SwittersB & Exploring

All manner of life’s demands sometimes, often times, stand between this sweet obsession of fly fishing and our needs to be at ease. At ease with that part of us that feels certain fulfilling thoughts as we are in the act of fishing.

Probably different for many as to what they feel or process while fishing, but I am today considering what you think and feel when not fishing….when you are not likely to get out for anytime soon and the mind twitches through sequences of thought.

For me, my Winter’s effort at tying set there, in boxes, as a provocation. That effort, the anticipation, the planning are on hold. Yet, those repetitive efforts to tie flies were also tied to daydreams, images of successes and a preordained sense of satisfaction. Denied those successes the mind sputters along. There is not gleeful anticipation, but more like an annoying comparison of…

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Summer Tips

1. Fish of all species migrate to different depths and areas. Don’t trust the small fish, they will fool you.
2. Follow the food trail. Where the abundance forage food lives / travels the game fish won’t be far away.
3. Logically and scientifically we know the fish digest at a higher rate when the water is warmer. Summer temperatures make them feed more often and should make them easier to catch.
4. Don’t always beat the bank, move to secondary cover.
5. When fishing is tough regardless of the season smaller baits and slower retrieves work best.
6. Game fish like bass, crappie and others should be schooled tight when found deeper. Work them and find another similar situation (pattern) and come back to those fish after about an hour.

These are few of the basic approaches to use and apply in summer situations.

 

Great stuff

TJ Stallings' Fishing Blog

It may have been as far back as 1985 when I first experienced multi-lure rigs. An industry friend and I joined Frank Johnson of Mold-craft Lures for an afternoon of fishing.

Despite a passing cold front, we caught our share of fish in about an hour’s time. The secret was Frank’s “Predator Rig”. This simple rig was just two of his four –inch Little Hooker lures with a third, trailing behind. This last lure was the only one rigged with a hook.

The theory of “proximity” is the behavior-theory

that baitfish hide amongst themselves. Yet, it is this “safety in numbers” that makes them an easy meal.

Taking Frank’s rig home to dad’s tackle shop made me an instant hero. One angler was rather displeased though. He called me an SOB as he entered the store. Then he smiled. It seems he had nine knockdowns the day before, ALL on…

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Seeking Summertime Bass

When it comes to fishing deep offshore structure, the new swivel jigs are entering into a whole new region of deep water fishing. Jigs like the Biffle Hardhead, the stringease Fastach Football Weight, the Punisher Hail Mary and the Zorro Buzza Whiplash, to name a few, are definitely innovations designed with the angler in mind. Some baits have attached hooks, others have snaps, and some have snap rings all giving a new action to deep structure fishing.  I am sure even newer variations of these baits will show up at ICAST this year, and all of them will be put to use in weekend and professional tournaments from now on due to their innovation of allowing the angler to create his own baits.

When summer bass are too deep for most crankbaits, these jigs allow anglers to get down deep, and crawl a bait off structure such as ledges and drop offs to even greater depths as deep as 25 feet where bass have been taken. Several offshore structures that will hold bass deep such as a wide ridge or a point will produce fish if anglers get a presentation down to them. Cover in relation to the structure of a stump, rock, or a piece of brush is the places designed for these jig innovations.

Anglers fishing the 1/2- and 3/4-ounce sizes when fishing more than 12 feet deep on points, ledges and humps are finding the jig produces well in the summer.  These jigs can be customized by the angler on the fly by choosing the soft plastic and the color that suits the conditions. In stained water jigging a black and blue soft plastic can be a good choice and brown can be used in stained as well as clear water, and a green-pumpkin jig in very clear water. Whatever color or style of bait the angler chooses can be quickly added giving the pride and confidence of catching bass with their very own custom bait.

A 7 1/2-foot flipping rod is ideal for these style jigs when matched with 12-pound fluorocarbon and a high-speed baitcasting reel. The long stiff rod and fast high gear ration reel will quickly takes up slack during a hook set, as the low-stretch fluorocarbon line guarantees that the hook sets with power. The sinking fluorocarbon allows the jig sink faster which often initiates reaction strikes.

Successful anglers retrieve these jigs with quick, short hops and the moving head adds action the jig like nothing bass are used to seeing. By beginning with the rod tip at 10 o’clock position and hoping the jig three or four times as they work the rod up to the 12 o’clock position and quickly drops the rod tip to 10 o’clock position while taking up the slack to repeat the process has been producing bass in the extreme conditions of summer. The slight hops with the swiveling head jig keep it close to the bottom allowing the anglers to feel the often subtle bites even better than when fishing solid jigs.

Summer is a good time to try one of these newer baits if you haven’t already.  In a short time anglers have found these jigs to be fish catching machines. I look forward to new innovations that will be unveiled this week at ICAST.  Anglers that face the heat of summer and those that take on the harsh winter in pursuit of bass rely on innovation to help them make time spent on the water productive.

Happy Fishing!

Featured Baits in this post:

Stan Sloan’s Zorro Bait Company’s Buzza Whiplash – http://stansloanzorrobaitco.com/whiplash.php

The Punisher Hail Mary – http://www.punisherlures.com/jigs/hillbilly-football.html

Attack Pak Fishing’s soft plastics –  http://attackpakfishing.com/

 

Eyeing a Hoochie

Have you ever noticed that the simplest lures and presentations are often the best? Lures that are painstakingly created to exactly match the forage gamefish feed on are often, indeed almost always upstaged by simple impressionistic offerings.

In terms of simplistic lures there are few that are simpler than the hoochie. For folks that aren’t familiar with them, hoochie are nothing more than hollow plastic “squid”, basically a plastic skirt that can be slipped on a leader, rear hook of a lure or even on a jig head.

Hoochies in the 4 to 6 inch range first stormed onto the West Coast fishing scene as lures used for ocean salmon trolling. Commercial salmon anglers in particular embraced hoochies because they found them nearly as effective as anchovies and herring, but much simpler and faster to rig than baitfish.

These days hoochies remain an important tool for ocean salmon anglers, but relatively recently anglers that target trout, kings, kokanee and coho salmon residing in lakes, discovered how deadly small hoochies in the 1.5 to 2 inch size range can be.

If you are a trout or landlocked salmon angler that has yet to try trolling with hoochies, it’s time for you to get started. Not only will hoochies help you catch more fish, but they also help you save money since they are significantly cheaper than a lot of other offerings.

 

Feels good to be back after a week. Beautiful hot sunny day, dragonflies chasing one another, bluegill are out on a frenzy as usual, and we all know that lunker im for searching for is definetly wearing his poker face. Hope everyone is having a fishy Friday and stay tuned, I’m be posting my stringer later.

 

Beware

The government of Guangxi region’s Liuzhou is asking people to hunt the alien South American species, which badly bit two people earlier in the week who were paddling in the Liujiang River, the China Daily said. A southern Chinese city is on the alert for piranhas after two people were attacked in a river, and is offering a 1,000 yuan ($160) reward for every fish caught, dead or alive, state media reported on Thursday.

According to the story, Chinese officials have gone to a full court press to catch the piranhas, which they suspect were introduced into the river by people who originally bought them as ornamental fish.

 

Lost a lure

Got up to do a lil bass fishing this morning. Well it started off slow at 7am, round 7:30 the biting started to pick up, I was using my favorite little shallow diving top water minnow when all of a sudden as I began to retrieve towards the bank this huge largemouth went straight at it, I attempted to set my hook, but he was so big he snatched my minnow and swam away,

To be continued

 

5 Tips for Catching Bass

http://www.worldfishingnetwork.com/videos/channels/getting-school-d-with-jp-derose/tips-for-using-light-gear-234428.aspx#.T_YhWqh4oao.email