boxes and plenty of storage under the front deck.  The rod locker can double as a storage space and the live well can hold a ton of plastics to balance things out.   Ask me how I know and I'll send pictures.

[DaubsNU1]

8 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

Save yourself the time and effort. Find yourself a used Tracker. You can get one fairly cheap as the resale value is somewhere around the water level of an old toilet.  They have two compartments on either side of the livewell that are made to hold thos plano boxes and plenty of storage under the front deck.  The rod locker can double as a storage space and the live well can hold a ton of plastics to balance things out.   Ask me how I know and I'll send pictures.

 

Too late : ) 

 

I like projects like this...making it my own. This boat is great for my area...easy to launch myself, small enough to get in to tight spots, I don't care if I bang in to trees or rocks. When we hit bigger water, take my Brother's Lund Alaskan 1800. 

 

 

 

[NavyVet1204]

I too started buying mass amounts of different lures all because of what the other guy said was hot on the water at any given time….for them. What I ended up actually using was what was working for me. So I too have an arsenal of mostly unused stuff, but it’s still practical stuff like colors of worms that will work that I haven’t got around to actually using.

 

In the last year, I have narrowed my arsenal down to what has continuously worked and that is the shakey head, the chatter bait, jigs, and Texas rigged worms/creatures. Of those choices the jig is the less producing lure, but it still produces. I stopped buying crank baits because no matter how much KVD or another big name catches with them, I still couldn’t catch anything with them. 
 

In other words, you need to stick with what works for you and not spend your money based on what works for the other guy. That has helped me the most.

[Bubba 460]

I believe most of us buy way too much tackle... I know I do. I have a huge tackle bag busting at the seams with lures and need a back brace on to lift it. I have every compartment in the boat stuffed and overflowing with individual clear boxes so full I can't even latch the tops. I have Senkos in every conceivable color under the sun (except pink). I have a garage wall packed with lures and a 8' table piled high and overflowing with more gear. Yet I usually only fish with with some old  6 or 7 trusted lures ~ go figure...

[TnRiver46]

9 minutes ago, Bubba 460 said:

I believe most of us buy way too much tackle... I know I do. I have a huge tackle bag busting at the seams with lures and need a back brace on to lift it. I have every compartment in the boat stuffed and overflowing with individual clear boxes so full I can't even latch the tops. I have Senkos in every conceivable color under the sun (except pink). I have a garage wall packed with lures and a 8' table piled high and overflowing with more gear. Yet I usually only fish with with some old  6 or 7 trusted lures ~ go figure...

You need some pink worms ! 

[huZZah]

Hey bubble gum zoom trick worms are my best shaky head producers. 

[galyonj]

4 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You need some pink worms ! 

 

I just bought some pink trick worms so I can have some in that color that'll cast better for me than those Z-Man worms I was somersaulting through the air last time we went with you.

 

 

Also: Hi, I'm John, and I'm addicted to buying fishing tackle. It's been...about 10 hours since I last bought some more junk. However, with no small amount of soul-searching, and the love and support of friends and family, I feel like I'm doing a lot better.

 

When I started fishing again, I told myself I wanted to target bass primarily, and I didn't want to deal with live bait at all. But I didn't really know what I was doing, and I didn't really have any confidence in any artificial lures, and I didn't really have a sense of how I liked to fish.

 

So I bought gobs of stuff. Just...so many lures and hooks and weights and colors. You get the idea.

 

Then I went fishing, and didn't catch anything, and so I bought more stuff that was slightly different because surely it's the tool and not the artisan, right?

 

Here's the problem, @bgaviator, and I bet it's one you and a lot of other people can identify with:

 

I spent so much time changing lures and buying new stuff in an effort to find something that would get bit and I could be confident throwing that I never really gave myself an opportunity to use any lure long enough to learn how to really fish it and become confident with it.

 

It didn't help that, until very recently, I spent a lot of time fishing really heavily pressured spots on the bank, and even on a good day there weren't a lot of bites to be had.

 

Then I got really lucky, and @TnRiver46 messaged me on here one day, and I kinda feel like we've got to be homeboys, for which I'm grateful. But aside from getting to add a hilarious friend, I've learned a lot from just watching the decisions he makes when we fish together. While I'm staring into this cavernous tackle bag wondering what might possibly get bit, he's busy catching fish on one of a handful of lures. And if he's fishing a curlytail worm on a ballhead jig, just throw behind the boat, because nothing close to him is gonna pay any attention to you.

 

So how do we get to that point with landfill-drifts of fishing junk in our houses?

 

We have to artificially limit our choices.

 

Last Sunday, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I went out on our little boat hoping to miss the rain. Unfortunately, because the act of both launching and recovering the boat looks like two monkeys trying to **** a football, we forgot our tackle bag. All we had in the boat with us was what was on the rods that got loaded onto the deck before we left the house.

 

We were only out for about an hour or so before the 10000% humidity and the complete absence of a breeze drove us back in, but in that time I only fished one lure: A black trickworm on a 1/16oz shakyhead. I only caught two fish, and they weren't anything to write home about in and of themselves, but the experience had value because I feel like I have so much deeper an understanding of how that presentation works now than I did before.

 

Tackle Warehouse cannot put an order of confidence in a box and ship it to your house. You have to build it.

 

And the only way to build it is by forcing yourself to pick a horse and ride it.

[ironbjorn]

Senko, Jig, Squarebill, Lipless, Ned Rig

 

In no particular order. That's all I'll ever truly need to feel like I'm equipped to catch bass.

 

[DaubsNU1]

@galyonj: This. Post. Is. GOLD! 

[TnRiver46]

3 minutes ago, galyonj said:

 

I just bought some pink trick worms so I can have some in that color that'll cast better for me than those Z-Man worms I was somersaulting through the air last time we went with you.

 

 

Also: Hi, I'm John, and I'm addicted to buying fishing tackle. It's been...about 10 hours since I last bought some more junk. However, with no small amount of soul-searching, and the love and support of friends and family, I feel like I'm doing a lot better.

 

When I started fishing again, I told myself I wanted to target bass primarily, and I didn't want to deal with live bait at all. But I didn't really know what I was doing, and I didn't really have any confidence in any artificial lures, and I didn't really have a sense of how I liked to fish.

 

So I bought gobs of stuff. Just...so many lures and hooks and weights and colors. You get the idea.

 

Then I went fishing, and didn't catch anything, and so I bought more stuff that was slightly different because surely it's the tool and not the artisan, right?

 

Here's the problem, @bgaviator, and I bet it's one you and a lot of other people can identify with:

 

I spent so much time changing lures and buying new stuff in an effort to find something that would get bit and I could be confident throwing that I never really gave myself an opportunity to use any lure long enough to learn how to really fish it and become confident with it.

 

It didn't help that, until very recently, I spent a lot of time fishing really heavily pressured spots on the bank, and even on a good day there weren't a lot of bites to be had.

 

Then I got really lucky, and @TnRiver46 messaged me on here one day, and I kinda feel like we've got to be homeboys, for which I'm grateful. But aside from getting to add a hilarious friend, I've learned a lot from just watching the decisions he makes when we fish together. While I'm staring into this cavernous tackle bag wondering what might possible get bit, he's busy catching fish on one of a handful of lures. And if he's fishing a curlytail worm on a ballhead jig, just throw behind the boat, because nothing close to him is gonna pay any attention to you.

 

So how do we get to that point with landfill-drifts of fishing junk in our houses?

 

We have to artificially limit our choices.

 

Last Sunday, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I went out on our little boat hoping to miss the rain. Unfortunately, because the act of both launching and recovering the boat looks like two monkeys trying to **** a football, we forgot our tackle bag. All we had in the boat with us was what was on the rods that got loaded onto the deck before we left the house.

 

We were only out for about an hour or so before the 10000% humidity and the complete absence of a breeze drove us back in, but in that time I only fished one lure: A black trickworm on a 1/16oz shakyhead. I only caught two fish, and they weren't anything to write home about in and of themselves, but the experience had value because I feel like I have so much deeper an understanding of how that presentation works now than I did before.

 

Tackle Warehouse cannot put an order of confidence in a box and ship it to your house. You have to build it.

 

And the only way to build it is by forcing yourself to pick a horse and ride it.

I was wondering why that pink worm wouldn’t cast, was it made of paper?? (Btw I caught two smallies with a crawdad fly that looked like a cicada on holston last night)

[galyonj]

9 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I was wondering why that pink worm wouldn’t cast, was it made of paper?? (Btw I caught two smallies with a crawdad fly that looked like a cicada on holston last night)

 

They don't weigh anything, dude. They're elaztech, of course, but they also have almost nothing in the way of salt. I think they just overpowered that tiny jighead I was using. I love that the whole worm floats, but they're a royal pain to get to the fish.

 

10 minutes ago, ironbjorn said:

Senko, Jig, Squarebill, Lipless, Ned Rig

 

In no particular order. That's all I'll ever truly need to feel like I'm equipped to catch bass.

 

 

Yessss. Though I don't fish many squarebills anymore.

 

I'd say my list now looks more like this:

• Plastic worms
• Jigs
• Lipless cranks
• Spooks
• Jerkbaits
• Ned rigs

[DaubsNU1]

11 minutes ago, galyonj said:

"She Who Must Be Obeyed..."

 

Ain't that the truth! 

 

Buddy refers to his wife as Frau Farbissina...I'm not that brave...getting stabbed in the neck while I'm sleeping...nope! ?

 

 

 

[Deleted account]

9 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I was wondering why that pink worm wouldn’t cast, 

Like those tiny 9mms, limp wrist...

[galyonj]

Just now, DaubsNU1 said:

Buddy refers to his wife as Frau Farbissina...I'm not that brave...getting stabbed in the neck while I'm sleeping...nope! ?

 

 

 

Oh, she thinks it's funny. She read it over my shoulder one day and was like "And don't you forget it!"