Month: December 2008

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The Twelfth Day Of Christmas – Fresh Water Fishing Style

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve tackle boxes, eleven snap swivels, ten spinners spinning, nine jigs a jigging, eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Merry Christmas to you all! While twelve tackle boxes may seem like a lot of tackleboxes – it’s not really! I like to keep my things organized and this includes my fishing gear. So I have 2 huge tackle boxes – one for salt water fishing and the other for fresh water fishing!

I further divide my tackle by the type of fish I’m going to be fishing for. I have small compartmented plastic tackle boxes which I place in or next to the big tackle boxes. The rubber worms in one box, the spinners in another, the spoons in another … you get the idea! Then in the individual tackle boxes, I have separate compartments for the different colored lures. I hate it when the red colored worms are sitting with the green worms and their color bleeds into each other! Makes for some real weird colored worms! 😉

So keeping things organized can get to be quite a chore. But if you have a box like this one shown below, it’s not very hard at all.

Notice that you can pull out one of the trays and just take that for the day’s fishing trip. Very cool idea! Of course, if you’re not sure what you’ll find when you go to a new lake or stream, then you can take the whole box. What do you think? Cool eh?

Well this concludes my twelve days of Christmas for freshwater fishing. Hope you enjoyed it and that you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you don’t happen to celebrate Christmas, then I hope you have a happy holiday – whichever one you celebrate!

Catch you later.

-Mark

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The Eleventh Day Of Christmas – Freshwater Fishing Style

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven snap swivels, ten spinners spinning, nine jigs a jigging, eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

In this day and age, when everything is green, snap swivels are a perfect fit! You know that monofilament fishing line stays around forever and creates quite a bad litter problem. So rather than constantly cutting the line and re-tying a knot every time you change your lure/hook – use a snap swivel instead!

I’m your typical fisherman. I enjoy taking it easy and spending as much time fishing as possible. And having to cut the line and re-tie a knot just takes up too much time and keeps my lures out of the water too long! 🙂 So I almost always use snap swivels when fishing. Just push the latch open, pull off your old lure and put on a new one, push the snap closed and away you go. Very easy!

You can get snap swivels in all sizes to suit your fishing needs too! I use the heavy ones for salt water fishing (on the rare occasion that I do that!) and the smaller ones for freshwater fishing. I like ultra-lite fishing, so I usually use the smallest ones I can find. That way, they don’t weigh down the lure I’m using and the additional flash or reflection that they provide helps attract more fish. It’s a win – win situation!

Never tried sanp swivels? They’re cheap and available just about every fishing store you go to. Look at this – even amazon has some available!

So do yourself and the environment a favor and get some snap swivels today!

Catch you later.

-Mark

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Garden State Outdoors Sportsmen’s Show

Winter getting you down? Miss fishing in the nice warm sun? I’ve got just the cure for you! Go to the Garden State Outdoors Sportsmen’s Show!

They have lots of fishing as well as other outdoor activities for you to check out. You can also browse through the vendor’s exhibits and get yourself some new freshwater fishing gear!

It’s held in the NJ Convention Center in Edison, NJ. And guys, you’ll like this – women get in for 1/2 price and children under 15 are free! So grab everyone and head on over. When is it? Glad you asked! It will be open on January 8th through the 11th.

For more details including directions and phone numbers, visit their website at:

Garden State Outdoors Sportsmen’s Show.

Catch you later.

-Mark

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The Tenth Day Of Christmas

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, ten spinners spinning, nine jigs a jigging, eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Are you a fan of spinning lures? I am! When I was younger, my family and I travelled all over the USA as well as Canada. Every place we went, I looked at the fishing lures and usually bought a couple. So I have many spinning lures that don’t really produce for me in my current area in which I live (Southern NJ, USA), but I still like to look at them and dream about going back to where I bought them and catching a huge lunker with them!

Fishing in the shallower waters of New Jersey means that you’ll need a lighter spinner – one that doesn’t sink too much or run too deep. I have two favorite spinners that I like to use. When I’m looking to catch bass, I’ll pull out one of my panther-martin spinners. They’re small but boy do they attract the bass! Never heard of a panther-martin? Well check them out here:

I caught a very nice 5 pound bass on my favorite panther-martin in our local creek. It has a feather tied to the treble hook at the back of it. I’m always amazed that such a large fish would be attracted to such a small lure!

So what do you use if you want a trout or some other game fish besides bass? Well I like to use rooster tail spinners. Here’s what a rooster tail spinner looks like:

When we were in Banff National Park in Canada, we rented a boat and went fishing for trout in one of the local lakes. My brother and I both were using a rooster tail. Mine was black and his was red. Other than the colors, the lures were identical. The result? I outfished my brother 3 to 1! And I caught the largest fish that day – a beautiful 3-4 pound Kamloop trout. So do yourself a favor and get a black rooster tail spinner! 😉

Any other spinners that you may know of that deserve mentioning here? Please write and let me know.

Catch you later.

-Mark

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The Ninth Day of Christmas

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine jigs a jigging, eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

I’ve always read about how effective jigs are. But most of the water near my home is too shallow for those lead headed jigs. The ones that look like this:

Lead Head Jig

Though I will admit that once when I fished at the Tuckahoe-Corbin City Fish and Game Preserve in Cape May County, New Jersey, I did actually use lead headed jigs with moderate success. It was also the first time I ever caught a yellow perch. It seemed that the jig I used was exactly what they were looking for! It was a lead head jig with an inch and a half of deer hair tied to it.

That was back in the 1970’s and time has marched on. Now there are smaller jigs that are weedless and have rattles built right into them. Very nice! Berkley makes some real nice jigs with great color variations. If you’re interested, you can read about them here:

My older son was using a jig this past summer and caught some bass in our local creek. So jigs are effective if used properly. (Even here in our shallow East Coast freshwater creeks and lakes.)

What about your area? Have any of you ever fished with jigs and had success?

Here’s to a succeful day of freshwater fishing for each one of us!

Catch you later.

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The Eighth Day Of Christmas

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight bobbers bobbing, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Do you use bobbers? Which ones do you use? Think they’re all the same?

I use bobbers occasionally. Mostly when I take my younger son freshwater fishing. He likes to use live bait and it’s easy to tell when you’ve got a fish on if there’s a bobber on your line. But my younger son aside, I’ve been known to use bobbers as a weight when fishing flies on a spinning system. Yep, you read that right! I’ll tie a fly (wet fly – one that sinks) on the end of my 4 pound test and put a bobber 2 feet above it. The bobber gives you enough weight to be able to cast the fly and also acts as a strike indicator! I’ll usually use a small tear-drop shaped bobber to do this type of fishing. And yes – it works! I’ve used this technique to catch bass when they weren’t hitting anything else. That’s your bass fishing tip for the day! 🙂

I used to think bobbers were all the same – with variations in their size and shape. But I recently read about a new bobber “with a brain”. I was thinking “yeah… right” but when I read the write up, it actually looks interesting. Check this out:

Notice the product’s description – “This Smart Fishing Bobber is a slip & lock system without a Line Stopper. Simply: Just cast the Bobber with a Brain out and it will allow the line to slip thru until the sinker finds the bottom, then it fills with water, LOCKS THE LINE, and holds your baits inches to feet off the bottom with the sinker as the “anchor.” The hook held above the bottom can be “danced” or jigged by slightly pulling on your rod, makes dead or plastic baits ‘come alive!'”

Sounds very interesting – but come on – does it really do all this? Any of you readers ever try this thing? Would you mind writing a comment about it here please? They say they’ve been selling for over 8 years now but this is the first I’ve heard of it. If it really does work, I’d love to hear your opinions and maybe I’ll actually buy and try one! (I’m used to getting a 6 or 10 pack of bobbers for a couple bucks, and this is 2 bobbers for 9 dollars. Kind of pricey for a bobber!)

Well, I’d really love to hear any of your experiences with any type of bobbers, so please write a comment to share with everyone!

Catch you later.

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The Seventh Day Of Christmas

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me, seven sinkers sinking, six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Woo hoo, man am I getting a lot of great fishing gear! Sinkers – wait a minute, what are they for? Well I have to confess, there are times when i go cat fishing and carp fishing in our local creek and I need a weight to hold the bait down on the bottom of the creek bed. Not a lot of weight but enough to keep in down there where the bottom feeders can find it!

It’s amazing how many various types of fish our local creek has! Every June, the big carp come up from the Delaware River and spawn in our creek. How big you ask? Well I had 25 pound test line on my reel and the carp broke it like it was thread. The carp actually can get as big as in the 30 plus pound range. Not bad for a creek that’s only 20 – 30 feet wide most of the time!

I actually use whatever weight is available when I’m bottom feeder fishing. I still have some of those old teardrop shaped real lead weights in my tackle box! But mostly I’ll use a couple of split-shot weights if the current isn’t too strong. Here’s some pictures of the two:

lead sinker

splitshot weight

OK – that’s it for now – have a great day!

Catch you later.

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The Sixth Day Of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six kits for rigging, … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Have you bought any of those “bass fishing kits? You know like this:

I’ve bought a few of these and they usually are a good deal! I look for the kits that have good colored worms in them. As I’ve posted previously, I don’t really use the weights that come in these kits. I rig the worms my own special way. But if I find a kit that has weedless hooks and has good colored worms, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat!

Playing with your rubber worm bassing kit will help you experiment and try different ways to rig your worms. It will also keep your mind off the winter and the snow that we sometimes get this time of year! I can hardly wait for the warmer weather and catching some more good bass!

Catch you later.

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The Fifth Day Of Christmas

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Purple worms? Yes, purple worms! I love fishing with rubber worms and my most favorite color for them is purple. I’ve caught so many large bass and pickerel on purple worms. Don’t ask me why the fish like purple – they just do! When the water is clear and it’s sunny or cloudy, purple worms out-fish the other colors by almost 2 to 1! The only other color that I’ve found that comes close is a black rubber worm.

So what kind of rubber worm do I use? My favorite has always been the Mann’s grape jelly worm. Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

grape jelly worm

I also like the Berkley power bait rubber worms. In fact, I have a whole tackle box full of different color and different manufacturer’s rubber worms! You can never have enough rubber worms!

So what about you? Do you have a favorite color worm? Drop me a comment please?

Catch you later.

-Mark

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The Fourth Day Of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Rebel fishing lures! Do you have any? Have you ever used any? I can answer with a resounding yes to both questions. Though you’ll know I’m mostly a rubber worm person if you’ve been reading my posts for a while – when the season first starts in the spring I like to use rebel lures. The floating ones with a small lip work best in my area of the country.

When I was younger (back in high school) my brother and I couldn’t wait to go fishing once the lake thawed out and it warmed up a little. It had to be warm enough so that we didn’t need gloves to fish! We tried many different lures and usually ended up with success using either small spinners or a rebel humpback lure. You can see the humpback at the rebel site here:

http://www.lurenet.com/productdetail.aspx?id=7180

Just why we chose the humpback over other lures when purchasing them is not really clear, but it was a wise choice. The humpback was perfect for our favorite lake. A floating lure that goes between 2 – 4 feet deep when reeled. The bass seemed to love it. We could catch bass with it when no one else was having any success. I still have my old rebel humpback – silver with black trim! And yes, I still use it from time to time. It’s earned it’s place as one of my favorite lures!

So that’s it for our fourth day of Christmas, fresh water fishing style! Hope you have a good day.

Catch you later.