Category: fresh water fishing

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Fresh Water Fishing – Lures vs Bait

It seems that wherever fishermen are, there will always be a debate as to which is better for consistently catching fish – lures or bait.

My brother and I used to fish together very frequently when we were younger. He was a bait fisherman much more so than I. We found a great little freshwater fishing stream close to our house which was crammed full of catfish. We enjoyed fishing there and would even get up early on Sunday mornings, before Sunday School, and go fishing for an hour or more.

He would use a bobber and live worms and I would use my secret spinner (the one I used to catch that mysterious fish in my last post!) Being true Americans, we would always be competing to see who could catch the most fish! It was always very close. Some days he would win, other days I would. We would always catch more than 1 too – never kept them – strictly catch and release.

No one I talked to ever used a spinner to catch catfish and they all looked at me as if I was a little crazy for even thinking about it! 😉 In our area, catfish were considered bait only fish! But trust me, my spinner was deadly for catfishing! I would cast it out, let it sink to the bottom and then slowly reel it in, twitching it every once in a while. The catfish loved it!

So which was better? Our conclusion was that neither was better. It came down to a preference on the fisherman’s part. I still prefer lures over bait. But I’ll use bait when I don’t have what I consider to be an appropriate lure for the type of fish I’m after.

How about you? Which do you prefer, lure or bait? Leave a comment and let me know?

Catch you later!

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What Is This Fresh Water Fish?

With the weather warming up, I grabbed my sons and we did some freshwater fishing on Thursday afternoon. We only had about an hour so we ran down to our local creek. It was high tide, so I had high hopes for the afternoon.

After getting my younger son set-up with some worms, I started using a lure that is about 37 years old! It’s an old spinning lure with a single hook and some flopping silver pieces. I usually only use this for spring fishing and decided to give it a try. After my first few casts, I had a hit and eventually caught a fish. But it was one of those fish we’re just not 100% sure of what type it is!

Here’s a photo of it:
The unknown freshwater fish

So if you think you know what it is, please post a comment here?!?

As it turned out, it was the only fish that we caught in the short amount of time we had. But we had fun and the boys are ready to go again – so maybe this weekend?

Have a great weekend and I’ll catch you later!

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Fresh Water Fishing Spring Reel Cleaning

Taking a break from taxes, I thought I’d share some knowledge I learned last weekend. We went fishing (my sons and I) last weekend and I brought my reel out from the garage. It was hard to crank and I wondered what it was that was causing this. We were short on time so I went with the reel the way it was and had a nice few hours.

After coming home, I pulled the reel off of my rod and started to disassemble it. It was then that I remembered that the last time I had cleaned the reel, I ran out of my good ole Garcia-Mitchell grease that I’d had for years! Wanting to go fishing the next day, I used some lithium grease that I had out in the garage. BIG mistake! The grease had become very stiff and had turned some of the inner reel parts a greenish color – not what I wanted to see!

So I took the reel completely apart – including removing the ball bearings from the reel spindle shaft. Did you know that there are 17 ball bearings on each side of the shaft. (That makes 34 ball bearings total.) And these ball bearings are just a tad bit bigger than a pin head! Fortunately I had bought some Southbend reel grease over the winter and used that to clean and lubricate everything – and I mean everything! After putting it all back together, it works much more smoothly and fluently.

So take a lesson from me – always use quality reel grease when cleaning and lubricating your freshwater fishing reel!

Want to see the quality grease I used? Here it is:

Catch you later!

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Freshwater Fishing and The Environment

The NSF (National Science Foundation) just released an article about how we freshwater fishermen are helping to spread viruses to amphibians! You can read it here:
Spring Fishing Season Arrives … And With It, Amphibian Diseases

I’m not sure about you, but I can safely say that I’m NOT helping to spread viruses to amphibians! I rarely use live bait when I fish, and I’ve never used a live or dead waterdog as bait. I prefer to use the plastic or rubber worm type lures whenever I fish. However, this article makes a good point that I was talking about with my sons as we came back from our first fishing excusion this past weekend.

We are responsible for our environment. As a boy scout, I was taught to leave a place just as clean or better than it was when I found it. I’ve tried to always accomplish this in my life and fishing is no exception. I hate seeing trash on the ground when I’m fishing. So I’ll usually pick it up and make certain that I don’t add more pollution to the environment, no matter what I’m doing.

Along that same point – we saw 2 young girls walking towards the creek with a catfish in a plastic bag. It looked like one from a “pet store” and I asked them if they had caught it. One girl replied “No – it’s my pet”. I could only guess why she was carrying it toward the creek! So I explained to my sons how important it was to NOT introduce fish into waters where they don’t belong. I used the snakehead fish as an example. I explained how it came from China and was introduced into the Potomac and is now killing off our native fish species – all because of some careless human beings.

Which brings me to another thing – when I was a child back in the late fifties and sixties, every morning I’d go outside and there would be dead toads in the street. Fresh road kill from the automobiles passing during the night. We used to catch toads and frogs all the time – every day! But now, I’m lucky if I see one toad the whole summer season. Scientists aren’t sure why the frog and toad populations are dying off, but their numbers are declining and here’s one possible explanation:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96282292
So for the sake of having a few less weeds on our properties, we’re causing the extinction of frogs and toads?!? If you’d like more info on frogs in general, here’s a great resource site I found: http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/resources/leaping/science.html

OK – this post is getting too long, but as freshwater fishermen, let’s be more conscious of our actions and the effect they will have on nature and the environment. And for goodness sake, stop using virus infected waterdogs!

Catch you later.

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Does anyone want to share their favorite spring bass fishing techniques and tips?

I am a fan of soft plastic tubes and worms. Can you give me some of your favorite techniques?

North shore of the lakes will warm up faster due to getting more sun shine and the prevailing southerly winds. Fish those banks, outside bends in the channel, drop offs near there, with craw fish imitators….either crank baits or jig w/ trailer.
Start when the water reaches 50 deg. Big females spawn first.
If you lake has a shore with black shale or black clay fish them hard….especially if there is a drop off of more than 5 ft. like from 15 to 20 or more. This has worked for me for a long time now.
Tubes will work under the same conditions sense they imitate a craw. Tube colors I like are Road Kill / Chartreuse tips, Brown cold, green flake / orange tips, of course Black blue tips as well. I do not use worms until the water gets in the upper 50's or after spawn.
Spinner Baits also work well this time of year as do crank baits worked slow….remember I am talking "early spring" pre-spawn, when the bass are starting to stage off their spawning grounds.

** Added ** Float N Fly is a real good technique when the water is below 50 degrees. Works great from around Dec. – late Feb, early March. I use it during this time for Small Mouth Bass in S. Central Ky, and Tn.

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My Son’s New Freshwater Fishing Rig

We went to the store a few weeks ago to get some new cleats for my son so he could play soccer. While there, I happened to notice the fishing section of the store and decided to go check it out. Of course my young son wanted to come along with me!

They were running a pre-season sale on most of the fishing gear and I noticed a nice Zebco 11 freshwater fishing rod and reel. It was an ultralight combo (spin casting) and the reel had a trigger that you use to hold the line until you’re ready to let it go when casting. It looked perfect for my 5 year old. Here’s a picture of the reel:

The rod it was attached to was a six footer and would nicely replace the “spiderman” rod/reel combo he used last year! 🙂 (The “spiderman” rod was about 3 feet long and we had problems when fishing the local creek last year because his rod wouldn’t reach out over the weeds and shrubs on the bank of the creek.) So I showed it to him and asked if he wanted it – his response was a shriek of delight and then “oh yeah Dad”!

We bought the “Zebco 11” combo and hopefully we’ll get to try it this or next weekend! I’ll let you know if we were successful.

Catch you later.

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Freshwater Fishing Contest In New Jersey

Hey – I was reading through the news from the Press of Atlantic City.com and found out about a fishing contest for salt as well as fresh water fishing! Here’s a quote from their article:

Bent Rods Contest

The Press Bent Rods Fishing Contest opens Wednesday with cash prizes of $50 and a trophy for the winners in Freshwater, Other Than Boat (surf, pier, jetty, banks), Boat Bay/Inshore (inside three miles), Offshore (outside three miles), Youth Saltwater (under 15), Youth Freshwater (under 15), Women, Senior (65 and older), Most Unusual Catch, Flounder, Striped Bass, Bluefish, Weakfish, Kingfish.

The season-long contest runs to Nov. 30, and within that, seasonal segments offer three prizes each. They are April 5-June 21 for Freshwater, Youth, Striped Bass; June 22-Sept. 20 for Flounder, Offshore, Inshore; Sept. 21-Nov. 29 for Striped Bass, Bluefish, Weakfish. The winners of those each get $150 gift certificates at participating bait and tackle shops or marinas.

Anglers can enter and submit photos and details of their catch online at www.pressofatlanticcity.com/bentrods or by mail. There is no cost or pre-registration, but the fish must be entered at a certified weigh station. Entry forms are available at most area bait and tackle shops or marinas.

The entry list will be updated online all season long with every catch submitted, and it can be seen - along with Press Fishing Contest records, a list of weigh stations and Shep on Fishing columns - on the Web site. The Press Fishing Contest Leaderboard will appear in the Sports section every couple of weeks during the season.

I’m not a big contest fisherman – I do it because I like it and it’s fun! But if it gets more people involved, then I’m all for it. So go check out the contest and I wish you luck!

Catch you later!

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A Freshwater Fishing Weekend Bonus!

I went to Somerset, NJ this past weekend with my wife for the FLENJ conference. That’s the Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey – for those not in the know! 😉 I was looking forward to a nice relaxing time – spending quality time with my 5 year old son at the pool and jacuzzi!

I was surprised to see that the building next to where we were staying – the Garden State Exhibit Center was having a Saltwater Fishing Expo. Now, I’m not a big saltwater fishing fan, as you may have guessed by now, but I do like to go saltwater fishing ocassionally. So I looked up the event on the Internet and found that they were giving the kids a free Plano tackle box for the first 100 that showed up on Saturday. I asked my son if he wanted a new tackle box and sure enough he said yes!

So we went to the Expo and he got a new tacklebox. And even though it was a saltwater fishing expo, we were able to find some fresh water fishing lures and bobbers. The Nikon exhibitors even gave my son a new Nikon Frisbee!

In addition to all the exhibitors with rods, reels, lures and the other paraphenalia – there were large fishing power boats to be looked at and even kayaks for those with less offshore endeavors in mind! They also had casting contests for the kids and fish cooking sessions with other numerous instructional workshops. My son was getting tired after a while and we headed back to our hotel for some more swimming, but we had a very enjoyable time at the Expo.

We opened all the lures and put them in their “correct” spots (the way my son wanted them!) once we returned home and now he can hardly wait to go try them out! I’ll get my fishing license this week and hopefully we can start the new year off with a successful freshwater fishing trip next weekend.

Catch you later.

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What Are They Doing With All Those Fish?

I was reading through some articles today on freshwater fishing and found this one:

FOUR SOUTH CAROLINA ANGLERS ON HOOK, 1,268 FISH SEIZED

So what were 4 people going to do with 1268 freshwater fish? Maybe since these are hard economic times, they were going to clean them and save them in their freezer? Or maybe they were going to sell them to their friends and neighbors? They certainly couldn’t eat all of them at once!

Regardless, I had always wondered if the local game wardens ever did their job and cited folks for game law violations. Looks like the Florida wardens are doing their jobs! 🙂 The article mentions that Florida has an anonymous tip line that people can use to report violators – and that’s what led to these folks getting caught!

Does your state have an anonymous tip line? Have any of you ever seen your local game warden or know of anyone having a run-in with him/her? Just curious – personally, I’ve never seen our local game warden – ever! Some of my friends have – when he came to check their fishing licenses, but I’ve never been that lucky!

Have a good day and I’ll catch you later.