Erik's fishing rants

Did a little bit of dock fishing today, didnt catch anything but I got 2 pretty heavy hits. But I was using a skirted jig with a really heavy weed guard on it, so getting a hookset is not super easy if the fish doesnt inhale the entire lure.

I did do some switching up 2 of my rods. My 6f medium that I normally use for jigs I took off the snap clip and will tie right to the hooks. Then my 7f medium heavy baitcaster I took the 30lb leader off and started to tie also. My 6f6i medium heavy spinning rod will be my sole crankbait rod now (aside for my ultralight crankbait rod)

 

It floats! and it moves too!

Trolling motor project worked great! but it has its drawbacks.... weeds, many of the lakes I fish are infested with invasive weeds, so the motor was getting clogged up with these weeds and slowing down. So this is going to be something that doesnt get used a whole ton, I will probably use the motor in larger lakes and deeper ones where I dont have to worry so much about weeds.

 

I think I have a problem with tackle bags.... I ordered another one the other day, its no bigger or smaller than the current bag I use, it just moves it from being a sling bag to being a waist bag. I really need to start focusing more on how to fit the gear I want to use with the space I have.

 

So little update on my new bag, its amazing, its the most comfortable bag I have ever owned. The waist strap holds most of the weight, then the shoulder strap holds some of the weight. It came with a little built in bait binder for my soft plastics, I put a couple of each of my normal soft plastics into the binder and then it velcros into the front pouch, so much better than bringing all the bags I use with me when I only need 1-2 of each. I actually am able to fit a little more stuff in this bag, its not really bigger, its just a better design.
There is 1 pocket that I have not figured out what I want to put in it, I would actually really like to find a small spinner bait case that just fits 4 spinner baits (I just keep 4 staple colors).

As a added bonus to this bag, it fits between my legs in my kayak, so no more getting tipping trying to pull boxes out of my crate... infact I got rid of my crate all together.

On related news, got a few more lures today, got a new crickhopper (green) to add to my crickhopper collection. Also found some hellgrammite soft plastics, they are 5 inch. Excited to try them out soon and see who likes to eat them.

Also did a little fishing today at the goldfish pond. The green sunfish have been over eating on goldfish, they were all very very fat.

 

So after landing that musky the other weekend on a texas rig, I have decided that I want to make some musky lures similar to what I caught it on, but with 60lb fluorocarbon, giant hooks, and big grubs.

So I took some 60lb leader, 6/0 ewg worm hooks, and some 8 inch curly tail grubs and made 2 texas rigs and 2 carolina rigs. Each one is on a swivel at the end so I can tie it to my mainline easy. I am waiting on my grubs to show up so I can weigh them and figure out what size weight to go with.

This should let me run actual musky sized baits and leaders through the weeds and not get snagged.

 

Took my new musky texas rigs out today, didnt catch anything but they worked great! didnt get hung up in the weeds, and the snot algae just slid right off them. Though they might be a bit on the light side. So I might remake the 2 texas rigs with some heavier weights, the carolina rigged ones are fine because I put the weight on the main line and not the leader.

 

Decided to try out a new lake today, its behind a target with a highway on the other side. I rarely see anyone fishing there, but its also not really accessible to bank fisherman. So I dragged my kayak through some woods and got it down to the water... sunfish were all bedding where I launched. Got out into the water and water temp was hot! 85-90 degrees. paddled around, most of the lake was around 5-7 feet deep, found some fish in the deeper water, but didnt catch any of them. I did catch a few near shore, a few smaller bass and some bluegill. So there probably is some bigger ones in there out in the deeper water where its cooler.

DNR used to use it for walleye about 30 years ago, and in the winter they run a air pump to keep oxygen in the water. Im going to try again in the fall when the water temps come down a bit into the 60-70s.

 

Just ordered the last bit needed for my upcoming fishing trip up north. I got a rapala super shad, a mepps musky bucktail, 4 ultralight minnows, some mini chatterbaits, a few bags of pit boss's, and some thermacells for keeping the bugs away.

So my musky kit is now complete and ready for the trip. My ultralight box is complete too.

Ive been fishing more with spinnerbaits these past few weeks and I am really liking them sofar. I had never caught anything on one before, but have been on a hot streak with bass and pike.

 

Built myself a new power box for ice fishing, but it will also be nice for bank fishing at night as I can plug lighting into it. Put in my new ice rod holders too, I got one on each side so I can deadstick one or both rods. I still need to insulate the sled of my ice house, and I want to put a small fan inside the tub so I dont have a cold air pool inside it while the rest of the shack is 70 degrees.

 

Got myself a new headlamp for night time fishing, one of the "features" I thought was a total gimmick that I will never use.... It has a hands free motion sensor for turning it on and off, you just wave your hand infront of it and it turns on or off.... fucking amazing! It also comes with 2 battery option, a usb-c rechargeable pack and a pack that holds AAA batteries.

Its a made by swisstech, got it at walmart tonight for $35.

 

Well my musky trip has come and gone. Just got home last night after driving for 5 hours.

End of the trip I ended up catching largemouth bass, rock bass (first ever rock bass for me) perch, crappie, bluegill, and 1 musky. We didnt land the musky though hooked him, then while my buddy was fumbling with the net the musky thrashed the hooks out of his mouth. The lure went flying and hit my buddy.

Overall we had a great time, and now my wife is saying she wants to go fishing more and more.

 

Getting the itch for ice season again, so I picked up some new reels for my ugly stik gx2 rods. After replacing the old reels, I decided I wanted to get some more rods. I always find my self wanting to run 2 rods for panfish, but then when something big comes along I have to redo my medium rod from panfish to bigger fish. No more with that! I ordered 3 more rods, medium light, medium, and medium heavy. So now I have light, medium light, medium x2, medium heavy x2.
My ice shack only has a rod rack for 4 rods, so I might be ordering another rack to hold 4 more... not sure if it will work though as space is pretty limited inside a 1 man flip over.

 

New rods came in today. I went from ugly stik gx2 to ugly stik elite. For the most part they are rated similar, but the medium of both models perform completely different, same for the medium heavys. The light rods I couldnt really compare since 1 is a light, the other is a medium light.

 

New fishing trip incoming! Going for a week to FL to visit my parents. They live on the water so fishing will be every day. My dad has a bunch of rods already, but most of them are pretty cheap and spooled with the wrong line. So I ordered a new rod to his house for me to use. I got a toad fish travel rod, 7f2i medium/medium heavy. Its pretty cool because mixing and matching rod parts will let you make 4 different rods. I can do a medium/fast, medium/moderate, medium heavy/fast, and medium heavy/moderate. Plus its designed as a saltwater rod, so I dont have to worry about destroying one of my nice fresh water rods bringing it down there.

 

Put new line on 2 of my rods, They didnt really need it, but the line has been on for 6 months and about 100 trips. I relined my light rod last month, so its still good and my baitcaster doesnt see as much use as the 2 spinning rods I just re-spooled.

I also spooled up 3 of my ice rods to be ready for hardwater season. And on a related note, I put together a quick video tour of my ice fishing tent. Its a single person, so I had to make sure every inch of space is used perfectly. The first question I always get is why I only have 1 tip up, well in MN we are only allowed 2 lines. So tip up and a rod inside the shack is pretty much all I get. I still need to cut holes in my floor but I want to plan those out perfect to make sure I use the space well. I am thinking of making 3 holes total, then make 3 plugs that fit over each of the holes. I figure the right side will have 2 holes and the left will just have 1, the way the door opens, I usually favor the left side to get in and out. But I need to make sure I have holes for at least 2 rods and my camera. The camera hole will be smaller, but the other holes will be for 6 inch ice holes (7 to give a little wiggle room).

 

Kids went to grandmas today, so I decided to do some kayak fishing. Was pretty slow going at first, but about 100 feet off the boat launch I saw a net in about 10 feet of water, so I dropped my anchor on it and pulled it up. Was a crappy net and smelled like fish butthole, so I put it on the dock. But I ended up with a few bass, crappie, bluegill and some walleye, I have been using the same lure the past few times and have been crushing everything big or small with it. Its a z-man flashback mini chatterbait with a bobby garland baby shad crappie soft plastic on it. I also tried out some z-man chatterbait jig head things, they are designed to put a paddle tail on them, but they are a bit heavy to be casting with weeds anywhere near 5f of the surface.

I also did a little bit of trolling, but not knowing much about trolling I didnt catch anything as I was using curly tail grubs or a chatterbait. I also tried out my new mini planer boards, but again, I know nothing of trolling and didnt know my boards were not set up right. So the boards were just turning sideways and pushing water, after I got home I found out I didnt have the arm all the way out and thats why it was just plowing through the water and not actually bringing my lures out. So I am going to try again next weekend with some small/medium crankbaits, but the lake I will be going to is infested with pike and tiger musky, so I will be bringing my ugly stik gx2 rods (they have heavy braid and are medium action rods, where as my normal rods all have mono and are fast action). The plan is to troll the shoreline so I dont get killed by a boat towing a tube behind it. I do wish MN allowed more than 1 rod per person though so I could be casting while my other rod is trolling.

 

After spending hours and hours reading and watching videos on small camp stoves to bring with me on the ice to cook with I have decided to get a container that just keeps my food hot longer. So now I will just be making food at home, putting food in my hot container and soup in my soup container. I think this is my best option that will keep me fishing longer, not having to stop to cook a meal then clean up the meal will be great. Not to mention I will not have to bring fuel, stove, uncooked food, pots/pans, spatula, spices, and all that junk. I can just make a sausage egg muffin, and a grilled cheese, put them in the container and then be ready to go.

 

Well today was a interesting trip... Went out for some fishing in my kayak, got to the lake and there were only 3 trailers in the lot. Perfect for me to not have to deal with the power boaters when I am out in the open. Started paddling out, the wind was not too bad and I was marking fish, so I dropped a lure down and nearly instantly the wind came in hard, pushed me sideways. The wind just kept coming, I couldnt keep the kayak straight, the waves were starting to roll over the sides and was pushing me over. I managed to fight my way to a sheltered cove, it was full of ducks and geese also hiding from the wind. I stayed there for about 2 hours fishing around and catching bass waiting for the wind to die down. It never did, just got worse. I paddled out into the main lake to try to get back to the ramp, but no matter how hard I paddled the wind pushed me back.
I gave up and called the wife, told her what was going on and that I want her to meet me on the east side of the lake in 30 minutes. I tied all my gear to my kayak with my anchor line, put my keys, and phone in a sealed lure box, that way if I flip I can swim to shore and go collect my kayak and gear when it washes up in some ones yard. Started paddling as hard as I could parallel to the wind, 3 foot waves dumping over the sides of the kayak. Took 20 minutes of this to get to the island at the halfway point, from there I parked on the sheltered side for a rest. Found my wedding ring cut into my finger pretty good from paddling hard. I pushed off to finish the trip to shore and finally got to the public beach where my wife and kids were waiting to bring me back to my truck on the other side of the lake.

In the end, I did catch some bass on a ned rig(first time actually using a ned rig), but I learned that my kayak does not handle extreme wind and waves very well. Might be able to use this experience to convince the wife that I need a boat.

 

Think I found myself a new fav lake for lunchtime fishing. Its a little trash lake between a highway and the back of a target store, so its full of garbage, shopping carts, and for some reason there were coconuts in it...

But I went the other day and got 12 bass in a hour, went ago today and got 6 in a hour. Today was not a great day for it, windy and cloudy, but I am going again tomorrow too. I have just been bringing 2 rods that are already rigged so I am not dragging a tackle bag around with me.
I found some lures today walking the shore too, got a soft plastic that I put in my soft plastic trash, and a flicker shad 7 with bent/rusted hooks.

Tomorrow I am going to bring my normal flashback mini chatterbait, but also thinking I am going to bring a bigger chatterbait too.