Erik's fishing rants

Really surprised you mentioned no trolling from your kayak, cause thats all they do here from kayakers....its very productive.
Getting back to reels, i also use pflueger spinning reels like the trion 30 and the newer president. Really a toss up between them, and those shimano's

 

Took all the kids out fishing today, took them to a lake I knew they would be non-stop action from the small sunfish. I think I got maybe three casts of my own in, the rest of the time was spent pulling fish off hooks.

They had a blast, then we went back to the same lake for some evening swimming, they got to swim while I spent the time fishing. Was using my ultra light rod and some of my creme ultra light crank baits. They are perfect size for green sunfish, and since they only have 1 hook on them, its not too hard to get the hooks out of small mouths. But, aside from the green sunfish, I ended up getting a few golden shiners.

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/cre...mEeegn8LbZD4hVIjSgxoCk20QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Whats a green sunfish? Any of the sunfish here like blue gills, punkies, or perch won't hit any lures, or crank baits if fishing from shore....too wise to that stuff. They want real meat like night-crawlers, or perch bugs, and even then their pretty good at stealing your bait. The neighbor kids that i let fish off my dock have seen to that. Gotta get out in the deep water where the bigger fish are.
While playing around i tossed in a mag lip 2.5 bleeding frog crank bait from my dock this afternoon. Was surprised when i hooked a good size rock bass that was nearly 2 lbs....a real pig by our states standards. At least this fish didn't inhale it making easy work to remove the treble hook, and release. Other than a school of small yellow perch following my lures...nothing else would take them.

 

Green sunfish have huge mouths, you can lip them like a bass, but they have little teeth that are super sharp. They breed with bluegill and create a hybrid that are pretty fun to catch. They are actually one of the only sunfish I can catch with a crankbait, if you use soft plastics, they just rip them to shreds and dont get hooked.

Im hoping next time we go to the beach, the neighbors will come with so the wives can watch the kids while me and the other dad can take the kayaks out into the deeper water. Its 15 feet deep in the middle, but with the huge amount of sunfish, the bass are very well fed in there.


(not my picture)

 

We got tons of them here...their known as the common pumpkinseed. Thats a little guy.

 

Subbing. Love the fishing thread.

Believe it or not, some of the stocked lake trout and river stockers actually LOVE ned rigs.

Just some food for thought. I basically have to fish it like a jig the entire time because we have a BUNCH of wood cover any in body of water in these Smokey mountains.

 

Never used them here in new england. Stocked trout that haven't been in the lake too long with hit anything from miniature marshmallows to worms. Its the ones that are holdovers, and the bigger rainbows, and browns that are a lot tougher to fool. Same for kokanee when they reach adult size.

 

Z Man makes anything for the ned rig combo. You can literally can catch so many different species on a couple different baits made by them.

I have caught all different kinds of bluegills, red eye bass, white bass, black bass, white and black crappie, catfish, stripe bass, walleye, brook trout, rainbow trout, brown trout and the list goes on.

It’s a life changing bait. You should really give it a go sometime.

 

I recently got a bunch of ned craws that I really want to try out soon.

 

Here in TN, that is my favorite lure by far made from them. If there is a fish there, they typically eat it lol.

 

I'll look into it, but my lake gets heavy fishing pressure 24/7. I pretty much know what will work and what won't, and what days will be most productive. Its a challenge when your up against over a dozen boats fishing for the same trout in a small area. Most of the stuff you read, or see videos online just won't work here.There's probably only one or two guys that have long fished this lake that have mastered it. I can tell you i've fished other non-trout management lakes with far easier success.

 

Just looked into ned's rigs...their basically similar to the same plastics i rig fishing for bass using a slug-go's from lunker city. Their deadly in most area bass lakes, but won't work well here on the lake....not many bass since they made it a trout lake.

 

Now that trout season has ended... took some neighborhood kids out for some bigger fish -private lake- we caught 14 in four hours! 9lbs or better They had a blast.

 

Got some more fishing in today while the kids were swimming at the beach. Nothing huge caught, but got alot of shiners this time, they are the perfect size for big pike/musky fishing. But I talked to the DNR about taking them from the water, while I can take the shiners, I can not put them in any other lakes because the lake is "infested" with milfoil weed.

There were a couple other kids there fishing (12-13 years old) they had pike gloves on to take off the green sunfish

I used my st croix premier ultra light and president 20 reel along with some creme mini crankbaits.

In other news, my neighbor got some new whopper ploppers that he wanted to show me. He also mentioned wanted to go down to the bass ponds near the river. Hoping in the next week or 2 we can go out for some big fish.

 

Its similar here as far as keeping your boat hull clean of zebra mussels or introducing non-native fish in the lake. We've had a serious issue with zebra mussels here for several decades now.

 

We have the same issues here, but mostly with eurasian milfoil. It sticks to peoples trailers, or gets in their livewells and then moves to the next lake. Its really hard to get rid of it, and just as hard to prevent it... all it takes is 1 person to transfer it to a new lake.

In other news, I added a fishing rod holder to the bed of the truck. Now they dont have to flop around in the bed or take up the passenger seat.

 

Its been getting better here with the excessive milfoil and other pond weeds. They have been trading the lake every year, or two with dyquat, and reward herbicides.

 

I really need to come up with something that will work for ultra lite and 7 ft big casters.

 

Yeah, thats the big issue is length. My longest rods are 7 foot, but I only have 2 of them. I have 5 6f6i rods and the rest are 6f and under. Having a 6f bed really helps alot. I often think about just spending the money and order this rod holder, but I dont like that for $190 I get to hold only 4 rods. But, if I had enough to buy 2 of them, I would totally double up on the roof of my truck with these holders.

$199 GEAR RAK Fishing Rod Transportation System Roof Top UP-Right Car SUV Roof Rack carrier

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KLXJK33/?coliid=I2OB50KOWS8VEU&colid=KXPPEN9F4J52&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

Having a boat helps...i have a multi rod holder system that i store 1/2 dozen rods all rigged ready to go in my boat when i take it. When back home i just grab the handle on the multi rod holder and bring them all together inside.