freshwater fishing – Page 7 – The Fresh Water Fishing Blog

December 20, 2008

The Fifth Day Of Christmas

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me … five purple worms … four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Purple worms? Yes, purple worms! I love fishing with rubber worms and my most favorite color for them is purple. I’ve caught so many large bass and pickerel on purple worms. Don’t ask me why the fish like purple – they just do! When the water is clear and it’s sunny or cloudy, purple worms out-fish the other colors by almost 2 to 1! The only other color that I’ve found that comes close is a black rubber worm.

So what kind of rubber worm do I use? My favorite has always been the Mann’s grape jelly worm. Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

I also like the Berkley power bait rubber worms. In fact, I have a whole tackle box full of different color and different manufacturer’s rubber worms! You can never have enough rubber worms!

So what about you? Do you have a favorite color worm? Drop me a comment please?

Catch you later.

-Mark

December 15, 2008

The Fourth Day Of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, four rebel lures, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Rebel fishing lures! Do you have any? Have you ever used any? I can answer with a resounding yes to both questions. Though you’ll know I’m mostly a rubber worm person if you’ve been reading my posts for a while – when the season first starts in the spring I like to use rebel lures. The floating ones with a small lip work best in my area of the country.

When I was younger (back in high school) my brother and I couldn’t wait to go fishing once the lake thawed out and it warmed up a little. It had to be warm enough so that we didn’t need gloves to fish! We tried many different lures and usually ended up with success using either small spinners or a rebel humpback lure. You can see the humpback at the rebel site here:

http://www.lurenet.com/productdetail.aspx?id=7180

Just why we chose the humpback over other lures when purchasing them is not really clear, but it was a wise choice. The humpback was perfect for our favorite lake. A floating lure that goes between 2 – 4 feet deep when reeled. The bass seemed to love it. We could catch bass with it when no one else was having any success. I still have my old rebel humpback – silver with black trim! And yes, I still use it from time to time. It’s earned it’s place as one of my favorite lures!

So that’s it for our fourth day of Christmas, fresh water fishing style! Hope you have a good day.

Catch you later.

December 12, 2008December 12, 2008

Third Day Of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, three weedless hooks, two spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel.

Weedless hooks – I used to hate them. It seemed to me that those little wires that hung down were just something that made it harder to hook a fish! And in all actuality, I guess they really do! But you have to weigh the good against the bad when using them for freshwater fishing.

On the bad side there is the fact that it’s harder to hook a fish, plus they are also harder to work with when rigging lures. You know like when you try to push them through the rubber worms or jigs – it’s much easier when you use a non-weedless hook!

But on the good side there’s the fact that most of the time you can fish the lure that they are attached to without being worried that you’ll get snagged on every little obstruction that your lure happens upon. Yes, they’re great for fishing in lily pads, heavy cover, and weed infested waters. There’s also the added benefit that you won’t lose your lure very often when it’s got a weedless hook on it. Quite often I’ve lost lures that got snagged on under-water logs and such. So in my opinion, the reduced hooking ease is out-weighed by the ability to fish where I want without losing my lure!

So what types of weedless hooks do I use? Check these out, they’re my favorite:

Do you use weedless hooks? If so, post a comment and let me know what for or how you use them?

Thanks!

Catch you later.

December 10, 2008December 10, 2008

The Second Day Of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 2 spools of line and a fishing pole complete with a reel!

You know, I still have spools of mono filament line from back in the 70’s! Really! I used to buy the 1000 yard spools at J M Fields and they still have lots of line on them! What line do I recommend? Well I use 4 pound test for most of my freshwater fishing. If I’m going into weeds and lily pads, I’ll use a 6 lb. test. Sure it’s challenging using a lighter test line – that’s why I do it!

Do you need a “big name” fishing line? Not really. I’ve heard complaints about some cheap types of line always creating birds nests but my experience hasn’t proven this. So go ahead – get yourself one of those big spools of fishing line. I found some online here:

So … what will the third day bring? Stay tuned!

Catch you later.

December 9, 2008December 9, 2008

The Fresh Water Fishing 12 Days Of Christmas

I was thinking about Christmas and more specificlly the 12 Days of Christmas and relating that to fresh water fishing. So what would you get for the fresh water fishing enthusiast in your life? So … here’s what i was thinking.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me … “a fishing pole complete with a reel”. Now to make this more authentic, you’ll have to sing the original tune while using my lyrics! LOL – didn’t know I was a song writer eh?

So what kind of fishing pole? I’ll leave that to you! But don’t get cheap now! A nice rod and reel combo can usually be found for $20 on up! I’m partial to the old Garcia-Mitchell combos, but they are no longer together. 🙁 However check out the item below – it’s only a suggestion though!

So what will the second day of Christmas bring? We’ll discuss that tomorrow!

Catch you later.

November 11, 2008November 11, 2008

NJ Freshwater Fisheries Forum

Found this post on Trout Unlimited website http://www.njtu.org/2008/11/10/nj-fw-freshwater-fishing-forum/

and thought you might be interested in it.

NJ F&W Freshwater Fishing Forum

December 6, 2008
10:00 am	to	1:00 pm

NJ DEP Division of Fish & Wildlife will be holding its annual freshwater fisheries forum on Saturday, December 6th beginning at 10 am at the Charles O. Hayford Hatchery in Hackettstown. Come on out and make your voice heard regarding the management of New Jersey’s freshwater fisheries, including trout management. This is a public meeting, open to all.

November 5, 2008November 5, 2008

New 2008 Saltwater Fishing Lure and Freshwater Fishing Lure

Hey! Check out his new lure I found – looks like it could be a great addition to the tacklebox!

-Mark

http://www.thundermistlures.com/ New 2008 lures. The saltwater fishing lure and freshwater fishing lure, the Viper Spoon; excellent for walleye, pike, blue fish, stripers, and all other game fish.

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October 28, 2008

Salmon Problems

I read an interesting article about a biological problem that the fresh water fishing Norwegians have been having. My sons love a good salmon dinner, so I found this a particularly interesting read. Oh and it also shows how misleading the press can be! Something to think about especially now when we are about to elect a new leader for our country!

I thought some of you might enjoy it, so I’m posting a link to it below:

http://www.fishandfly.com/articles/20081027

Please check it out and let me know what you think?

Catch you later – Mark

October 16, 2008October 16, 2008

Columbus Day Fishing – How to Find Worms

I had Columbus Day off from work and the boys wanted to go fishing. So I asked them where they’d like to go and off we headed to our local creek. It was a warm sunny day and the tide was high so I figured on a good day for fishing. I always use lures when fishing – I guess because I like the challenge associated with them as opposed to putting bait on a hook and waiting for a fish to come eat.

So on our way to go fresh water fishing, I asked my older son to get some worms for his brother and him. It turns out that we hadn’t had much rain lately and the worms were hard to find. Where he would normally find lots of worms (lifting old logs and looking under leaves) he found only 2 little scrawny worms. Not good for fishing bait! So he and my younger son tried their hands at lure fishing.

We had some hits, but no catches. Frustration for my 5 yeqr old was very high! 😉 So I asked my older son again to try and find some worms – to which he replied, “Dad, there aren’t any worms around here.” So I had to go get them myself! He taunted me with “You’re wasting your time Dad.” But within 3 minutes I had a container full of very large worms! Of course my older son wanted to know how I did it. After telling him that old age usually means more wisdom ;-), I explained how to find worms when they weren’t in the obvious places.

Want to know what I did? OK – here goes. When I was younger, much younger, I remember from some of the different magazines I used to read that a company sold 2 electric prods that you stuck into the ground and the low current between the prods caused the earth worms to come out of the ground. My friend had bought one of these contraptions and swore by it. So I figured that a little elbow grease could do the same thing. Just poke a larger stick in the ground a few times and shake it. The vibrations cause the worms to come right out of the ground. It works very well! Just ask my sons! Of course you wouldn’t try this in sand where there are obviously no worms around, but do this in the places where worms would normally be found. You’ll be pleasantly pleased with the results.

Here’s a picture of the first fish my older son caught after they started using the worms we found.

Oh … and the rest of the trip was very successful. We caught some largemouth bass, sunnies, as well as some roaches. Overall a fun afternoon for all.

Catch you later.

-Mark

October 8, 2008October 8, 2008

New Jersey Wildlife Heritage Festival – It Was Great!

If you read my previous post on this topic, you’ll know I was excited to go to the NJ Wildlife Heritage Festival. But unfortunately it was raining fairly hard when it was time to leave home. (It’s about a 2 hour drive to get to Pequest – the festival location.) After some discussion, we decided to go; after all – it’s a rain or shine event!

It rained most of the way there and was still raining as we arrived. The vendors and exhibitors looked wet but appeared excited as well. We visited the museum area, checked out all the real and stuffed animals, got some great free informative NJ fishing and wildlife pamphlets and afterwards decided to go get some lunch in town and come back. We happened on a real nice hot dog stand called “Hot Dog Johnny’s” just down the road in Buttzville, NJ. After some great dogs and drinks, we headed back and finally the rain stopped.

First stop was the shotgun and archery stands. It was the first time my older son shot a real shotgun. I kind of chuckled to myself because I knew he had no idea of the recoil involved. The instructor was patient and showed him how to safely handle the gun and finally he squeezed the trigger and boom! The instructor asked him if he wanted to try again, but he politely declined. I asked him why later, and he admitted that it scared him a little! 😉

Both my younger and older son had fun shooting arrows at the archery exhibit. Some good instructions were provided by the facilitators and they actually hit the targets!

It started to lightly rain again so we moved on up to the exhibits that were under tents. My younger son bought a kite and decorated it while my older son went to the fresh water fishing pond and caught a nice rainbow trout (Catch and release only). Here’s a small picture of the group he was fishing with:

We finally made our way to the fishing pool for children under 8 years of age and my 5 year old caught his very first rainbow trout! He was really excited! (I’ll post a picture of his fish a little later.) And just as we were putting his fish back into the pool, Smokey the Bear showed up in a fire truck. Could you ask for anything more?

It started to rain pretty hard, so after visiting a few more exhibits, we decided to head back home. Both boys as well as my wife and I had a very nice time. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something to share with your friends and family next year. Hopefully it won’t rain on you!

Catch you later.

-Mark