Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Good stuff L1ranger!

I use spinning tackle for weightless senkos, trick worms with nail weights, shakey heads, drop shots, weightless flukes, inline spinners, and skipping lures.

castings for frogs, buzzbaits, other top water stuff, jerk baits, crank baits, spinner baits, tubes, jigs.

My go to lure is the senko but my favorite is any type of topwater lure (buzzbaits, frogs, soft plastics). Those top water explosions are addictive.

I lean heavily towards casting just because I like to throw them. I just got some new Abu C4's and they are great. I can throw even lighter stuff.

On a kayak, spinning is just easier....a no brainer. So I usually carry 2 spinners and 1 casting on the yak.

On my boat, casting is the preferred method. I do bring spinning but rarely use it on stripers. Of course, now I have the fly gear so I bring it along on some trips.

Josh's premise is right on the money.

As for a favorite lure? I experiment a lot and yet sometimes I will stick to the "one lure" concept.

Example: when I was in FL in Dec. I took a Sebile rattletrap like lure and used it 90% of the time on a casting rod. It just felt good and I caught as many fish as the expert on the boat.

Yet, back in the 80's, I was fishing with Carl for white perch and I changed lures 11 straight times and caught a white perch on every one of those casts. I have never had a day like that again.

I tend to like soft plastic over hard plastics for smallies and bass but I like metal and hair jigs for stripers (even though I will throw plastic).

Trolling is a necessity at times due to the fishies not cooperating. Either style is fine when trolling.

I love rattletraps but hate the hooks.

Confidence is the key....I used to wear out the bass in Cedar with Zoom Lizards. That's all I would use. OK, now I can catch them so let's try something new. Now, I experiment with other things like nose hooked worms on a circle hook. I just don't fish Cedar that much and when I do, it's right out back.

Many times when I am catching fish I will switch up. I have already proven I can catch them with lure X so now it's time for lure y....it's part of the game.

Last year I fished a bass tournament with Charlie Taylor and I caught most of my fish with a home made lure (by Jeff Little of http://blueridgekayakfishing.com/smf/index.php). It was one of his "left overs'. I had confidence in it and caught near a limit with it (I used a rattletrap to get me over the limit and start culling).

Sometimes, we get hung up on the latest and greatest. I saw some bass lures at GT for over $20!! What?? No way! I will buy good stuff but I am not willing to throw away a dinner!

Whatever you do, get good at one style and then move to the next. Being proficient on one style helps rather than being 50% on three styles. Same with lures. Why does Josh like buzzbaits? because he uses them a lot. like the "hit" and is confident that a smallie will not be able to ignore it. I have seen Josh catch nice smallies on a sunny day in the middle of the day. The book says not to do that.

Great post Josh!

Pacemaker wrote:

Many times when I am catching fish I will switch up. I have already proven I can catch them with lure X so now it's time for lure y....it's part of the game.

Whatever you do, get good at one style and then move to the next. Being proficient on one style helps rather than being 50% on three styles.

Ernie makes some good points - sometimes the fishing is just on!  in cases like this, I'll try different lures to try and build confidence with them.

other times, If I want to learn a new lure, I'll take nothing but that lure with me when I'm fishing so that I can learn how to fish it under a variety of conditions and add another lure to the arsenal at 100%. 

in a real life, condensed, example - I've been fishing rivers and creeks for bass since i was old enough to cast on my own.  from the beginning, live bait was the key.  from time to time, I'd pick up an inline spinner, or some grubs and leadheads and learned to fish those.  A little later on, I got some pop-rs and floating rapalas and learned to fish those.  once into my teen years, plastic worms/lizards and flukes came into the arsenal and I could literally camp for a long weekend on the river and carry worms, flukes, a pop-r and hooks and weights and not need anything else to catch fish consistently.  Through college, as a poor college student, not much changed.  Once I graduated and had a full time job, I was buying lures like crazy - but never REALLY learned to use most of them. 

Since then, there's been significant outings that have built a confidence in one lure or another.  One was on the new river - the guy i was fishing with had caught some nice fish the day before on white spinnerbaits, he handed me one and I tied it on.  Man was he right - we slayed em that day - best day of river smallies ever, we both had well over 25 fish, and most were 16" or bigger, only a couple were smaller.  I even landed my personal best smallie at 21.5".

Another day was on the James - we got an early start, on the water as the sun rose, and we noticed fish busting bait on the surface.  I tied on a buzzbait that I had won in a raffle the spring before from buckeye baits and proceeded to whoopup on fish all day long.  The guy I was fishing with had buzzbaits as well, but just couldn't produce.  I've continued to stay well stocked on those baits since that day and fish them often.  I landed 78 fish that day, included a citation smallmouth, a 28" musky, and several other nice smallies and largemouth.  Even had a gar try to chase the bait back in the yak with me!  it was an amazing day to say the least, but really boosted my confidence in buzzbaits and you won't find me without them from late spring through fall.

Never put all your eggs in one basket. Are you telling me that a Quantum rod is better than Josh's? No way....and Josh does not make reels.

I mix and match....come to think of it, I don't even own a piece of Quantum. But if you like it...that's all that counts.

I am not a fan of Quantum but I haven't used any of their high end stuff.

I currently own all Shimano reels (Stradic FH, Citica E, and Citica D) but I'm looking to make my next reel a Daiwa because I've heard great things.

I own a St Croix Legend Tournament spinning rod, a Kistler Magnesium flipping rod, and a custom GBlanks casting rod. I don't have as much brand loyalty when it comes to rods, but I think that's because there are a LOT more rod manufacturers than reel manufacturers so there are a lot of great options.

Last edited by Dominion Dan (Feb-03-09 10:51PM)

Remember, the reel is mainly used to gather the line. It's the rod that does most of the work if you are fishing properly. Tourney fishermen are an anomily because they want that fish in the boat (sometimes they horse them in) quickly.

If you properly play a fish, the rod is doing most of the work.

Pacemaker wrote:

Remember, the reel is mainly used to gather the line. It's the rod that does most of the work if you are fishing properly. Tourney fishermen are an anomily because they want that fish in the boat (sometimes they horse them in) quickly.

If you properly play a fish, the rod is doing most of the work.

But doesn't the drag matter? I love fishing for big fish with my ML and L rods on 4-6lbs. test so drag is important to me.

I have Daiwa and St. Croix rods with reels from abu garcia, daiwa, shimano, pflueger, and quantum.

You use what you like. My favorite set up (rod/reel) is my daiwa/daiwa and my st. criox/shimano.

for freshwater use, I've never met a drag on a decent reel that wouldn't do that job.

especially now, that I use braid almost exclusively, my drag is almost all the way tightened down and only slips on the best of fish

Well done Josh...way to get information out of me for my rod...without me even putting two and two together. I look forward to the final product!