The Fishing Thread

[Easy 6]

Searched around & only found the video fishing & BassMasters threads, i know their are plenty of outdoorsman here, so i figured it'd be cool to draw upon the Planets vast experience in all things fishing.

I only use spincast reels & fish mostly large/smallmouth bass & cats. My choice of reels is quite the source of derision from many people i know 'duffer gear', but i haul in my share of 6 pound bass & 10-20 pound cats on that gear no problem. With a little know-how you can use just about any technique you want to on 'duffer gear'.

Berkley Powerbaits are a big part of my trick bag, the difference between those & regular stuff is night & day. My best action last summer came on Mister Twister scented white curly tail grubs, on one day fishing from shore to a bridge pier, i caught smallies, bigmouths, perch & even 1 carp believe it or not... great day. But my bread & butter is a texas rigged Berkley worm, it'll wiggle through any kind of cover without getting hung up.

With cats i strictly bottom fish, no bobber & bait is just as basic... but its always in 2's to give'em a real treat... a shrimp/with a nightcrawler, liver/chunk of cheese etc. Cats are mostly for night sport to me, time to kick back a lil...

So thats me style, how do the rest of you guys get your fish on? What do you fish for, what do you use? IIRC Missouri's trout season just kicked off, anyone getting anything?

[ntexascardfan]

Originally Posted by Al Czervik

Really beautiful colors on that Rainbow!!!!
Nice fish!

Thanks man, I was down there a bit post-spawn so they still had all their colors.

Originally Posted by Graystoke

I really like the Taylor and Gunnison River. We’ve spent some time camping, fishing and riding motorcycles in that area. So much fun.

There's so much fun water in that river basin to fish. The Taylor and Gunnison is what gets everyone there, but I've spent countless trips out there fishing the smaller creeks and tributaries that feed into the Gunny and Taylor. If you have time on your next trip you should make the 75 minute drive from Gunnison to the Black Canyon and fish some of the browns that lurk at the bottom of it. The fishing pressure there isn't nearly as intense as the rest of the Gunnison and you can fool some pretty massive brown trout that would otherwise laugh at your rig anywhere else on the river.

Spring Creek and the Upper Taylor are awesome on the Taylor.

Cochetopa Creek and Tomichi Creek are dry fly paradises during the summer that feed into the Gunnison not too far from town.

We will usually pull the camper up around mile marker 8 on the Buena Vista side of Cottonwood Pass during the summer. It's pretty easy to pop into BV to restock food and it's about a 35 minutes drive over the pass from there to the C&R on the Taylor.

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I need a new basic rod and reel for fishing bass/catfish here.

All I have been using is a micro lite rod, 5'6", that I used 20 years ago for trout in Montana, and it's not handling the setups I am using down here. I think it's max 6lb line. I bought a cheap prespooled reel and it's been nothing but loops and tangles too. Not sure what's causing that here but that was never a problem decades ago?

Give me some guidance on rod/reel combo that won't break the bank!

Do you know how to use a bait caster?

I grew up on Abu Garcia reels. They have very smooth reels for flipping jigs and heavier more rugged reels for catfish. They have more budget friendly options, but the C3 reel is a very proven system and it can be found in both a bass and mid sized catfish rig. I have a box of them that have been beat all to hell and drug all over the place with several trips to Canada and they just keep going. Have several 7000c reels set up for heavier missouri river fishing and snagging, but I don't know if you have a need to go that heavy as they can be quite cumbersome if you're staying on the smaller end of catfish.

They also make spinning reels if that's more your thing, but I don't have any experience AB spinning reels.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I need a new basic rod and reel for fishing bass/catfish here.

All I have been using is a micro lite rod, 5'6", that I used 20 years ago for trout in Montana, and it's not handling the setups I am using down here. I think it's max 6lb line. I bought a cheap prespooled reel and it's been nothing but loops and tangles too. Not sure what's causing that here but that was never a problem decades ago?

Give me some guidance on rod/reel combo that won't break the bank!

zebco snoopy rod

[displacedinMN]

When Jake Skarloken finally caught a glimpse of the big fish on the end of his line, his jaw dropped.

He knew it was a lunker of some kind when it chomped into the plastic minnow on his jig in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The way it stubbornly hugged the bottom of Crooked Lake for 10 minutes, he envisioned a monster 30-inch walleye. When he finally lifted it up into the water column on a six-pound test line, the fish began to pull his solo canoe in the same direction as the lake's current. His father and brother-in-law paddled next to him to grab the back of his canoe to hold him in place.

"It wasn't spinning me around, but I couldn't pull the fish in," Skarloken said of the encounter in late May. "My rod was keeled over for 20 minutes."

The fish ran three times before tiring out. When the incredible northern pike surfaced and laid on its side, they netted it beside one of the canoes and paddled it to shore. Weighing around 30 pounds, the pike was too big to lift over the gunwales. The catch was so shocking and unexpected, the fishing party forgot to take pictures of the pike against a measuring tape. Adding to the emotional blur was Skarloken's urgency to return the exhausted fish to the lake.

"From the moment that beast hit, it was an epic battle," said Skarloken, who runs a tile and stone installation company in the Brainerd area. "We were all in such shock and I just wanted to make sure it had a healthy release.''

Mandy Erickson of the Department of Natural Resources said the blunder probably robbed Skarloken of a place in the state's catch-and-release record book. DNR staff members were so impressed by the pictures he submitted — sans ruler — that they highlighted the catch in a recent social media post.

"If you're sending in an application for a record fish, please don't forget to take photos of measurements!'' the DNR wrote on Facebook under a photo of Skarloken holding the fish in shallow water next to his father's canoe.

For catch-and-release fish to be considered as record-breakers, DNR officials need to see a photo plainly showing the whole fish lying flat on a measuring device with its tail pinched and its snout at zero on the ruler. It's pretty common, Erickson said, for submitted photos to be problematic.

Skarloken said he and another member of his fishing group dangled a measuring tape next to the fish as they held it in the air. They agreed between themselves that the fish covered at least 47 ¼ inches of tape, if not 47 ½ inches. Had the pike and the measuring tape been lying flat, the northern's true length would have been closer to 48 inches, Skarloken estimated.

Skarloken was sensitive to the fish's health while trying to document it.

Basswood also was the basin that allegedly produced a mammoth 45-pound, 12-ounce northern pike May 16, 1929. Back then, certified scales were not required to submit a record-breaking entry to the DNR, and the agency doesn't have records to indicate whether the catch was real. Neither the length nor girth of that fish was recorded.

Skarloken was fishing for walleyes in a deep "honey hole" on Crooked Lake when he crossed paths with the biggest fish he's ever caught. It was day three of a 10-day outing on Skarloken's 21st annual fishing trip to the BWCAW. He had fished the big lake many times before, and previous big catches are what beckoned him to return.

"I like big fish," he said. "That's what I target."

This year's five-member fishing party included Skarloken's father, Steve; brother-in-law Dennis Robinson; and friend Jacob Bourgeois, all from the Brainerd area; and his father, John. They were stuck in camp for two days because of high winds. On Thursday morning, May 23, it was time to catch walleyes for dinner and the three canoes stayed within 30 yards of each other. The big northern hit around noon.

When it came time to take pictures of it, Skarloken remembers Bourgeois lining up a shot in disbelief.

"He said, 'My god, that looks fake,' " Skarloken recalled.

The group took a video of the release. Skarloken said he was fixated on the northern's survival, especially since the fish was fatigued from such a long tug-of-war. He waited about a week after his return from the wilderness before contacting the DNR. He knew he didn't have the required photo, but he wanted someone in the fisheries department to appreciate the fish's magnitude.

"It was impressively thick, that's one thing we all remember about it," said Skarloken, who is paying a taxidermist to make a replica based on the group's photos.

"In hindsight I wish we would have laid it down and taken a picture of the measurement," he said. "There's five of us who saw it and know what it was — the biggest northern pike caught and released in Minnesota.''

[ptlyon]

Saw on the news this morning it's national fishing day - so git yerself out there and git ya some!

[Couch-Potato]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

Nice Pike!

Just got back from a fly-in trip up in Canada with my old man, lots of Walleye and a few decent Pike!

Going Yellow Fin fishing this wknd around Catalina Island in SoCal!

[loochy]

Well I just bought plane tickets to Montana for the 2nd week of October. I'll be fishing the Bitterroot near Hamilton and I'm sooo excited! I'll have a ton of fishing time - I'm going by myself Wednesday though Sunday. Yeeeah! Maybe I can get into some big pre-spawn browns.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by loochy

Well I just bought plane tickets to Montana for the 2nd week of October. I'll be fishing the Bitterroot near Hamilton and I'm sooo excited! I'll have a ton of fishing time - I'm going by myself Wednesday though Sunday. Yeeeah! Maybe I can get into some big pre-spawn browns.

Check your rep and message me.

xoxo
Big Lew

[MarkDavis'Haircut]

Any recommendations for someone interested in fishing again but hasn't cast a line in two decades?

[loochy]

Originally Posted by MarkDavis'Haircut

Any recommendations for someone interested in fishing again but hasn't cast a line in two decades?

Get up early. Be on the water when the sun is coming up. Go to the bait shop and get a bucket of minnows. Put the minnow about 4 feet (or whatever depth keeps it off the bottom) under the bobber and just cast it out there.

That's about as simple as it gets and it's bound to get you some summer action.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by MarkDavis'Haircut

Any recommendations for someone interested in fishing again but hasn't cast a line in two decades?

Get an easy to operate, inexpensive Zebco and watch some youtube vids as a refresher... keep it simple at first, the humble bobber and worm is a timeless choice because it works

[mr. tegu]

I did a little fishing around Mammoth Lakes and Lake Tahoe. Only caught one small brook trout. But it really was just a little as it wasn’t really a fishing trip. The streams and rivers were great but just couldn’t get anything going. Of course I’m not all that experienced in trout fishing out west.

For those who are, is the fly choice really all that important?

[loochy]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

I did a little fishing around Mammoth Lakes and Lake Tahoe. Only caught one small brook trout. But it really was just a little as it wasn’t really a fishing trip. The streams and rivers were great but just couldn’t get anything going. Of course I’m not all that experienced in trout fishing out west.

For those who are, is the fly choice really all that important?

It's critically important unless you are targeting freshly stocked fish. You have to match what the fish are feeding on at the time....size, shape, color, and presentation

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by MarkDavis'Haircut

Any recommendations for someone interested in fishing again but hasn't cast a line in two decades?

Get either a spinning reel or a spincast (zebco-type) reel and appropriate med.-fast action rod. 6-10-lb. test mono line. Like E6 said, start with a bobber-type set up.

I'd grab a half dozen spinners as well, like Rooster tails, Mepps, Blue Fox, etc. And/or spoons, such as Kastmasters and L. Jensen's Super Dupers. Stay under 1/4 oz. Any color as long as they're silver or gold, maybe with a blue or red stripe across one side of them.

Get a pack of split-shot lead weights. Do not get the tin ones. They're crap.

Find your needlenose pliers and nail clippers.


Have fun.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by loochy

It's critically important unless you are targeting freshly stocked fish. You have to match what the fish are feeding on at the time....size, shape, color, and presentation

Well there’s my problem.

As far as I know, outside of locally here in Kansas City area, I’ve never fished for stocked trout.

So I guess next time I go out, (I’ll be in Estes Park with the family in fall) even though it’s not a fishing trip per se, I’ll still take the bait selection and presentation a little more seriously. Recommend any resource that sort of does the work for you to help make your fly choice based on season, species, and area?